Smart Girls Don't Wear Mascara

by Cecily Paterson

  And then I understood.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ The director’s voice over the speaker was slightly panicked. ‘We do apologise for the interruption. Please bear with us until we can get some medical help.’

  I swung around just in time to see someone—a child—being carried from the choir seats, off the stage and onto the auditorium floor. A crowd had gathered and I saw someone—an adult—pushing through the seats and people, saying fiercely, ‘I’m a doctor! Let me in.’

  And then, rushing from the seats, across the stage and down towards the crowd, was Buzz, her face tearful and panicked.

  ‘I’m her friend. Let me in too.’

  ‘Buzz,’ I shouted, running after her. ‘What happened? Is Jessie okay?’

  She turned towards me and I was shocked by the black streaks of mascara smudging her cheeks.

  ‘It’s not Jessie,’ she cried. ‘It’s Stella. She collapsed.’

  Chapter 23

  The panic in Buzz’s face was exactly the same as the time we all went bike riding on Jessie’s farm in Year Three and Jessie fell off her bike, cut her face on the gravel and bled so much that the top of her shirt went red. Buzz was a mess that day. She cried way longer than Jessie did and then tried to say she didn’t. I’d reacted differently. As soon as I had seen Jessie fall, I knew it hadn’t been a regular tumble. I was straight off my bike and kneeling in the dust beside her. It was my hoodie that had been ripped up to make a bandage and it was me who’d held it to Jessie’s lip to stop the worst part of the bleeding.

  ‘Do you think she’s okay?’ was what Buzz had asked 50 times over that day, and it was the same question she was asking me now, over and over, despite the fact she’d hardly talked to me for weeks. ‘Do you think she’s okay?’ she repeated wildly, falling into my arms for a hug. ‘She just fell over. Like, right onto the ground. I couldn’t even stop her.’ Her voice cracked up and I could feel my shoulder getting damp. ‘D’you think she’ll be alright?’

  I grabbed her by the arms and looked her firmly in the face. ‘Buzz, I’m here. It’s going to be okay,’ I said. ‘Stella will be alright. She probably just fainted.’

  Buzz sobbed again. ‘But what if it’s serious?’

  I patted her hair, all stiff with hairspray and quivering like a wobbly hat. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got you. She’ll be alright. See? The ambulance people are here.’

  Buzz peered over my shoulder where she could see the ambulance pulling right up to the big side door of the hall. The crowd around Stella parted to let in a blue-uniformed man and then a woman, carrying a black bag. From the audience, still in their seats, I could hear a low buzz of voices. Some at the front were craning their necks to try to get a better view of the action. Buzz pointed at a stretcher on wheels, waiting outside the door, and burst into tears again.

  ‘You have to calm down.’ I said. ‘The paramedics know what they’re doing. Don’t worry. Stella will probably have the day off tomorrow and then we’ll see her next Monday and she’ll be just fine. You’ll see.’

  ‘Can you take me closer to her?’ sniffled Buzz. ‘I want to check that she’s okay. She’s my best friend. They’ll have to let me through.’

  I nearly coughed from surprise at the ‘best friend’ bit, but then decided to ignore it. Buzz was clearly hysterical. When she was upset after Jessie’s bike accident, she hadn’t remembered anything she’d said, not even the bits about Jessie’s face being ruined forever, or her wanting to run home immediately. This was obviously the same kind of thing.

  ‘Okay. I’ll take you through,’ I said. ‘But it might be squashy.’

  I grabbed her hand and guided her behind me as I elbowed through the crowd.

  ‘Can you see?’ panted Buzz, behind me. ‘Can you get through?’

  I pushed even harder and with some ‘excuse me’s and a fair bit of shuffling, I managed to get right to the front of the group gathered around Stella. She was lying on the ground with a teacher’s jacket draped over her and a few adults kneeling next to her.

  ‘Is she okay?’ said Buzz, her voice cracking all over again. ‘Is she going to live?’

  I dragged Buzz so she was beside me, ignoring the annoyed snorts from the people getting squashed next to us. I put my arm around her shoulders. ‘See? There she is.’

  This time her tears fell directly onto my arm.

  ‘She’s pale! She’s going to die!’ wept Buzz. I looked a little closer. It was true. Even with her makeup on, Stella did seem very pale. And the paramedics did seem to be concentrating very hard on something with tubes and what looked like a gas tank. I pulled Buzz tighter into me. ‘No matter what happens, I’ll be there for you,’ I whispered to her.

  She clung to my hand so tightly that her nails nearly dug chunks out of my hand. ‘Oh, Abby. You’ll always be my best, best friend,’ she choked, and a warm feeling rose from my toes, through to my fingers, right up to my head.

  ‘I knew we were still Smart Girls,’ I whispered, before I even knew what I was saying.

  ‘What?’ said Buzz.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. But it wasn’t nothing. Buzz’s words were everything, and my feet were almost floating off the floor. I watched the paramedics use their equipment on Stella, and then go get the stretcher, but it was like watching it through fog, or on TV, because it hardly seemed real.

  I snapped back to life when Buzz gripped my arm tight once more. The paramedics had picked Stella up and loaded her onto the stretcher.

  ‘I need to say goodbye,’ she said fiercely in my ear. ‘Get me there.’

  I stepped over the ambos’ black medical bag and pulled Buzz with me, right up to the edge of the stretcher.

  ‘Stella,’ moaned Buzz. ‘Are you going to be okay? Don’t die.’

  Stella’s eyes were closed; her face still pale and her head rolling about a little. Buzz whimpered and buried her face in my shoulder. This time her tears were flowing so fast I could feel them running down my arm, where they’d gone through my shirt.

  I put my arm around Buzz to support her. Her face was snuffling into my shoulder and her eyes were closed, and as I went to pull her away from the whole disaster, I took one last look back at the ambulance.

  There was Stella, strapped into the stretcher, with the paramedics pulling her up into the cabin. This time, though, her eyes were open and she was looking straight at me.

  And then I saw it. It was unmissable.

  Stella winked.

  It was a wink meant for me.

  Straight away my mouth dropped open while my brain tried to work it out.

  Did that happen?

  I ran through it again in my mind. It was a one-eyed wink, not a blink. It was deliberate. I knew that because Stella lifted her head off the pillow just a little bit. Also, I knew it was deliberate because Stella couldn’t hold her face straight when she winked; she had to screw up her cheek a little bit.

  Was she being funny?

  Some winks were cheeky, like when Dad said something funny to Mum and he winked at me to let me know it’s a joke between us.

  But some winks were mean. And this one was definitely mean.

  The millisecond after Stella opened her eyes and winked at me, she closed them again and lolled her head back on the pillow. My feet turned to raging balls of fire, and I whirled around in indignation.

  ‘Did anyone else see that?’ I asked to no one in particular. ‘Did you see what she did?’ But no one answered me. The crowd was pressing forward towards the ambulance, the hubbub from the audience still in their seats growing louder and I could see the teachers trying to get people to settle down.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ came a voice through the microphone. ‘You’ll be pleased to know that the child in question is safe. She fainted and has now been taken care of. Any performers still on the floor and audience members, please take their seats. We ha
ve one last song to sing.’

  My head was a daze. I took Buzz back to the stairs to her seat and walked carefully to my own, but I couldn’t concentrate. I hardly sang any of the last song at all. I mouthed the words but pushing air out of my lungs and all the way up through my throat seemed too much effort. And then, in the car on the way home, with my breath making mist on the window, I could hardly talk.

  ‘You were great, sweetheart,’ said Mum.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said.

  Chapter 24

  I didn’t sleep. And if I did, it was all nightmares of things winking at me. When Ziggy finally jumped on my bed and started licking my face, it was a relief to get up.

  Until I thought about school.

  Blurgh.

  ‘You okay?’ said Dad, poking an eye up from behind the paper.

  ‘Fine.’ But I wasn’t. I was dreading getting off the bus, dreading seeing Buzz and, most of all, dreading seeing Stella.

  Wink, wink.

  Why?

  There were no answers until recess, when Stella finally arrived late, walking up the path gingerly and carrying her bag delicately, like she had suddenly become a tinier, more fragile version of herself.

  ‘Ohhhhhh,’ screeched Buzz, jumping up from the seat next to me and running towards Stella. Jessie followed along, her arms out for a hug.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Did you have to go to hospital?’

  ‘Oh, you guys!’ said Stella. She stopped on the path to put her bag down and take a few breaths. ‘I missed you so much!’

  ‘We missed you too,’ cooed Buzz, picking up Stella’s bag and carrying it for her.

  ‘We were so worried,’ said Jessie. ‘What actually happened? Do you even know?’

  Stella laughed, a tinkly little giggle. ‘Let me sit down. I’ll totally tell you everything.’

  Buzz led the way towards the seats and pushed Alex and Ollie out to make room for Stella. ‘Spill.’

  Stella settled herself, shook her hair out and breathed in two deep breaths, like she was trying not to faint.

  ‘So apparently I just fainted,’ she said. ‘Like, everything was totally normal all day, but then I forgot to eat dinner before the concert, and they said my blood sugar just went up. Or down. I forget which. Anyway, because of not eating and because I was stressed about the songs, the doctor said that it was just all too much for my system, and I collapsed.’

  Jessie let out a sharp breath. ‘Oh, wow! I’m so glad I didn’t forget to have my dinner. Imagine if we’d both fainted. Buzz would have had to go to hospital too, just to look after us. She would have been so worried.’

  Buzz rolled her eyes at Jessie. ‘You wouldn’t have fainted. And anyway, I was fine.’ She turned to Stella. ‘I knew you’d be alright.’

  I raised my eyebrows and opened my mouth, but Ollie jumped in. ‘Did you spew? Did you chuck, like, in the hospital?’

  ‘Eww, gross,’ said Stella. ‘You’re disgusting.’ She flicked her hair. ‘But I did feel kind of sick, you know, in my stomach. But maybe that was just from choir night anyway.’

  I felt a cold murmur run over my body. ‘What do you mean?’

  She shrugged. ‘Well, I mean, it’s not exactly the best night of all time, is it?’ She mopped at her forehead with a tissue. ‘I mean, all that singing. And those songs! Show tunes are lame.’

  Buzz made a face. ‘I know, right? I hate choir night. I never realised how babyish it is until this year. Like, we’re nearly teenagers now. We should be singing songs more relevant to us.’

  ‘Or just not singing at all,’ said Stella. ‘I mean, it’s kind of insulting to put us in a choir with all the little kids.’ Stella batted her eyelashes. ‘I know some people are probably saying that when I fainted it kind of wrecked the whole choir night, but let’s be honest, the audience was probably pleased that it gave them something else to look at, with the ambulance coming and everything. I mean, the whole thing was totally boring anyway.’

  ‘It wasn’t,’ I said. The words blurted themselves out of my mouth before I even knew what I was doing.

  Stella turned to look at me. ‘Wasn’t what?’

  ‘The night. It wasn’t boring.’

  She raised her eyebrows like, You have got to be kidding. ‘It totally was. I was feeling bored for the audience, just thinking about them having to sit through it.’ She laughed over her shoulder towards Buzz, who gave her a high-five.

  I stood up. Again, not because I chose to, but because my legs made me do it. There was a fire burning in them that seemed to be taking control of my muscles.

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘I’m wrong?’

  ‘Abby, sit down,’ came Jessie’s murmur somewhere to the side of me, but I wasn’t listening.

  ‘I won’t sit down. Stella, you’re wrong about choir night. It’s not boring. It’s great. Everyone seems to know that except for you. These guys’—and I gestured around to everyone sitting at the seats—‘these guys are only pretending to agree with you because for some dumb reason they want to look cool.’

  I took a breath. ‘And it would have been really, really great, if you hadn’t decided to faint.’

  Buzz stepped in. She looked angry. ‘She didn’t decide to faint. You can’t decide whether you’re going to faint or not. You just do.’

  There was a moment in my head where my brain said, Are you going to continue? I’m not sure this is so smart. I could almost hear the discussion.

  Brain: No.

  Heart: Definitely!

  Brain: You might regret this.

  Heart: Heck, yeah. I’m gonna do it anyway.

  My mouth opened. It said this. ‘Stella decided to faint. She faked it.’

  In the two seconds it took for anyone to reply to me after the general gasp of shock, I looked around at my classmates’ faces. Jessie was falling off her chair, Buzz was red-faced and angry, Ollie’s face was hopeful and Sam looked resigned. Stella was the only one whose face didn’t show me exactly what she was thinking.

  ‘What did you say?’ she said, stony and hard.

  I spelt it out. ‘You deliberately pretended to faint.’

  ‘That’s really rude.’ She opened her eyes wide at me.

  ‘You have to prove it,’ said Buzz, moving closer to Stella. ‘We both saw her on the ground. She looked terrible.’

  I kept my eyes trained steadfastly on Stella. ‘I saw you wink at me. Deliberately. It was a wink. From the ambulance stretcher.’

  Stella laughed. ‘Wink? I could hardly even talk. I didn’t know what was going on. I felt as sick as a dog.’

  ‘Stop, Abby,’ said Jessie, pleading from behind me.

  But I kept going. I’d come too far, and I had too far to go. My heart had started this and now my brain was getting in on the act, hearing her lies. ‘Stella, you’re a good actress. You pretended to faint.’

  She looked hurt, but I knew she was putting it on. ‘Why would I even want to do that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. My voice was getting louder and I was feeling angrier. ‘Maybe to draw more attention to yourself—as if you need any more already. Maybe to just say, “I can do whatever I want.” You’ve ruined everything at this school.’

  ‘What have I ruined?’ she cried. ‘Name one thing. I dare you.’ Her face was still stony and her eyes were cold, like she still didn’t care. It made me madder than ever.

  ‘You ruined my performance.’

  The words came out before I knew what they’d be. They echoed on the concrete of the playground and I was shocked. And then I shrugged. It was the truth and as my mum said, ‘The truth comes out.’ I might as well be honest. If I said what I was really thinking, my friends would have to agree.

  But they didn’t. Buzz rolled her eyes, and then sh
e stood up too. ‘It’s always about you, Abby, isn’t it? It’s always you singing and you being first and you deciding for everyone. You just can’t handle anyone else having opinions except you.’

  My mouth opened slightly. My own friend was standing up against me? I spoke more quietly, almost urgently. ‘Buzz, you said last night I’d always be your best, best friend. What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m sticking up for Stella, that’s what I’m doing. I’ve been your best friend for a long time. But you can’t go around accusing people of lying and ruining things. Especially not when they’ve just been sick.’

  Stella wiped her face with her tissue. ‘I don’t feel so well, Bianca,’ she said, and she lolled her head around at the back of the seat.

  I saw it. And then all I could see was Stella in the ambulance, lolling her head around the pillow.

  And winking.

  Wink, wink.

  I lost it.

  ‘You have ruined everything, Stella. Ever since you walked in here, you’ve done nothing but wreck things.’ My voice was tight. I felt like screaming but I had a handle on it. ‘You’ve come here and taken over this school, even though you think it’s stupid and lame. You’ve stolen my friends. We were unbreakable. We’re the Smart Girls—Buzz, Jessie and I.’ I was screaming now. There were no handles. ‘And we don’t wear mascara.’

  I took a breath and steadied myself.

  I stopped and there was silence. Around me, the boys’ faces were wide-eyed. In front of me, Jessie’s eyes were filling with tears and Buzz’s mouth was open. All eyes were on me. All eyes, except for Stella’s. Hers were off to the side, not looking at me at all.

  I waited.

  ‘Are you going to say anything to me?’ I asked, triumphant. Maybe this was the time she’d finally listen, finally learn her lesson.

  She looked back at me. Her eyes were slits and her voice was small and flinty.

  ‘You think you can hurt me, Abby Smart.’ She held up her fingers like quote marks. ‘But you’re not that smart. You never have been. Just because you’re good at spelling and maths, doesn’t make you really smart. Or a nice person, either. Just because everyone’s always done what you’ve wanted, doesn’t mean they’re going to keep doing it.’ She flicked her hair around and made a face.