I have to pick up Jack from soccer at 4:30 in Prince Park
Oh.
Willa frowns. It’s always like this. There’s always something she’s supposed to be doing. She’s about to text sorry when there’s another message.
What if I met your bus and walked you there? I live near the park, remember?
Willa can’t help grinning. Persistent, aren’t you?
Oh, sorry! I don’t mean to be pushy. I can totally wait ‘til Friday.
But Willa can’t. Don’t be sorry. I was joking. Please meet me.
Okay. I’ll be the weird, stalkery one lurking at the bus stop.
A thrill jets through her as the bell rings. The girls behind her instantly start to complain they didn’t get enough done. Surprise.
Willa didn’t finish her work either. And it was totally worth it.
~ ~ ~
She finishes the last sum on the way home, working a dicey balance of textbook, notebook, and calculator on her lap.
The bus lurches along the busy roads, returning her to the northern suburbs. By the time they get to her stop, there’s only a handful of Gandry girls left, crowded out by a horde of nonnas and their shopping trolleys who got on at the markets halfway between school and home.
When her notebook slips off her lap at a sudden stop, an old man next to her picks it up and mutters approvingly at her studiousness. She thanks him politely and wonders what he’d think if he knew she’s sprinting through her homework so she can meet a girl in the park. A girl she hasn’t stopped thinking about whether she’s going to get to kiss in the park.
The bus swerves into her stop. She hauls her bag onto her shoulder and peers through the window. Finn’s leaned against a brick wall, hunched over her phone. Willa just stares for a moment, struggling to compute the exquisite knowledge that the girl in the striped school dress, her hair blowing forward in the wind, is waiting for her. Just for her. Because that girl couldn’t wait another two days.
They meet in the middle of the footpath. Finn squints into the sun, smiling and clutching a small, white takeaway cup. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Willa smiles, thinking how Finn looks different. Maybe it’s seeing her here with the heavy urban grey as backdrop, instead of the strident green of camp. Maybe it’s the demure pinstripe of her school dress and her hair looking like it knows what a brush is. Maybe it’s the hint of eye make-up. She’s like the smoother, city version of Finn.
They eye each other for a moment, and then Finn, ever the brave one, folds her into a brief hug. It’s awkwardly platonic. A hug that feels like a lie, because it’s pretending they are something they are not.
Willa panics at the strangeness of it all. Like she suddenly can’t find their them-ness. This is exactly what she’s worried about each night, in those lights-out moments when Finn inevitably invades her thoughts. What if they can’t find what they had at camp? What if it can’t be shifted and still hold its form, instead collapsing like a piece of clay moved before it’s solidified?
“You know,” Finn says, “I usually hate it when people state the obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway: it’s really, really good to see you.” And that candid smile pulls Willa back from the brink. Because there she is. And here they are.
They stroll the asphalt stretch that splits the cool, green centre of the park. Finn checks her watch. “So, by my calculations, we have about fourteen minutes before you have to go get Jack.”
“And how many seconds?”
“Don’t tease. A good stalker always knows these things.”
They drop their schoolbags and settle onto a bench. Finn turns and gives her a bashful smile. “Sorry I was all weird and desperate and couldn’t wait to see you.”
Willa laughs and shakes her head.
“Why are you laughing?”
“You shouldn’t be sorry. I wanted to see you too.” Willa’s face is instantly hot. Why does she have to be so self-conscious?
“Good.” That’s all Finn says as she plucks Willa’s hand out of her lap and weaves their fingers together on the bench.
Willa stares at the sudden cacophony of colour between them: the clash of blue check and purple stripe, the chipped bottle-green of the bench, the silvery residue of worn graffiti, Finn’s freshly mulberry nails and her plain ones.
She looks up to see Finn smiling at her like it’s a question. Like she’s asking if it’s okay to hold her hand here. Probably because Willa’s the private one. But all Willa knows is that Finn’s holding her hand on a bench in the park and how incredible it feels. It will have to be okay.
A clutch of kids stalks by in Willa’s old school uniform. A guy with a straggling effort at a goatee leads the pack, mouthing off about some argument with a teacher as he tosses his bag high in the air and catches it. A pair of girls trails them, school shoes in hands, cutting straight through the pond that surrounds the broken fountain. As they clamber out, wet footprints ghost their steps. One of them eyes Finn and Willa and mutters something to her friend. She turns and stares, then shrugs.
“I wonder if they’re talking about the fact we’re holding hands or the fact that we’re in two different school uniforms,” Finn muses.
“Probably the uniforms.” Kids at Willa’s old school hated the Brunswick Hill kids on principle. “An interschool relationship? It’s very Montague and Capulet.”
“So, how is it being back in Gandry’s clutches?”
They talk quickly, making a feast of the minutes. They even talk about the things they’ve already talked about on the phone, because it’s different when they’re together. Better.
It still stuns Willa how easily talk comes to her when she’s with Finn. She never feels tongue-tied or too earnest like she does with girls at school. She tells Finn about Riley’s meltdown over some science project about plants last night, and how it just got worse as Willa struggled to explain it simply enough so her sister will get it. “I’ll never be a good teacher.”
Then Finn tells her how a group of kids at her school got in trouble for making a GIF of the principal shaking his finger at them and putting it at the top of the online school newsletter. “I thought it was genius,” she says.
“No one would dare do anything like that at Gandry.”
“Kids at mine dare and then get detention for weeks. Hey, so is your nan feeling better now?”
“Well, she’s not sick anymore.”
“That’s good.” Finn’s thumb grazes the back of her hand. “Right?”
“Yeah.” Willa doesn’t tell her that the worry’s not gone, that even though Nan’s better, she doesn’t seem completely right. Sometimes Willa catches her stopping and taking long breaths as she works or sitting in her chair when she’d usually be buzzing around her garden. But Willa doesn’t want to talk about it because that makes it real. Instead, she focuses on the sooth of Finn’s thumb sliding across her hand.
They sit and watch the world trudge past until Finn checks her watch and clicks her tongue. “That went too quickly. So, are we still going to hang out on Friday?” she asks as Willa heaves her bag onto her shoulders.
“Do you still want to?” Sometimes she’s scared Finn’s going to change her mind, going to realise this was all just a dumb camp thing.
“Of course. Should we take your brother and sister to the movies, still? Some Disney Pixar whatever?”
“Are you sure?”
“Why not?”
Willa smiles. “Wait until you meet them.”
“The Willa siblings don’t scare me.”
“They should. Hey, you don’t have to walk me all the way there,” she says as Finn turns for the soccer fields.
“Yes, I do. My place is on the other side of the fields, remember?”
“Of course.” Damn. Because what Willa really means is they should say goodbye here. Because here, she can do it properly and not in front of a whole lot of gawking boy children and a brother who knows nothing about Finn.
Finn starts walking, but Willa gra
bs her hand, pulls her back to her, and kisses her. A whisper of a kiss, really, because she’s too shy to dare anything more.
A slow smile spreads over Finn’s face. She plays with Willa’s blazer lapel, pulling her closer. “You look younger in uniform.”
“Well, you look girlier in yours. I mean, not to say you don’t look like a girl…” Willa blushes. “I just meant—”
“It’s okay. I know what you mean.” Finn takes hold of both her hands. “You kissed me first.”
“I kissed you first.” Willa leans in and does it again, like she means it this time. “And second.”
“Good.” Finn drags her back onto the path. “You’re nearly caught up.”
CHAPTER 6
Willa
“Shower and change, okay?” Willa pushes open the front door. “Then we’ll start homework.”
“Okay.” Jack bolts upstairs, his too-big soccer shorts flapping around his knees.
She aims straight for the kitchen and the food smell. Nan’s at the bench, stripping stems of basil, a loaf of bread cooling on a board on the stove. “How was school?” she asks without even looking up.
“Good.” Willa dumps her bag by the dining table and leans over to sniff the loaf. One of her favourite smells. “We could buy bread. They have sourdough at the market.”
“Doesn’t taste the same.”
“I know, but it’s so much work, and y—”
“Hush, or you won’t get any of my cashew pesto. Made with basil from the garden and biodynamic nuts from the market.” Nan tosses a handful of leaves into the food processor and frowns. “Someone should bloody ask those climate change deniers why if the world isn’t getting any warmer, I have basil thriving in late September.”
Willa takes a branch and slowly adds to the pile of green sacrifices. “You should call the papers. Maybe they’ll write about it.”
Nan swats at her with a ravaged stem. “Don’t be smart, my girl.”
Every female under sixty is ‘my girl’ to Nan, a leftover of thirty years of wrangling girls into obedience at a country boarding school. It’s always said in this part affectionate, part remonstrative way, as if she expects you’re being naughty and she’s onto you but can’t help liking you anyway. And her students must have adored Nan’s frowny affection, because they still write letters and send her Christmas cards and baby photos.
“Want help with the rest of dinner?”
“Helping like you are now?” Nan gestures at the one stem that Willa’s managed to strip in the time it’s taken Nan to finish the rest of the pile. “I’ll be fine on my own. Anyway, you’ll want to do your homework.”
True. There’s no avoiding the pile of books in Willa’s bag. She tosses the stalk in the compost bin and heads for them.
“Did you have to stay back? You usually come home and get changed before you pick up Jack.”
“No, I hung out in the park.”
“You don’t just hang out.”
“I do sometimes.” It’s annoying how well Nan knows her.
“By yourself?”
Willa traces a crack in the chopping board so she doesn’t have to meet Nan’s eye. “No. With a girl I met at camp.”
When she finally looks up, those grey-blue eyes are on her. Nan nods slowly and turns to run her hands under the tap. “Do you have something to tell me, Willa Brookes?”
“No.” Willa heads for the stairs as if she suddenly remembered something vital she has to do. Something not-coming-out-to-Nan vital. But before she even reaches her bedroom, the guilt grabs her by the scruff of the neck and marches her back downstairs.
In the kitchen, Nan gives her a look. “So you do have something to tell me.”
“I guess.” Willa stares into the sunlight streaming through the back door.
“You met someone at camp?”
“Yes.”
“And are you seeing this girl?”
If Willa were Riley, she’d tell Nan no one calls it that anymore. But she’s not. She’s Willa. Stilted and weird and making this as awkward as she possible. “Yes.”
Nan pushes a bowl of beans at her. “Right, then. You’d better top and tail those and tell me about her.”
CHAPTER 7
Finn
“Yo, Finn!” It’s Hana bustling at them at lightning speed.
“Hana!” Finn smiles wide. Besides Amy, she’s barely seen her fellow Camp Nowhere survivors since they got home. The closest she’s gotten was waving at Craig and Jessie in the hall yesterday.
“Hey, girl!” Hana folds Finn into a huge hug. “We miss your face.” She high fives Amy. “You too,” she tells her, then turns back to Finn. “Where’ve you been?”
“Catching up on schoolwork. Where’s Zaki?”
“Talking to Ms Griggs. Hey, I just heard about the captain thing,” Hana says, all undertone.
“What captain thing?” Amy asks.
Hana’s hands go straight to her hips. “You guys didn’t hear yet? Zehra told Zaki—whoa that’s a mouthful—that she overheard the admin staff talking about it. They’re picking the all-school captain from the Year 11s instead of the Year 12s next year.”
Finn’s eyes widen. “Really?”
“Yep. So you better get ready, girl. Now you won Camp Nowhere, there’s no way it won’t be you.”
“There’s plenty of ways it might not be me, actually, but thanks. So why are they changing it?”
“Don’t know.”
Amy shakes her head. “The kids going into Year 12 are going to be so pissed.”
“Probably.” Finn wonders how she’d have felt if her year missed their chance to take charge of the school.
“Hey, there’s Zehra. Let’s ask. Hey Zehr! Come here!” Hana waves furiously.
Finn turns to see Zehra, her vice captain, striding over to them. She towers over Finn with her long legs and high, frizzy bun. Glittering badges cover her lapel, announcing her worth to the school. Her smile is thin. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks. It’s good to see you,” Finn says, even though she’s pretty sure Zehra’s anything but happy to see her. She’s also certain Zehra loved her Finn-free month of playing captain. There’s always been this tension between them. Well, it’s mostly from Zehra. Finn’s tried her best to just be all normal and “we’re on the same side”, but she knows Zehra thinks of her as the competition. Has done since they first turned up on the student representative council as hungry Year 7s.
“So, that thing about about the captain being a Year 11 next year?” Hana asks. “Did they officially decide?”
“I don’t know, Hana.” Zehra shoots her a look. “You weren’t exactly meant to be spreading it around.”
“It’s Finn. And Amy won’t tell.”
“I honestly don’t care enough to gossip.” Amy shoots Finn a grin. “Sorry.”
“And considering Finn’s probably going to get the job, she might as well know, right?” Hana adds.
Whoa. Finn holds her textbook tighter and wishes she were anywhere but in this conversation. Hana’s not exactly the queen of tact, but that was way klutzy. “That’s not true. It could just as easily be Zehra next year,” she says, trying to save face and feelings. “Or someone else.”
Hana scoffs and goes to say something, but Finn fires her a look. Hana finally seems to get the picture and scrambles a recovery. “True, could be anyone. Anyway, I better find Zaki. See you guys.” She bustles off down the hallway, leaving Finn to curse her very name.
“Yeah, I’m out,” Amy says, not even bothering to make an excuse. “See you in labs.”
Left alone, Finn turns and gives Zehra an awkward, conciliatory smile.
“So…” Zehra makes a show of checking her phone. “I was actually going to message you to see if you wanted me to go to the staff-student committee this Thursday. Seeing as how I wrote up the student brief before you got back.”
“Uh, that’s okay. I’m back now.” Finn sees the flicker of disappointment in Zehra’s eyes and backpedals. “
Actually, maybe we should both go. You know, you can present the brief, and I’ll catch up, ready for the next one.”
“Good idea.” Zehra sounds flat, though. “I better get to class.” Another thin smile and she’s off, leaving a trail of that sweet musk perfume that gets up Finn’s nose every single time.
The minute she’s out of sight, Finn beelines for the Humanities block. She follows the familiar passage past the Year 7 classrooms with their childishly cheerful posters and timelines and along the ranks of “favourites” display shelves. Then she ducks around the bend to the little alcove office where she knows they’ll be hiding right up until the bell rings. She’s just never figured out who they’re hiding from more, the students or the other teachers. Maybe both.
When Mr Granger sees her, he drops his iPad onto his lap. “Thank God you’re back! Zehra’s been driving me crazy. That child is far too fond of lists.”
Finn laughs and leans on the filing cabinet that keeps them partially hidden from sight.
“Dave.” Ms Lehrer gives him a lip-pursed look over the essay in her hand before offering Finn a perfunctory smile.
Finn returns a nervous one. Ms Lehrer’s so impeccable and remote with her perfect outfits and her perfect hair. Finn’s glad she’s not in any of her classes, because she doesn’t know if she could actually conjure words in the face of all that hotness.
Mr Granger, on the other hand, is all pointy and shaggy and passable at a push. Finn’s pretty sure the two of them have got something going on. A shacking-up kind of thing. They bring the same lunches every day. Dead giveaway. Not that she’d ever ask Mr Granger, or that he’d ever tell. Finn’s relationship with the student-council advisor is strictly workplace. They have the perfect arrangement: Finn supplies student gossip within the bounds of loyalty, and he keeps her posted on the teacher-parent machinations that the other students aren’t privy to.
“I know I’m not supposed to say things like that about the esteemed intermediate vice president,” Mr Granger says. “but there are levels of earnest that even I, a student politician of many years in my own past, cannot endure.”
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