Paradise City

by C. J. Duggan

  My eyes fixed on his every movement, noticing that when he was serious there was no trace of that gorgeous dimple. I desperately wished something would take his fancy so I could see a flash of that devil-may-care smile, or that hypnotic pucker in his left cheek. And just as if I had willed it, it appeared right after his eyes landed on me. Perving through the window, watching him with a besotted stare, his brown eyes had locked onto mine, pinning me there. His expression changed from a confused frown, into that of recognition and quickly into a crooked grin.

  Shit.

  I ducked. Actually ducked.

  I was so lame. Nope, nothing obvious about me, so cool, calm and collected I was; I should have just gone to the locker room and ditched the school assembly, signed the bloody late book and be done with it. Gone down into the history books as the worst first-day student ever. Instead, there I was, hunched over with my eyes closed, praying for the strength not to be physically sick and instead just bite the bullet and walk through the door. What was the worst thing that could happen, people might look at me? They weren’t anything to me; besides, I was the new girl, I could play the newbie card for the first week at least, surely. Lexie Atkinson, straight-A student, surely it wouldn’t be too bad . . . would it?

  There was only one way to find out. I moved to the side of the door, taking a moment to gather myself. I straightened my hair and uniform, took a deep breath and silently counted from three – two, one . . . push.

  It was as bad as I had feared. The hall door hinges hadn’t been oiled in the last century, so a loud screech as good as announced my entrance. If that wasn’t enough for all eyes to shift to me, then Mr Fitzgibbons breaking off mid-speech and craning his head around towards me standing in the doorway sure was. His happy demeanour went down a few notches and I half expected him to scream ‘Release the hounds’ at the sight of the new girl rocking up late on her first day at school.

  I smiled apologetically, keeping my eyes somewhat averted from Mr Fitzgibbons as I quickly made my way along the edge of the main hall. The sound of my new school shoes squeaking painfully loudly was the only thing that – mortifyingly – broke the stony silence of the room. You could seriously have heard a pin drop as the entire school watched me take each agonising step. Squeak, squeak, squeak.

  I wanted to die.

  Even more so as I made a long line towards a path that would have me basically skimming past Luke Ballantine. I glanced up briefly to see his deep-set eyes glinting with amusement as I neared the first section of Kirkland.

  The squeaking seemed less of an issue now that the murmurs had started among the stands. A rowdiness of chatter and laughter swept through the building and I didn’t know whether I should be relieved at the fact, knowing that most of it was directed at me. I dropped my eyes to my feet as I walked past Ballantine; I could feel his eyes on me more heavily than anyone else’s, mainly because he had caught me spying on him. That had made my cheeks flush before any kind of embarrassment I was facing now. Mercifully Gilmore was the second section so I quickly swung into the aisle and made my way up the steps. Passing comments were not lost on me, no matter how hard I tried to block them out.

  ‘Stupid bitch.’

  ‘Who the hell is she?’

  ‘Fresh meat, bro.’

  ‘I think she’s the foreign-exchange student.’

  ‘Another Gilmore nerd.’

  It was the longest walk of my life; my sole focus was to not let it get to me, to carry on, take my seat and cry later. Wow, it wasn’t even nine-thirty and I already wanted to burst into tears; definitely some kind of record.

  ‘All right settle down, everyone,’ Mr Fitzgibbons snapped, his angry voice echoing in the grand space. ‘I said, settle down,’ he repeated, his eyes darting their warning beams across the stadium. It took a few sweeping glares by neighbouring teachers to finally regain silence, and just when I thought I had done pretty well, my eyes lifted to the right, locking with the big blue eyes of Amanda. To my surprise she didn’t look smug, or disgusted. I could have sworn I saw a glimmer of another emotion, one I couldn’t quite put my finger on and just as I was trying to identify it, she tore her eyes from my gaze, faced forward and slammed down the stony guard I had come to know so well over the past few days.

  There was no-one else on my row aside from a boy who my mum would have referred to as big-boned, but I would say he was just massive in every which way. At least six feet tall with legs the size of tree trunks, he had a rather interestingly large head that was topped by an enormous mop of curly hair. He snacked lazily on a Mars Bar, paying me no mind until he realised I was watching him, but not in the way I had been watching Luke Ballantine.

  ‘First day?’ he whispered.

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  He shrugged. ‘Everyone knows if you’re late for assembly then you come through the back door.’

  ‘There’s a back door?’

  ‘Under the stairs.’

  Crap.

  ‘Oh well, next time,’ he said, crumpling up the empty wrapper and letting it fall under the seat.

  There won’t be a next time.

  ‘Shhhhh!’

  A teacher who stood in the aisle half-a-dozen steps down glared in our general direction, not entirely figuring out the guilty party. I took the warning though, thinking I was in enough trouble as it was without drawing further attention to myself. Mr Fitzgibbons was raving on about school spirit and God knows what else; all I could think about was how I fancied a Mars Bar. I brushed out the lines of the fabric on my uniform in my lap, wondering when the assembly would be over and I could just get my first class underway, trying to visualise where the building for my first class was. My eyes lifted, wandering around the tops of the heads of what was the entire school, sweeping across to lock once again with a familiar set of eyes, brown and burning right into me. The only difference was this time I had caught Luke Ballantine staring at me, and, unlike me, he didn’t look away; he didn’t blush or duck. He looked at me, without apology, the only thing breaking his attention was the sudden burst of cheering from the stands.

  I flinched, blinking back into my skin and wondering what had been so interesting in Mr Fitzgibbons’ speech that could possibly get such a reaction. I turned to Mars Bar boy next to me, who appeared to be less than thrilled. He groaned, rubbing his thick, sausage-like fingers through his afro.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked above the hoots and the hollers.

  He sighed wearily. ‘Swimming carnival results.’

  ‘Oh.’ And just like that my heart sunk. Red Hill didn’t exactly do many sporting activities; instead, our idea of grand water-sports was running under the sprinkler in the summertime, or going for a dunk in our dam.

  I started to think that me and Mars Bar boy were kindred spirits, sitting up the back like the pair of misfits we were. I looked across to find Luke Ballantine was no longer standing down the front. Long before Mr Fitzgibbons called the assembly to a close, he had disappeared, and I smiled to myself thinking he had probably gone out the back door.

  Chapter Eight

  So I had not only made an acquaintance, but somehow had inherited a tour guide.

  And it was absolutely welcome. Mars Bar boy (or Ben I think he said his name was) walked me to the locker room, to my locker, waited patiently, and then showed me to my first class. He was a good foot taller than me and when we walked down the corridor people moved; I wouldn’t have to worry about nasty Year Sevens. Sure, people looked, but we kind of were the odd couple.

  ‘This is 11F,’ he said, stopping before an open sliding door.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, suddenly feeling the same pull of anxiety twist in my stomach at the thought of being left on my own again.

  ‘No worries. See you around.’

  Mars Bar boy continued on not so much walking as loping down the corridor. My eyes shifted down to my piece of paper: 11F Biology+. Great! My first class would be an accelerated one – thrown in the deep end with the Year Twelves. Us
ing the same tactic as in assembly, I made my way through the classroom, eyes down, only lifting them enough to locate a seat right down the back so no-one could stare at the back of my head, and there was less chance of a missile being launched at me as a few boys were playing cricket across the room with a ruler and ball of paper.

  The room was lined with long tables that could each sit half-a-dozen in a row. In my head, I had thought we would be seated two by two at desks where we lifted a lid and retrieved our books, but then I realised this was not TV. This was not Degrassi High and, much to my disappointment, there was no Joey Jeremiah sitting next to me down the back.

  Even my locker, which I had fantasised about hanging pictures and posters in, that I thought I would open while chatting to my new BFFs either side of me, was just a tiny box you could barely wedge your bag into. There was someone above me and two below making it an awkward balance of either getting hit in the head by a door or hitting someone in the head with mine. It was a hot mess come the rush of the bell and bitterly disappointing. In fact, everything about my experience to date had been an absolute disaster, one that didn’t seem to be getting any better anytime soon as I sensed someone stand by my side.

  ‘You’re in my seat.’

  I blinked twice. Looking up to see the very tall, and very frowny Ballantine. Long gone was the amused glimmer in his eyes and the boyish dimple that appeared when he smiled. Instead he looked down at me as if I was something that he had stepped in; did he not remember me from the other night? That I was the girl who made him laugh, the one he enjoyed watching squirm under the scrutiny of the entire school? But his gaze held no recollection, not an ounce; just like the rest of the school I was merely another face in the crowd that he had to dodge in the hall. I probably would have jumped and scurried out of his way, apologising profusely, but it was nearly ten and I was a little over the self-righteous smarminess that this city had to offer. I may have been from Red Hole but at least we had the common decency to treat each other with a bit of respect. Even my drunken Uncle Eddie was more friendly to a dog tied up outside the pub than anyone I had stumbled across in the last few days, including my own cousin. Maybe it was something in the water? Maybe the salty sea air robbed people of their sense of humour?

  I heard the scraping of a chair against the wood floor nearby. ‘Look out, mate, she’ll tell you where to go.’

  My eyes shifted to the familiar face of the boy who had helped Amanda out the window, who had taken a seat one away from me; he winked at me, all the while taking in the scene with a wide smile.

  Ballantine didn’t move. He stood next to my chair looking tall and intimidating, especially from my vantage point. I honestly didn’t see what the big problem was, there was actually a spare seat next to me. By now we were attracting some attention. People were elbowing each other and spinning around to witness the showdown. They might as well have taken out buckets of popcorn and put on 3D glasses, they were enjoying the show so much.

  I had two choices: move and live to fight another day, or hold my ground, stamp my authority and run the risk of my head being flushed at recess. For some inexplicable reason, which I will never, ever truly understand, I chose the latter.

  I simply broke from his heated gaze, and shifted my body to sit forward, clasping my hands innocently together over my books, like a choir girl with a halo above her head.

  I heard the titters and a catcall instantly, Ballantine’s friend wailing, ‘Oh no, she d’int!’, as if he was some kind of guest on the Ricki Lake Show or something. The mocking reactions and the lunacy filled the classroom as everyone caught on to my act of defiance, or more alarmingly, Ballantine’s humiliation.

  It wasn’t too dissimilar to the way I had stood up to Amanda the other night. The major difference was that then Ballantine had been laughing at my reaction, and he was most certainly not laughing now.

  I tried not to be alarmed by the stony, angry statue standing next to me, imagining him sliding all my books off the table and getting in my grill – was that the saying in the city? I doubted it. Instead, I was saved by the glorious intervention of the teacher.

  ‘All right, everyone settle down.’ A small, moustached man entered the room carrying a stack of books, managing to juggle them and not spill his coffee as he shut the door in a rather fluid motion. ‘Come on, everyone, pipe down. Boon, legs off the table, Ballantine, bum on seat.’

  In my peripheral vision I saw Ballantine’s mate take his feet off the table; Boon, I made a mental note. It took another less-than-patient request from the teacher for Ballantine to rather violently yank out the spare seat and sit down next to me. He was so close our knees were nearly touching. I could feel the anger rolling off him, and the heat of his body burn next to me. I dared not look; it was going to be a long, long fifty minutes. I doodled a circle around and around on a corner of my exercise book.

  A hand raised in the row in front. ‘Mr Branson, can I go to the toilet?’

  My pen stilled. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled as a bone-jarring dread swept through me.

  Mr Branson?

  I slowly shifted the crinkled paper I had slipped inside my Biology book and smoothed it out: Biology – Mr Cranford.

  My eyes widened, the sound of Mr Branson’s voice became muffled, the whole world seemed to slow right down. I could feel a light sheen of sweat form against my skin, my hands clammy as the beat of my heart thrummed dangerously fast. I had no choice but to slowly and subtly shift my eyes sideways, peering at Ballantine’s textbook.

  His History book.

  Oh. My. God.

  I was in the wrong class.

  Chapter Nine

  How to lose friends and irritate people in less than an hour, by Lexie Atkinson.

  I had gone from badass new girl facing off against Ballantine and asserting my authority, to quickly and rather mortifyingly grabbing my Biology book and scurrying towards the teacher, apologising in my lowest voice that I was in the wrong room before walking briskly out the door with not so much as a backwards glance.

  Mars Bar boy, bless his soul, had actually walked me to the wrong room; an honest mistake, no doubt, but it didn’t make me feel less like throwing myself down the stairs. Maybe breaking my leg and being taken to the sick bay with a doctor’s certificate that insisted on weeks of rest, in my own room that is – no distractions, no disrupted sleep, no filthy looks by bullying cousins. Just me, room service and watching reruns of John Stamos in Full House; it sounded so tempting. Instead, what little confidence I had left was knocked out of me as I once again found myself slinking into a doorway, late, disrupting the class and earning myself the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

  After Biology, I glanced at my timetable. My next class would be easier; it was a non-accelerated class, so it would be less intimidating, right?

  Wrong!

  Miss Smith, our Health teacher, actually wanted me to stand up and introduce myself, like I was in some kind of therapy group.

  Hi, I’m Lexie and I am an alcoholic.

  ‘I’m Lexie from Red Hill.’ I managed, sitting down quickly.

  ‘Hello, sexy Lexie!’ a boy in the back called out.

  ‘That’s quite enough, Tommy; one more outcry from you and you will be going on a little holiday.’

  Tommy straightened with interest. ‘Oh really, Miss? That sounds nice, where am I off to?’

  ‘Sit down,’ she warned. ‘Right. Welcome, Lexie.’ She smiled before turning to the whiteboard and beginning the class.

  Miss Smith used the better half of the session writing directly from her textbook onto the whiteboard, which in turn we had to copy into our exercise books. It was her attempt at keeping us quiet for a bit and it was pretty effective; well, except for the girl next to me.

  ‘I’m Laura,’ she said out of the blue.

  My eyes shifted from the board in surprise. ‘Oh, hey. Lexie.’

  ‘I know.’ She nodded.

  Well, this was going well.

 
; ‘Have you been in Paradise long?’

  It was the first authentic question I’d been asked, and judging by her earnest expression she actually seemed to genuinely want to know the answer. It took me a moment to think, to voice the words.

  ‘We arrived on Friday.’

  ‘We?’ Another question. Wow. An actual conversation was unfolding right in between copying off the whiteboard; I was pretty certain Miss Smith was conducting some kind of plagiarism. Still, it made the time go faster, or maybe it was due to the real-life human connection I was finally having. I tried to play down my excitement, tried not to answer her questions so eagerly and talk for too long, but I couldn’t help it, it had opened the floodgates and before we knew it we were chatting away like long-lost friends.

  Laura had to catch the bus from the western suburbs, which was a half-hour ride to school and back each day. She wished she lived nearer to the beach because when it came to parties and such, that’s where all the action was.

  At recess, Laura and I lined up in the longest canteen line I had ever seen. Seriously, it was like we were queueing for a Coldplay concert or something.

  I wasn’t tall by anyone’s standards, but Laura was actually smaller than me. She had tanned skin, which was not an uncommon thing in Paradise, but it was very unlike my own. I made a note to purchase some fake tan ASAP. She had dark hair and dark eyes: Greek or Italian heritage, maybe?

  ‘The Gilmore house is where all the smart people get sent; it’s a common fact that that’s the case.’ Laura continued her tuition.

  ‘Oh, and that wouldn’t be because you and I happen to be Gilmore, by any chance?’ I mused.

  ‘No, for real. As a rule, they put the majority of the academics in Gilmore; the houses are more than just colour-coded division, it’s a class system.’

  I thought about that, catching sight of Mars Bar boy loping across the asphalt yard in the distance, feasting on a meat pie.