Lindsay had gone from blowing kisses to Tyler to sign language (‘I’, gesturing towards herself, ‘love’, making a heart out of her two index fingers and thumbs, ‘you’, pointing at Tyler); Cass was smiling at more nervous-looking students; and Jelena’s interest had moved to the area near the canteen.
‘HS.’ Her voice was loud and clear.
We had a Hottie Spotting.
‘Where?’ Cass glanced everywhere, not so subtly.
‘Don’t make it so obvious!’ Jelena hissed. ‘Twelve o’clock!’
We all looked straight ahead, to a group of guys from our grade. Amongst them were two new, highly attractive faces. The one on the left had sun-streaked blond hair and a wide grin that displayed dimples in both cheeks. Even from a distance, his baby blues were very striking.
‘Potential Prince,’ Cass breathed to me.
The guy on the right had something no other guy in the school had — a goatee. That alone was impressive. He leant against the brick wall, showing off his muscular arms to perfection. Every so often he’d run his fingers through his dark, perfectly styled hair.
‘Guy on the right looks potentially egotistical,’ I said.
I love the fact that guys now take a greater interest in grooming, but sometimes I think the whole metrosexual thing has gone too far. I want a guy who takes pride in his appearance, but won’t dive-tackle me for rights to the bathroom mirror.
‘Girl standing next to me obviously hit her head when she fell last night, because guy on the right is godly,’ Jelena replied.
‘Exactly — looking down on the rest of us mere mortals,’ I retorted.
‘If he’s conceited, he has every right to be,’ Jelena said. ‘Look at him! So, what do you think? Should we approach?’
Sara was still going on her pharmaceutical sob story, and Lindsay had obviously decided she couldn’t take the separation from her beloved any longer, as she and Tyler were now sharing a swing, so the three of us looked at each other and made a decision.
‘High heels?’ Cass asked.
‘Check!’ we all cried.
‘Time for the Glide-By,’ Jelena said.
The Glide-By, like the scarlet lipstick, is based on evolutionary tendencies — though it’s likely Darwin never saw this one coming! In the Glide-By, you wear an eye-catching outfit but pair it with LOUD shoes. This is because although a guy’s sight is his primary sense when it comes to attraction, you often need to combine the visual with sound to really make impact. Back in caveman days, men were trained to focus on their direct line of sight in order to spot prey. This evolutionary tendency is still part of the modern man’s make-up, so he might not pick up on your presence, no matter how gorgeous you are, if you happen to be slightly out of his line of sight. This is where the loud shoes are vital. They announce your presence. The minute a guy hears a loud sound, such as a pair of heels amongst the silent scuffing of sneakers, he will almost always turn his eyes towards it — an instinct from the days when responding to a sound could mean life or death for him and his tribe. Once his eyes are on you, the gorgeous outfit will have its desired impact. And, if your Glide-By is successful and he becomes smitten, he may even learn to recognise the exact sound of your particular heels in a crowd, the way penguins recognise a partner amongst thousands of identical birds.
We headed up the path towards the guys, our heels drumming an ancient arrival call. As we hit the spot five metres away, all eyes lifted from various hacky-sack games and skateboard tricks. The boys looked at us; we looked at them. There was this moment of intense silence during which we mutually evaluated each other. The Glide-By was running smoothly so far.
Just when it looked like we would attempt an approach, Cass, Jelena and I smiled simultaneously, turned abruptly and headed for the history and arts block. We could feel the gazes following us. The Glide-By was a success.
You should never speak too soon.
‘Hey, Princess!’ Hayden’s voice boomed out across the schoolyard, instantly destroying any intriguing after-effects of the Glide-By. ‘When am I going to get my jacket back?’
‘In medieval England, beer was often served with breakfast,’ Mr Bannerman, our history teacher, announced.
The thing I love about Mr Bannerman is that he knows how to make history come alive. His brain is always teeming with weird facts and curious characters that he’s dying to tell us about.
His announcement was met with loud cheers from the male students. Several guys punched their fists in the air.
‘Man, these historical dudes had it good!’
Jeffrey Clark waved his hand madly in the air.
‘Yes, Jeffrey?’ Mr Bannerman said.
‘Sir, I think I speak on behalf of the class in thinking it would be educationally beneficial if we held a medieval breakfast of our own. You know, someone brings pancakes —’
‘And you bring the Tooheys?’ Mr Bannerman finished.
‘It’s got to be authentic!’
Jeffrey Clark can be relied upon to disturb every class with his outbursts. However, he also supplies comic relief at times of extreme stress: i.e. on exam days or during slide presentations.
Mr Bannerman laughed and perched himself on the front of his desk. ‘How about you keep that one for your own time seeing as no-one in this class is legal yet? To get back to what one of you said before, these medieval dudes did not have it good. If you didn’t succumb to the plague, you’d probably perish fighting in one of the many religious conflicts that dominated the period. There was a great deal of bloodshed during the Middle Ages. Medieval Europe is our main unit of study this semester and we’re going to get down to all the nitty-gritty details.’
I love history. It has all the good stuff — intrigue, corruption, love affairs, characters full of good, characters full of evil. If I’d lived back then, I would have been the one watching everything and jotting it all down on parchment with a quill pen.
‘Now, I’m sorry to tell you, Aurora,’ Mr Bannerman said, as if he had read my thoughts, ‘with your statuesque height, you might have had trouble finding a husband, as the average man was only about five foot six.’
Okay, there would have definitely been some downsides to life back then.
‘She would have had to bend down to kiss him!’ Jeffrey yelled.
Now the whole class was laughing. Hayden Paris turned around in his seat and gave me a wink.
Hayden has sat directly in front of me for ten years now. I don’t know who came up with the idea of alphabetical seating, but if I had a time machine, I’d go back, ascertain their identity and then sue them for inflicting mental and emotional anguish. Maybe I could sue for physical pain as well, since I’m sure I’ve strained my arm as a result of all the years of hitting Hayden with a ruler when he’s too impossible to deal with. Which, if you know Hayden Paris, is just about always. I’m too mature and poised to use the ruler any more, so I have to rely on my wit.
Thankfully my embarrassment was brought to an end by the arrival of the new, blue-eyed boy we’d seen earlier this morning. He leant on the doorframe, sliding a lock of sun-streaked hair back behind his ear.
‘Is this the Year 11C history class?’ he asked.
‘None other,’ replied Mr Bannerman. ‘Hope you’re ready for bloodshed, Mr … let’s see … Scott Ryder.’
Blue-eyed boy smiled a confused but still delicious smile. Cassie, who sat on my left, could barely conceal a squeal of delight.
‘Scott Ryder!’ she whispered to me.
My guess was we’d soon be seeing that name scrawled on Cassie’s books.
While Mr Bannerman verified Scott’s details, Hayden turned around and leant his elbows on the front of my desk.
‘So, pretty soon I’ll be trumping you in history tests.’
‘Hayden, I beat you every week last semester —’
‘Not every week. We tied in that one about Charlemagne, remember?’
How could I forget? It had been so embarrassing seeing our names up
on the board together, like an engagement announcement or something.
‘Whatever,’ I said breezily. ‘Why would I stop that amazing run now?’ I smiled in what I hoped to be a superior way.
Hayden just smiled back and stayed silent.
‘Well, WHY then?’ I demanded.
He shrugged. ‘Well, with all the dating you’ve been doing, you’re bound to get distracted. Drift off into Mills & Boon fantasies. Potent stuff. Naturally, your studies will suffer. As I’m not participating in the dating game, I think it’s safe to say that it’ll be top of the class for me all this year.’ He raised his chin in a smug gesture.
‘Paris, if I haven’t let your incessant ramblings distract me all these years, a date or two isn’t going to have a chance against my iron-willed focus. And,’ I added as a last retort, ‘you know nothing about my fantasies.’
‘No, I don’t,’ he agreed. ‘But knowing you, they’d be something highly original.’
I looked at him suspiciously. Was he saying I was a creative thinker or warped in the head?
Before I had a chance to reply, Mr Bannerman pointed Scott to the seat next to Cassie. All the girls in the class looked at her with envy. At least alphabetical seating was having a positive effect on someone’s life.
Mr Bannerman paced up and down between our desks. ‘Some interesting trivia to tickle your fancy before we get into dates and names —’
‘Dates?’ Jeffrey piped up. ‘Don’t get me started. I went to the movies last week with this brunette chick and when I tried to move into a bit of a pash she —’
‘Historical dates, Jeffrey,’ Mr Bannerman said firmly. ‘I don’t suppose you could tell me some? A little pop quiz maybe? Some interesting historical trivia to amaze your friends and relatives with? Maybe make that date a bit more intellectually stimulating, hmm, Jeffrey? Up your chances of a kiss?’
Jeffrey Clark wouldn’t be speaking up for the rest of the lesson.
‘The nursery rhyme “Jack jumped over the candlestick” was derived from a tradition in medieval England,’ Mr Bannerman went on, ‘that involved jumping over a lighted candle as a means of predicting the future.’
‘Sounds like one of Bradley Scott’s ancestors, huh?’ Hayden whispered to me.
‘You know, I’d assumed that an intelligent person like yourself —’
‘I knew you appreciated my intellect,’ Hayden said triumphantly.
‘— would choose to concentrate on higher matters than criticising my dates,’ I continued. ‘But I guess I was mistaken.’
Just then, the intercom announced that Scott Ryder was needed in the office. Cassie looked the picture of disappointment.
‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered to her as Scott headed out the door. ‘You have a geographically advantageous position for the rest of the year!’
We exchanged a discreet high five.
‘Now, a small assignment,’ Mr Bannerman said, pausing at the window. Everyone groaned. ‘I said small, people. We’ve got to get those sleepy brains buzzing again after such a long break. I would like you to research one aspect of medieval history that interests you and present it to the class next Tuesday.’
I already knew what I’d research. I wrote the words ‘Courtly love’ on my notepad in swirly script, then caught Hayden peering at it.
‘Courtly love? Sorry, Aurora, but I think I’ve already got that one in the bag.’
‘I think you’d better think again, because I’ve already claimed it,’ I replied.
‘You just said you’re not the Mills & Boon type and, technically, courtly love could be considered historical romance.’ He grinned. ‘As you don’t want to pollute your mind with any clichéd topics, you should probably leave that one to me.’
‘You, discussing romance? Ha!’
Hayden put on a hurt face. ‘I think I might be alright at it. After all, I’ve been doing a lot of observing lately.’ He gave me a significant look.
‘Observing?’ I repeated, curiosity getting the better of me.
‘Well, you keep accusing me of spying on your dates,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘So, technically, I guess I’m learning about romance firsthand. It seems kind of brutal, judging from the goodnight ritual I saw last night.’
My blood wasn’t boiling, but it was pretty warm. Despite that, I was not going to lose my temper. I was determined that this year Hayden Paris wasn’t going to destroy my composure.
‘But I haven’t seen the whole picture,’ he went on. ‘I was thinking I could sit in on the restaurant part of it; help you assess your dates. I would have given Bradley Scott a strike right off the bat.’
‘My dates are none of your business!’
‘If I’m doing the study, they are.’
‘Study something else!’ I hissed just as Mr Bannerman arrived at my desk.
I smiled. ‘Mr Bannerman! I have the best idea for this assignment —’
‘Aurora, I’m afraid I’m going to have to remind you that drawing on school property is not allowed,’ Mr Bannerman interrupted, looking serious.
‘What?’ I said. The last time I defaced anything was back when I was four, and my mother’s reaction to my mural on our dining-room wall had stopped me ever sketching on anything ever again.
I took a closer look at where Mr Bannerman was pointing. There was a heart drawn on the front of my desk. I struggled to read the scrawled black words inside it. ‘I love … HR?’ I guessed.
‘HP,’ Hayden put in helpfully. ‘I never suspected you had such intense feelings for me, Aurora.’
‘W-what?’ I stuttered. Then it dawned on me. ‘You!’ I cried. ‘You graffitied my desk!’
‘Nothing you can do will ever make me admit it,’ Hayden said as solemnly as someone can when they’re suppressing a smile. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Bannerman,’ he added, ‘it’s nonpermanent. Aurora can take advantage of the situation to get me alone at break and help me clean it off.’
‘You’re driving me crazy!’ I cried.
There went my composure. The whole history class turned to look at us.
‘A person can only drive you crazy if you give them the keys,’ Hayden said with mock serenity, like some sort of Buddhist monk.
‘You’ve stolen the keys!’ I yelled.
He just looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
The bell rang before I could kill him.
CHAPTER 3
Psychic Surgery
If you guessed that I didn’t stick around to help Hayden Paris clean my desk during break, you’d be dead right. Instead, I watched him through the window. Seeing him furiously scrubbing my desk with a bottle of heavy-duty cleaning fluid and rags soothed my anger slightly. For once, justice had been served.
‘What was the deal with you and Hayden in history?’ Cassie said, pulling me away from the window. ‘It seemed to get pretty heated.’
‘Heated? This went beyond heated years ago. An accurate picture would be a deadly battle.’
‘A deadly battle? Ooh, tell me more!’ Jelena came round the corner. Instead of history, she took business studies. As you can imagine, she was aceing the subject. ‘Who with?’
‘Someone who doesn’t fight fair,’ I said.
‘Hayden again,’ Cassie whispered to Jelena.
‘One of these days you’re going to discover why Hayden Paris gets you so worked up,’ Jelena said, swerving around a game of handball going on in the corridor.
I clenched my jaw. ‘I know why he gets me so worked up! He’s deliberately set out to persecute me ever since he moved into the area. When I was six years old, he pushed me into the pool at the get-to-know-the-neighbours barbecue his parents threw. I could have drowned!’
‘It was a paddling pool, Aurora,’ Cassie said, in what I considered to be a very uncaring way.
‘Pool, paddling pool, what’s the difference? He still had devious intentions.’
Jelena made a pained face. ‘Not to be insensitive here, but can we please drop the Hayden subject? For two reasons: the fi
rst being, Aurora, no offence, but to the general public you seem to be bordering on crazy when it comes to Hayden —’
‘Hey,’ I said, feeling hurt.
Jelena’s voice dropped several decibels. ‘And the second is obvious if you study the boys positioned at three o’clock.’
We all pretended to look over at the school fountain, but what we were really studying was Scott Ryder and the other new guy we’d noticed in the schoolyard earlier that morning.
‘Did you get any info on Goatee Guy?’ I asked Jelena.
‘He wasn’t in business studies. I’m hoping for some kind of alignment in our schedules somewhere.’
‘Scott Ryder sits next to me in history!’ Cassie said excitedly to Jelena.
‘Have you established contact?’
‘I felt way too shy to say anything.’
‘See, that’s where guys have it easy,’ Jelena said. ‘They can just toss a pencil or paper ball at us to get our attention.’
The moves of high-school boys: Casanova had nothing on them. I tried to imagine Cassie lobbing her HB at someone.
‘So,’ I said, breaking into my friends’ daydreams, ‘plan of approach?’
As the FPP specifies, a girl’s got to actively seek out her Prince. Once she spots him, it’s important to take action.
‘I think Lose an Earring would work well,’ Jelena suggested.
‘Who’s doing the losing?’ I asked, even though I already knew the answer. Cassie always plays the role of loser, as she’s so sweet and innocent-looking. No-one could ever suspect her of setting up a fake situation.
Our plan was off and running. Cassie handed me one pink dangly earring and we started walking towards the two boys. Just as we were about to reach them, Cass’s hat brushed against a branch of the fig tree and fell down over her right ear.
‘Oh no!’ she cried in a slightly louder than normal voice, putting her hand to her ear. ‘I think I’ve dropped an earring!’
She and Jelena dropped to their knees and started combing the ground with their palms. Scott Ryder and Goatee Guy looked over at them, then at each other, then leapt off their lunch table to join in the hunt.
How to Keep a Boy from Kissing You Page 3