by Aimee Said
When Freia’s best friend Kate starts hanging out with Westside’s popular group, the Bs, Freia knows if she wants to keep the friendship, she’s going to have to fit in.
But how much fake tan, lip gloss and boy talk can Freia stand? Especially now that she’s been roped into the school musical.
Sometimes to find yourself,
You have to risk everything
Contents
Cover
Blurb
Walker Books Australia
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Freia’s Best Ever Double-Fudge Chocolate Brownies
Thanks
Copyright
Dedication
Also by Aimee Said
PROLOGUE
The moment I set foot on the stage I know this is a big mistake. When I open my mouth and force out the opening line of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, I realise it’s more than that.
My mouth is so dry that my tongue feels like sandpaper whenever it meets my upper palate and, as if by some sort of malicious inverse reaction, my palms and armpits are sweating like crazy. I’m tempted to run out of the hall before I humiliate myself any further, but I don’t think I’d make it without Kate crash-tackling me and dragging me back onto the stage. To make matters worse, she’s waving from the front row to attract my attention, the corners of her mouth pulled into a gruesome smile, like a deranged mother at a beauty pageant. How did I let her talk me into this?
In an attempt to distract myself from Kate’s frantic gestures, I scan the hall, looking for something more calming to focus on. Even though they’re in the back row, I can see Belinda and Bethanee exchanging grimaces while Brianna examines her split ends and sings along. I squint my eyes so that the whole lot of them are a bit blurry and get the audition over with as quickly as possible.
“Thank you, Freia,” says Ms Burns in her singsong, music teacher’s voice when I finally finish. “That was really … spirited.”
Kate beams. I hear sniggers from the back of the hall.
Poor Kate. She tries so hard to help me fit in with Belinda’s group, but it really is an uphill battle. It’s not that I don’t appreciate her efforts – without her I’d be sitting by myself in the library like Vicky Soong, pretending to be too busy studying to bother with friends – but it’s obvious to everyone that I fit in with Belinda and Co. like a turkey in a flock of flamingos.
1
“Settle down please, girls,” says Ms Burns as we gather again in the hall three days later. “I won’t read out the cast list until everyone is silent.”
A hush falls over the hall. Kate grabs my hand and squeezes it so tightly I almost yelp with pain.
“I’m sure no one will be surprised to hear that Belinda has been cast as our Eliza Doolittle.”
“Yes!” Belinda punches a fist in the air (the same move she makes when she wins a tennis match, comes first in a test or brags about pashing some guy at a party – she’s a pretty expressive girl).
“I knew you’d get it, Bella,” simpers Bethanee. “Your version of ‘Bootylicious’ was the best ever.”
Kate’s grip on my hand gets tighter and tighter as the other roles are read out. By the time Ms Burns gets to the names of the chorus I’m worried she’s stopped breathing altogether. Bethanee and Brianna are announced in quick succession, causing squeals of excitement behind us. When Kate finally hears her own name she drops my hand and turns to join their celebrations. I feel a momentary pang of disappointment, but remind myself that the only reason I gave in to Kate’s nagging and auditioned in the first place was because I was certain that I wouldn’t get a part.
Kate, Belinda, Bethanee and Brianna form a circle with their arms around each other’s shoulders and sort of bounce on the spot and cheer. I stand in my usual place: awkwardly to one side of them, trying to look as though I don’t care. I don’t register that Ms Burns has started speaking again until Kate envelops me in a hug.
“That’s fantastic, Fray! Now you’ll get to come to rehearsals and meet all the cute guys!”
“What?”
“Didn’t you hear Ms Burns? You’re doing lighting!”
“I didn’t know you were interested in lighting,” says Brianna, looking confused.
“There must be some mistake,” I say, looking over to where Ms Burns is comforting a sobbing Year Seven kid and thinking I’d better get this straightened out immediately.
“Nah, they always give the backstage jobs to the re– I mean, people who don’t get stage roles,” says Bethanee.
“Never mind,” says Belinda with a smile akin to next door’s Rottweiler when he sees the postman. “We’ll still talk to you in the breaks, won’t we, KitKat?”
Kate nods furiously, like one of those toy dogs with a spring for a neck.
I shake my head. “My olds won’t let me do it anyway. You know how strict they are.”
A flash of panic crosses Kate’s face. “But you have to! Everyone is. You’ll be the only one left out.”
She looks around for someone to back her up, but Bethanee’s gone back to gushing over Belinda. Brianna gives a small smile. I’m not sure whether it’s aimed at me or if she’s just daydreaming about unicorns and Care Bears again.
If you’d told me a few years ago that Kate Smith and I would end up being best friends, I’d have laughed in your face. We didn’t even really talk to each other in primary school. She had her group, which played elastics and practised their flips on the monkey bars, and I hung out with my mates playing backgammon or reading Asterix comics. Then, on our first day at Westside Girls Grammar, we both realised we didn’t know anyone else, and we’ve been sort of clinging to each other ever since. Just the two of us. That is, until Kate went to the traditional end of Year Nine dance at Westside Boys High and somehow bonded with Belinda over the fact that they were wearing the same shade of lip gloss, giving her entree to the Bs, the coolest group in our year.
So now I spend recesses, lunchtimes and the occasional sleepover (if my parents have called the girl whose house it’s at and checked with her parents that there will be an adult there at all times; that no alcohol will be available; and that no boys have been invited) with the teenage equivalent of the Spice Girls: Bitchy, Bratty, Bleachy and Wannabe.
Belinda is Bitchy because she has nothing nice to say about anyone, ever, and is also queen of the backhanded compliment. (Example: “That’s a nice top, Freia. I had one just like it in Year Six.”)
Bethanee is Bratty because she chucks a tantrum anytime she doesn’t get her own way. (And in Bethanee’s mind, getting her own way is essential, whether it’s being on the winning hockey team or eating the last Tim Tam.)
Brianna is Bleachy because she’s gone so far with the dye that what’s left of her chemical-damaged hair floats around her head like a platinum halo.
Wannabe is Kate, w
ho just wants to fit in and be popular.
And me? I guess I’m Nobody.
Anyone who observes us together in our sacred spot under the biggest tree in the playground, partially hidden from teachers’ prying eyes and out of bounds to anyone under Year Ten, can see that I don’t belong in this group. Amongst so much blond hair and perpetually tanned skin, I stand out because I am perfectly average. I’m of average height and weight. I have mousy brown hair that hangs limply somewhere around my shoulders, except for those days when it hangs in an equally limp ponytail. I have dishwater grey eyes. I have an average amount of pimples at any given time. And since starting at Westside, it would seem I am of average intelligence (although my parents are still in denial about this).
Sometimes I feel like a big fake for hanging out with the Bs when it’s only Kate I’m actually friends with but, let’s be honest, no one wants the trauma of finding new mates halfway through high school. Anyway, they’re not bad all the time. Last week Brianna let me borrow her purple nail polish (which I had to literally chew off on the way home before Mum saw it), and Belinda was pretty nice (for her) about me not getting into the play … Okay, so those are the only examples I can think of right now, but there must be more.
The Bs have been together since Year Eight, when Belinda went from being an average, somewhat sporty twelve year old to Westside’s answer to Scarlett Johansson over the Christmas holidays. When the school year started she ditched her old group of friends (including Vicky Soong) and by the end of first term we were used to the fact that wherever Belinda went Bethanee and Brianna would be trailing behind her.
I think it was Siouxsie Sheldon (back when she was still Susannah) who first called them the Bs – because they all worked for their queen and could give you a nasty sting if you weren’t careful. Instead of being insulted, Belinda took it as a compliment, and on the first Monday after Easter they all turned up at assembly wearing little gold bee pins next to their school badges.
Kate’s made no secret of how much she wants one of those bees. Once, when she was dropping hints about it, Belinda told her that it was a difficult situation, seeing as her name doesn’t begin with a B, but she has hinted that if Kate plays her cards right, she might – just might – get one for her birthday in November. There’s been no mention of me ever getting a little gold bee.
Eleven Things Not Many People Know About Me
1. I slept with a stuffed toy wombat every night from the day I came home from the hospital after being born, right up until the night before Year Six camp, when I gave it up cold turkey.
2. I bite my toenails. (Gross, I know, but strangely satisfying.)
3. Even though I passed my Bronze Medallion for swimming, I’m still too scared to go out of my depth at the beach or swim in any water I can’t see the bottom of.
4. I once stole money from Mum’s purse to buy an issue of Cosmopolitan magazine because it said on the cover that you could increase your bust size overnight (which turned out to be a fashion feature on padded bras that all cost a lot more money than I could ever sneak out of Mum’s purse without her noticing).
5. I get pimples on my bum. (Very careful to keep this one to myself during swimming season.)
6. I didn’t get my period until I was fourteen and a half.
7. After a really crappy day I play the Kylie Minogue CD that’s hidden under my mattress really loud and dance like Crazy McCrazy.
8. I don’t like being drunk. I just don’t.
9. My biggest fear is making an idiot of myself in public.
10. I have never kissed anyone. (Okay, so most people could probably guess this one, but I like to think that they don’t actually know just from looking at me.)
11. I have never spoken with a boy in a boy–girl-speaking way. Ever.
2
When I get home I spoon some fruit salad into a bowl, carefully avoiding the slimy bits of banana and wishing that just for once we could have muesli bars or biscuits after school like a normal family. Boris, Dad’s ancient cat, winds himself around my legs, trying to charm me into giving him a snack.
“Hey, loser.” Ziggy pushes past me and Boris, wrenches open the fridge door and takes a long swig from the milk carton. I resist the urge to dump my fruit salad over his head and maintain what I hope comes across as a dignified silence. “By the way, sucked in for getting the lighting gig with Skeletor.” He grins.
“What? How do you know about the play?” He shrugs and starts eating fruit salad straight from the container.
“Tell me,” I say as menacingly as I can, grabbing him by the collar for added effect.
“Make me.”
“Tell me, you little creep, or I’ll show Mum your piss collection.” I know this will do the trick. If Mum ever finds out that Ziggy’s been bottling his own urine samples since Year Five, she’ll go mental. She’s insane when it comes to germs, especially toilet-related ones. (In case you’re wondering why a twelve-year-old boy would bottle his own pee, I haven’t got a clue. Ziggy seems to think there’s something deeply scientific about it, but I reckon he just likes doing it ’cos it’s so completely gross. Grossness scores highly in Ziggy’s world view.)
“Okay, okay. Sheesh. The play’s at my school, yeah?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So they put a list on the noticeboard, idiot.”
“And who or what is Skeletor?”
“He’s the freak in charge of lighting. He’s weird and Ben Harrigan’s brother says he’s a druggie. You’d better make sure Mum and Dad don’t hear about him.”
“I have no intention of doing the stupid play, so it doesn’t make any difference, does it?” I grab my bag and head upstairs.
Lately, my bedroom is the only place where I feel like I can really be myself. With the door closed and the blinds down, I know that no one can see me. Sometimes I lie on my bed and cry. Sometimes I dance like a loon. Today I just take off my hideous brown-and-green-checked uniform and pull on my most comfy trackies. I get all the books out of my bag and stack them neatly on my desk before sitting in the Deluxe Student Study Chair that Mum and Dad gave me for Christmas. Anyone watching me would think I was the most conscientious kid in Parkville. Until they noticed that I wasn’t actually doing anything.
I look at the titles on the spines of the pile of books: Maths in Action!, History Lives!, Allez Français!. I spend a few minutes trying to decide which is the lesser of these evils. Then I remember that Kate asked me to call her. I drag the hall phone into my bedroom and curse my parents for refusing to get me a cordless handset for my birthday.
“Well?” Kate demands as soon as she answers. “What’d your mum say about the play?”
“She’s not home yet. I can’t see them letting me do it though.”
“Oh, Freia, you have to!” I wish she’d stop saying that. It makes her sound like Bethanee, which brings out my worst, most bitchy urge to snap back, No, I don’t have to! “Tell them you just have to! It’s going to be so cool. Belinda caught the bus home with Jamie Boyd and he says all the coolest Parkville guys are in it.”
“Who’s Jamie Boyd?”
Kate sighs as if she’s explaining something to a three year old for the eleventieth time. “He’s the guy who lives across the road from the park where the Bs play hockey on Saturdays. The cute one with green eyes and lush blondy-brown hair. You know!”
Frankly, he sounds like every other guy that hangs around the Bs, but I make a noncommittal noise so that Kate won’t feel she has to try to jog my memory any further.
“Please, Freia, this play’s the biggest thing to ever happen to me and I don’t want you to miss out. If you want, I can get my mum to phone yours and talk her round.”
“It’ll never work. You know what Mum’s like about anything that might affect my schoolwork.”
“But you’ll at least ask her, won’t you? For me? Pleasepleasepleaseplea–”
“I’ll try,” I say.
The one good thing about Mum and Dad being so
ancient is that no one ever suspects I’m lying when I say they won’t let me do something. Not that I have to worry about lying this time: there’s absolutely no way Mum will agree to me doing anything that not only interferes with my study but also keeps me out after school and on weekends and – and this is the clincher – puts me in close proximity to – gasp! – boys. Especially since this year’s production isn’t with the usual wets and geeks from our brother school, Westside Boys, but with the no-good ruffians of Parkville Boys High.
When I hear Mum get home I flip open the top textbook in the stack in front of me. A minute later she sticks her head around my bedroom door. (Without knocking, despite the fact that she and Dad insist that Ziggy and I always knock before going into their bedroom or either of their studies.) We have this daily routine where she spends five minutes pretending to be interested in my day before getting down to the real business of finding out how much homework I’ve got.
Now, there is a school of thought that argues that homework is bad for kids and that we should be doing enough work at school to learn everything we need to know to function as decent members of society. And there is another school of thought that thinks that the only way to learn anything is to study pretty much every waking hour of the day. Sadly, our principal, Ms Mooney (aka Pruney, on account of her having spent too many years sunbaking), and my parents belong to the latter. And sadder still, it doesn’t seem to be paying off. The more I study, the worse my marks get. It’s like my brain’s subconsciously rebelling or something.
Mum pushes a few piles of stuff out of the way and sits down on the bed. I hope this isn’t going to be an extended visit.
“How was school?”
Surely this is the most redundant question in the universe. School is school is school. Seriously, what’s going to happen today that didn’t happen yesterday? Except the play. But I’m not ready to mention that, so I tell her school was fine.
“How’s Kate?”
“Fine.”
“Good … good. Got much homework?”