How to Convince a Boy to Kiss You

by Tara Eglington

  I held my breath. Thankfully Jemima laughed and hit him with her helmet. Jeffrey pretended to duck for cover.

  ‘I’m serious! I’ve been working out in preparation. Lots of squats.’

  Objective achieved, I returned to Jelena. She was looking very unimpressed.

  ‘I’m going to have to talk to Sara,’ she said. ‘Johannes virtually stampeded over to volunteer as her partner, but she won’t say a word to him. She obviously considers “enthusiastic participation” as simply turning up. Are you pairing up with Hayden?’

  I looked around for him. He was assisting Scott and Cassie with their gear. I gave him a wave and he headed over.

  ‘Hey, want to be my buddy?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s exactly what I wanted to ask you the second Rudy said we had to pair up,’ Hayden said. ‘But Mr Quinten wants me to supervise Jesse Cook — he’s trying to separate him from Travis. He thinks they’ll be swinging from rope to rope like Tarzan if we don’t keep them on a short leash.’

  I tried not to pout even though I knew Hayden couldn’t help it. It wasn’t like he could say no to Mr Quinten’s orders.

  ‘I had no idea this trip was going to be so busy for you,’ I said.

  ‘It’s jam-packed for Aurora too,’ Jelena said to Hayden. ‘She’s on matchmaker duties, so she’d better get stuck into it.’

  She yanked me away from Hayden and back towards Jeffrey and Jemima.

  ‘What was that about?’ I asked her.

  ‘Hey, there’s nothing wrong with you being a woman in demand. If Hayden’s busy, you’re busy.’

  Did Jelena think I was being clingy? I’d been disappointed by the bus thing, and now being left without a buddy, but I’d tried not to show it. I kind of had a horror of showing I needed someone — neediness was a quality Mum had always found irritating.

  ‘Plus, we can be buddies now,’ Jelena added. ‘This way we can stay a hundred per cent focused on the matches.’

  ‘I don’t know how easy that’ll be while making our way across ropes strung twenty metres high,’ I said. I would do my best to be on constant Cupid duty, but we had to be realistic.

  Jelena looked up at the ropes and made a face. ‘We won’t be doing that stuff. I’m like co-captain of the camp so I’m going to ask Mr Quinten if we can stay on the ground and be spotters for any students in violation of the rules.’ She handed me a pair of binoculars. ‘I brought these so you can keep an eye on the matchmakees.’

  I took the binoculars and fixed them in the direction of the topmost ropes. They were high quality — I swear I could see every microfibre. I’d be able to see the matches’ every expression, whether lip curls of displeasure or twinkles in their eyes.

  ‘Aren’t they an invasion of privacy?’

  ‘Think of yourself as Venus, goddess of love, keeping an eagle eye on the mortals,’ Jelena said. ‘This is going to be a totally breezy experience.’

  ‘Jelena, the only thing breezy about this whole experience is the wind up here!’ I said, trying not to panic as I looked at the dizzying drop below. The rope I was walking along with very shaky steps was swaying from side to side. My hands, holding the line above me for balance, felt slick with sweat.

  ‘Stupid Rudy,’ Jelena muttered. She was just a couple of paces behind me. ‘“This course is all about participation. You can’t ask the group to challenge themselves if you’re not willing to take on the challenge yourself. You want to be the leader, then lead!”’ she said, mimicking Rudy’s response to her suggestion that we should be spotters. He’d also told Jelena that it was her responsibility to be first to climb the ropes, to set the example for the others.

  ‘He thinks he can give me instructions on how to be a leader,’ Jelena went on. ‘You know, if your dad hadn’t backed him up —’

  ‘He only did it because Ms DeForest was nudging him in the ribs,’ I cut in.

  ‘She probably wanted you out of the way so you couldn’t spoil her seduction plans. Your dad’s already ensnared. She’s just waiting for an opportune moment to enjoy her prey.’

  ‘Do we have to refer to my dad as “prey”?’ My voice was edgy and I stumbled slightly on my next step.

  ‘Aurora! You’re shaking the rope!’ Jelena’s voice became panicked. ‘I do not want to fall. Yes, I’m wearing a harness, but I don’t want all the boys below us witnessing the inevitable wedgie this thing will give me. Cut the shakes, stat!’

  Suddenly a glass-shattering scream sounded from below. Jelena and I both looked down to see what had happened and simultaneously lost our balance. As we fell, I felt like my stomach dropped faster than the rest of me. Thankfully the harnesses pulled us up within seconds. We sat, dangling midair, swinging above the groups at various stages below us.

  ‘Who designed these things?’ Jelena said, shaking her harness. ‘Ow, ow, ow!’

  ‘I wouldn’t play around with it. It’s the only thing between us and a long drop.’

  I tried to keep my breathing calm. I didn’t have a phobia about heights, but I wasn’t wild about them either. I could hear the line above us creaking.

  ‘Who screamed?’ I asked. I didn’t want to look down until my breathing steadied. I was already dizzy enough.

  Jelena scanned the ground. ‘Lindsay — she fell all of a metre off that first rope. Hunter seems to have caught her. It’s lucky Lindsay’s petite — he doesn’t exactly have a Herculean frame.’

  Benjamin’s voice drifted over to us. He and Chloe were making their way across the monkey-bar section parallel to us. ‘I think with Lady Anne you’ve really got to show the audience the emotional transition she goes through, from all-out loathing of Richard to agreeing to be his wife.’

  ‘How’s he managing to discuss theatre?’ I asked Jelena in a low voice. When we’d done that part of the course, we’d both been completely out of breath from trying to swing between the widely spaced bars.

  ‘He’s pretty fit,’ Jelena said, eyeing Benjamin’s muscles as he swung from rung to rung. ‘During the Much Ado rehearsals he told me he’d started working with a trainer to increase lung capacity so he could project his voice further.’

  ‘Well, it worked,’ I said, as words like ‘motivation’ and ‘Stanislavsky’ rang out through the trees.

  ‘Jeffrey’s guiding Jemima the whole way,’ Jelena reported. ‘I’m impressed.’

  Curiosity overruled fear and I reached for Jelena’s binoculars, which were round my neck. About ten metres below, Jeffrey was climbing the rungs of a tree ladder, coaxing a very nervous Jemima up behind him. After hauling himself onto the wooden platform, he extended a hand to help her up too. Jemima looked even more scared as she stared at the next obstacle — what had to be the world’s skinniest swing bridge. Jeffrey put his hands over her eyes jokingly and I watched her shoulders relax.

  ‘Nudie runs and crude comments aside, he’s actually kind of a gentleman,’ I said.

  ‘True. Okay, the sooner we finish this course, the sooner we escape this hell,’ Jelena said. ‘Let’s double-time it. Ready, let’s go.’

  ‘Travis Ela! You do not leave a buddy hanging!’ Mr Quinten’s enraged shout echoed through the trees.

  I looked over. Travis sat on a platform, swinging his legs and eating a muesli bar, while Mr Quinten dangled in his harness. Travis had pulled the rope out of his reach and he was stuck in no-man’s-land.

  CHAPTER 19

  By the time we headed back to camp, the sun was low in the sky.

  After climbing, crawling through suspended barrels and falling off the ropes more times than we’d ever thought possible, most of us resembled the war-wounded. Bruises dotted arms, scratches ran up and down calves, clothes were stained red with dirt and anyone not wearing long shorts had the equivalent of carpet-burnt knees. Even Jemima’s perfect pigtails were in disarray.

  Strangely enough, Sara was in super-high spirits as she, Jelena, Lindsay and I trudged along the rocky path. Cass and Scott, holding hands, were several paces ahead.

  ‘Ru
dy says that tomorrow’s courses are way more advanced. He can’t believe how fast I raced through the course today. He said it must be my gymnastics training that’s given me superior balance.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear anything more about Rudy.’ Lindsay looked completely drained. Four hours of facing her fears had taken their toll. ‘Thank god for Hunter. He barked at Rudy when he was pushing me to do the black course. I’d already challenged myself enough on the orange — I didn’t need Rudy making me feel like a complete failure just because I know my limits.’

  ‘Did you learn anything more about Hunter?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s quiet, but he can sure make a point. Rudy didn’t listen to my protests, but Hunter’s tone did the trick. Besides that, he’s got a rather black sense of humour, though I find it pretty funny. Seems like his childhood was a bit of a mess, but it’s given him a depth that most guys at Jefferson are lacking.’

  ‘So it’s clear why the system matched him up with Chloe,’ I said.

  Lindsay hesitated. ‘Yes. I think she’ll like him.’

  ‘Rudy says that I should think about doing some rock climbing, as I have the mental stamina for it,’ Sara said. ‘He suggested I could make my novel’s hero a rock climber. A loner whose glacier-like heart can only be melted by the right woman. Rudy mentioned I could —’

  ‘Okay, I’m finding it hard to understand why you’re talking non-stop about a ruddy-faced forty-year-old and barely mentioning Alexander Skarsgård’s doppelganger.’ Jelena made a crazy sign near Sara’s head. ‘You just spent four hours with Johannes. Don’t we hear one word of feedback?’

  Sara looked exasperated. ‘He couldn’t do the course properly because his pants were too tight. We had to keep stopping and it totally messed up my time.’

  ‘Sara, he’s from Sweden. His concept of camping could be totally different from ours,’ I suggested gently. ‘Maybe you’re being a little hard on him. Did you chat to him at least?’

  ‘He just kept asking me a million questions.’ Sara sighed and took a sip from her water bottle. ‘I don’t know why he’s trying to pry into my life.’

  ‘Whereas your dates in the past have been too stupid to construct sentences?’ Jelena replied. ‘Or so self-involved it’d never cross their mind to break off their monologue and ask you about yourself?’

  I gave Jelena a warning look. Criticising Sara’s former dates wasn’t going to endear her to her potential future one.

  ‘Sara, the questions are a good sign,’ I said. ‘Johannes is trying to get to know you as a person.’

  ‘I’m a writer and I want to be single — that’s all he needs to know. Yes, Jelena, I promised I’d be on board,’ Sara continued before Jelena could interrupt. ‘So I’ll happily cosy up to Johannes in a campaign video when we get back home. But I’m not playing faux footsies on this camp. All of this extreme sport stuff is great inspiration for my male lead and I want to focus on that.’

  ‘Must. Remove. Grime.’ Dinner was long over and Jelena stood in her bra and undies, scrubbing at herself with a washcloth and water from a bucket. She’d made her campaign team refill the bucket three times with fresh hot water, which they’d painstakingly boiled over the campfire.

  ‘It’s a lost cause, Jelena,’ Sara said, calmly reading on her bunk. Thankfully her massive lantern provided our whole cabin with more than enough light. Most of the other students only had torches. However, ninety per cent of them were sitting around the fire outside, laughing and roasting marshmallows, so it seemed they didn’t mind about their cabins being dimly lit.

  There was a sound outside the door.

  ‘Travis, if that’s you trying to peek in again, I swear I’ll sabotage your harness tomorrow!’ Jelena shrieked.

  ‘Jelena?’ It was Mr Quinten’s voice. ‘We’re playing charades by the fire now. And some of the students have pulled together some skits. We need you out here.’

  Jelena let out a whimper. ‘I only just washed my feet and now I have to go out there again?’

  ‘You’re camp leader,’ Sara said. ‘Just put on some ugg boots.’

  ‘They cost two hundred and fifty dollars.’ Jelena looked torn between the choice of dirt between her toes or ruined sheepskin.

  ‘Come on, Jelena.’ I grabbed my sweatshirt. ‘I better get out there too. I’m sure Benjamin’s raring to go with his and Chloe’s scene.’

  Jelena clenched her jaw with determination as she pulled on jeans, a deep blue sweatshirt and her ugg boots. ‘This camp will not be my Waterloo.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ I said, and put my arm round her as we headed out the door.

  I had to admit, there were some romantic aspects to camping. The fire crackled and the sky was an entire canvas of galaxies. It looked almost like an overdone backdrop.

  There were two groups on either side of the fire. One group, which included Benjamin and Chloe, were playing charades. The other group were playing Fluffy Bunnies, the age-old camp game where you try to fit as many marshmallows into your mouth as possible while saying ‘fluffy bunnies’. Amongst them I was amazed to see Jemima, standing next to a cheering Jeffrey, her tiny mouth stuffed to the brim with pink and white marshmallows.

  ‘Last one and you’ve started a new record!’ Jeffrey pumped the air with his fist.

  Jemima stuffed in one more marshmallow, successfully managed the phrase, then spat into a bucket. Jeffrey whooped and swept her up in his arms.

  ‘Victory lap!’ he shouted, and took off round the campsite.

  Ruby looked put out, I noticed. To have two girls going after Jeffrey was surely testament to the quality of the Chemistry Calculator as well as the creaky bridge experiment. Class clown to Casanova — it would have been unfathomable only days ago.

  ‘This trip’s really doing the trick matchmaking-wise,’ I said to Jelena as we sat down on a log.

  ‘You know, Caesar endured hedonistic activities for his people too,’ Jelena said with an arched eyebrow. ‘He hated the amphitheatre. He preferred to continue working while everyone else watched the gladiators. But he knew that by bearing the brutality and the stench of unwashed bodies, he’d win the people’s hearts. That’s what’s keeping me focused. You saw how stoked the sports guys were with this afternoon’s activities. They’ll be sure to spread the word to any of their friends who didn’t come along. My votes will increase tenfold!’

  ‘Aurora, we’re ready!’

  A confident-looking Benjamin and not-so-confident Chloe arrived at our side. I noticed he was holding her hand. Would they be cuddling by the campfire by tomorrow evening? All signs pointed to yes.

  ‘Jelena, do you want to announce them?’ I asked.

  Jelena stood up. ‘Attention, everyone!’ she shouted. ‘We’ve obviously had a fantastic day — am I right?’

  Cheers erupted from the students. The hearty dinner and cheery campfire had restored their energy levels.

  Hayden ducked over and sat down next to me on the log. He handed me a hot chocolate. ‘There’s only one person I want to watch Shakespeare with. It brings back good memories.’

  I took the cup from him, my heart warming along with my hands.

  ‘Just think, if we hadn’t been cast opposite each other, we’d probably have missed out on being friends,’ he went on.

  I looked at him. Friends? That’s all he considered us to be all of a sudden? Had something happened since he’d handed over that little blue box? Had he changed his mind? Feeling tears form in my eyes, I quickly looked up at the night sky, blinking them away before Hayden could notice. I wanted to get up, but I was frozen to the log. I felt that any movement would cause my composure to collapse.

  ‘Good, because I’m hoping to make this trip the first of many!’ Jelena continued. The campfire highlighted her bright eyes and beaming smile, a complete contrast to the grin-and-bear-it expression she’d been wearing only moments before. She certainly knew how to mask her emotions. ‘Remember, if you’re keen on white-water rafting, canyoning or abseiling, te
ll your friends to vote Jelena Cantrill!’

  There was another cheer.

  ‘Bring back the naked clam outfit!’ Travis yelled.

  There were whistles.

  ‘I won’t be removing clothes, but I will be giving them out!’ Jelena yelled back.

  She gestured to her campaign team, who were standing to one side. They reached into black cloth bags and began throwing T-shirts into the crowd. I caught one. The front of the shirt was emblazoned with There’s only one choice — Jelena Cantrill for School Captain! in artsy red script, above a photo of Jelena as Venus. I turned the shirt over. Bringing you the Find a Prince/Princess Program™, it read in pink on the back. Below were three hearts, holding a photo each of Tyler and Lindsay, Cassie and Scott, and Hayden and me.

  I couldn’t look at Hayden; I was too embarrassed. Especially as I was worrying whether he wanted to write ‘platonic’ above our photo in Texta.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have any boxers with your picture on them, do you?’ Travis called out to Jelena.

  ‘Ew!’ all the girls chorused.

  Jelena swiftly diverted the attention from Travis. ‘I now present you with two of our most talented classmates: Benjamin and Chloe performing a scene from Shakespeare’s Richard III!’

  Chloe stepped out into the firelight. She wore a paper crown and looked very apprehensive. Mr Quinten pushed four guys out to follow her — he’d obviously rounded up volunteers to pretend to carry the coffin of Lady Anne’s husband, who’d just been killed by Richard.

  Chloe stood in the firelight, not moving.

  ‘What, you’re scared of getting dramatic all of a sudden?’ someone yelled. ‘You’d think you’d be right at home with the fire!’

  There was laughter all round the campsite.

  ‘Give her some respect!’ I heard Hunter shout in Chloe’s defence.

  Wow. There was nothing like a man standing up for a woman’s honour. Hunter had earned serious points in my eyes.