CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
COPYRIGHT PAGE
Penelope Kingston wanted to be perfect. And most of the time she was good, sensible and calm. But nobody is perfect. Sometimes Penelope was bossy, angry and frustrated. It was like (and this is very weird) there were two Penelopes inside her. She was never sure which one was going to be stronger on any given day.
So even though she knew she wasn’t perfect, Penelope tried hard to be excellent at most things. After all, excellence was very nearly perfection.
Penelope sat on her carefully made bed in her very neat bedroom. She liked everything to be just so. It made her feel a bit panicky when her room was messy.
She liked all her old teddies to be facing the same direction – towards the window, where she secretly thought they enjoyed the view. She liked her pens and pencils (sharpened, of course) to be nice and straight, nibs up, in her favourite mug.
Her books were currently organised by size, but last month she had arranged them by colour. It all depended on her mood.
Once, Penelope had even arranged them from her most favourite to her least favourite. This had been quite difficult, though When We Were Very Young was absolutely and obviously number one and Robot Spies was absolutely and obviously last.
The rest of the house was usually too chaotic for Penelope’s liking. Her bedroom was where she could feel calm and happy.
Penelope picked up her iPhone and cradled it in her hand. She loved her phone so much – more than she thought she probably should. She scrolled across to the camera function, chose video and hit ‘record’, filming herself at arm’s length.
‘Hi!’ she began, rather breathlessly. ‘I’m Penelope Kingston and this is my bedroom!’
She reversed the focus of the camera and started to scan her room. She filmed the award certificates that were pinned up on her wall in perfect rows and then chose two to zoom in on. The first was a very special award called ‘The Watchful Eye’. Penelope had received it for taking good care of a year one girl who had fallen over in the playground. Mr Joseph had been on yard duty that day, but Penelope was the one who had spotted the emergency. She had taken the girl to the sick bay and even stayed to keep checking her bandages way after the nurse had said she could leave (though unfortunately all that information was not written on Penelope’s actual award). The second was an award for punctuality – Penelope had a perfect record for being on time to class.
Every Friday at assembly, Penelope’s school held an awards ceremony. Over the years, Penelope had earned thirty-six awards. (The next biggest award winner was Alison Cromwell, who only had twenty-one.) Of course, only some of the awards were on the wall. The rest were filed away in a special box with a lock and key, along with other important documents like Penelope’s birth certificate.
Penelope had decided that a video of her room would be the perfect introduction for the new girl. From the moment Ms Pike had announced that a new girl would be joining their class that week – and that her name was Brittany O’Brien – Penelope just knew that her life was about to change. Soon, everything would be perfect.
For starters, Brittany O’Brien was an elegant name, just like Penelope Kingston. Anyone with a name like Brittany O’Brien would most likely be aiming for excellence.
Secondly, it was absolutely time Penelope had a best friend. Everyone else in her class had one.
Whenever they had to get into pairs for activities or excursions, Penelope never knew who she would be paired with. And although she loved Ms Pike, she knew that being partners with the teacher meant that she was the odd one out.
She filmed her bookshelf, careful to show how neatly her books were ordered.
Next was the stand of jewellery she’d made, which Penelope sold at a street stall she held in front of her house each month.
Then she passed over a photo of her little half-sister Sienna wearing a tiara, absolutely the loveliest and most complicated piece of jewellery Penelope had ever created.
Giving away the tiara hadn’t been easy, and sometimes (only very occasionally) Penelope felt a pang of regret about it. But Penelope’s stepmother had told her Sienna loved it so much she even tried to wear it to bed.
That definitely helped the pangs. Of course, the tiara was too pointy to wear to bed. (Penelope had tried, too. It had made a dent in her forehead that stayed there the whole morning.)
Penelope scanned over a row of earrings, making a mental note to give one pair to Brittany, absolutely for free, once they became best friends.
Next, Penelope zoomed in on a picture of a Gemini symbol, the twins.
Some days Penelope might think she was going to do one thing – say, be really kind to her brother – and then end up doing something entirely different, like shouting at him to leave her alone.
This would be an excellent thing to discuss with Brittany O’Brien, once they became best friends.
Just as Penelope pondered this, her phone buzzed with a text message. Careful not to look, she immediately covered the screen with her right hand and used her left thumb to stop the video recording.
She sat on her bed, her phone turned over so she couldn’t cheat. Then she closed her eyes and ran through the possibilities. Who might have sent her a message?
It could be her mum, even though she was just downstairs. That had happened before, but it was normally when Penelope had her headphones on and couldn’t hear her mum yelling up the stairs.
It was also possible it was her brother, Harry. Sometimes he would send Penelope a text ordering her to go to the milk bar and buy him some lollies. Penelope had never – not even once – obeyed him, but Harry was a slow learner.
Actually, there was almost no chance it was Harry. Penelope could hear him playing on his computer – even though it was Sunday night and Harry probably hadn’t finished his homework or put his dirty clothes down the laundry chute. When he was playing World of Warcraft it took an absolute emergency to interrupt him. Perhaps a mass of actual assorted dragons flying though his bedroom window, breathing blazing fire down the back of Harry’s hairy neck would do it. Probably not.
It could be from her dad, but Sunday was his family day, so that was unlikely.
There were only two other people in the world who had Penelope’s phone number. Alison Cromwell (the girl with twenty-one awards) was the only other kid Penelope knew who had her own phone. She doubted it was Alison, though. Penelope had sent her three different messages – once inviting her to meet in the library to compare awards and twice to suggest a play date at Alison’s house – and she hadn’t received a single message back.
She was pretty sure Alison must have run out of credit.
Penelope opened her eyes, keeping the phone face down. She even liked looking at the back of it.
Harry had an iPhone too, but his had been given to him, just because he was starting high school. Penelope had earned hers.
Fifty-two per cent of the money had come from her jewellery stall. The other forty-eight per cent had come from her dad. Penelope sent him copies of all her school reports, and he gave her twenty dollars for every A she got. She wished school reports came every week. Then she would be rich.
Penelope picked up the phone and held it against her chest. Her best guess was that the message was from Grandpa George. She flipped it over. Her guess was correct.
; Penelope smiled. Grandpa’s messages were long, and sometimes a bit hard to understand, but this one truly did make sense.
Penelope could hardly wait for school tomorrow so she could get started on her latest project.
Project Best Friend.
Penelope awoke to the soothing harp sounds of the alarm on her phone. She changed into her school dress and made her bed carefully, so there wasn’t a single wrinkle.
She was just arranging two teddies on her pillow (side by side, but not quite touching) when Harry’s alarm sounded in the next room. Penelope breathed deeply, trying to block out the motorbike sounds. This was an important day in her life. She was determined to stay good, sensible and calm. Today had to be perfect.
Unfortunately, the kitchen was terribly messy, with all the dishes from last night’s dinner still out on the bench. Penelope opened the fridge and sniffed the carton of milk. It didn’t smell too bad, but she decided to play it safe, opting for wholegrain toast rather than cereal.
Penelope forced herself to pay no attention to Harry’s alarm, which was still buzzing at regular intervals. Ignoring an alarm, even if it did sound more like a mosquito than a motorbike at this distance, was extremely difficult. But, truly, Penelope had enough to do this morning preparing to meet Brittany O’Brien.
If Harry kept on pressing the snooze button, it shouldn’t be her problem.
As she waited for her toast, Penelope sent her dad a screenshot of her timetable for the week. It hadn’t changed much from last week, except that her Wednesday art session was being replaced by a music lesson. But Penelope liked her dad to have up-to-date details about her days. That way, when he thought about her, he would be able to picture her in the right place at the right time.
Penelope ate her toast sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen bench. She could see her reflection in the stainless-steel fridge. She tried to imagine she was seeing herself for the very first time. As though she were Brittany O’Brien.
She sat up very straight, trying to make herself look taller. Although her grandpa always said that good things came in small packages, Penelope was very impatient to have a proper growth spurt. Sitting up straight definitely helped.
The girl in the ref lection had a neat, dark brown bob. From the side, her nose was a little pointy, but from the front Penelope thought it looked rather nice.
Penelope made a mental note to face Brittany O’Brien front on.
After breakfast, Penelope packed her school lunch. She put in a wholemeal roll with cheese, an apple and a tub of yoghurt. She was pleased to see that (this time at least) her mum had bought everything she had put on the shopping list.
As she fastened the seals on her lunchbox, Penelope wondered about Brittany’s height and hair and nose. It might be nice to have a tall friend. Then again, it would be lovely to have a friend her own size.
Then another muffled motorbike/mosquito noise broke into Penelope’s thoughts, causing the image to fade. Penelope looked at the time on her phone. As annoying as Harry was sometimes, Penelope couldn’t stand the thought of him being late to school again. A few weeks earlier Harry had received a detention for being late, and had missed an important soccer game. He’d been very upset.
Penelope could not resist for one more second. She traipsed up the stairs. Then she pinched her nose to manage the pong of smelly socks and opened Harry’s bedroom door. Ignoring her brother’s groans, she pulled the doona right off him and put it over by the door. He’d have to get up to put it back on.
Next, Penelope went into her mum’s room.
‘Morning, Poss,’ Penelope’s mum greeted her.
Her mum was sitting on the edge of her wrinkly, unmade bed, pulling on her shoes. There was a messy tangle just under the surface of her hair. Penelope found a brush under the jumble of things on her mum’s dresser and pointed out the spot.
‘Thanks, love,’ her mum said. She gave the spot just three strokes of the brush, even though Penelope was sure it would need at least seven or eight to untangle the knot properly.
When her mum stood up, Penelope noticed that her shirt (which was mauve, and quite pretty) was missing the second button from the bottom.
Penelope tried extremely hard not to mention the button. In fact, she struggled for thirty-two seconds. For the first seventeen seconds she reminded herself that she needed to get to school early. She was helping out with a sausage sizzle at lunchtime, and wouldn’t be able to spend time with Brittany until that was finished. So she wanted to make sure she was the very first person Brittany O’Brien met today.
But then Penelope imagined her mum getting in trouble for her missing button.
Penelope fought the image for fifteen seconds before deciding that she had to warn her.
‘Mum,’ she said, pointing to the place where the button wasn’t, ‘you can’t possibly go to work like that.’
Her mum just smiled and tucked her shirt into her skirt.
‘Voila!’ she said, and threw out her hands as though the problem was solved. Which it obviously wasn’t.
Penelope could still tell there was a button missing. The shirt clearly separated towards the bottom. Besides, it could always come untucked during the day, and then everyone would see.
Penelope considered saying this. But her mum was already putting on her lipstick, humming as though nothing was wrong.
Penelope watched her for a moment. She sometimes felt like a totally different species to her mum and Harry. They hardly ever got stressed about anything. They didn’t understand Penelope’s feelings – not one tiny bit. And both of them had loads of friends.
That thought made Penelope even more stressed. She wondered if she had enough time to go into her room and use one of her top-secret calming techniques. Re-reading When We Were Very Young was usually extremely helpful. Her dad used to read aloud from the book, before he left and got a new family. And even though Penelope was (clearly) not very young any more, she still found the poems lovely and funny.
Drawing pictures or patterns was another excellent calming technique. (Though, some of her precious Derwents were getting small and stubby from being used over and over. Penelope had to stick a thick sponge under them in her favourite mug so they looked the same height.)
Penelope pulled out her phone to check the time. She was running far too late for a calming technique. If Brittany O’Brien came across Eliza or Alison first, she might get sidetracked and choose the wrong best friend.
The thought was unbearable.
‘I’ve got to go,’ Penelope told her mum.
‘OK,’ her mum replied. ‘And, Poss, please don’t worry about me and my shirt. I promise, we’ll both be fine.’
Penelope shrugged, because sometimes she just had to. Then she kissed her mum goodbye and was very patient during a hug that went for a full five seconds (cat and dog). Straight after that she rushed downstairs, grabbed her bag and walked extremely fast all the way to school.
The school grounds were deserted except for one lone figure on the basketball court.
‘Penny! Penny! Over here!’
Oscar Finley held up a basketball in the palm of one hand. The other hand was rolled up and pressed to his lips like a megaphone.
‘Penny!’ he repeated.
Penelope marched across the basketball court. Oscar Finley was one of those kids who just seemed to pop up everywhere. And wherever he popped up, he did something to get on Penelope’s nerves. If Brittany O’Brien arrived at school right this moment, she might actually think Penelope’s name was Penny! She had asked Oscar several times not to shorten her name, but it seemed she would have to ask him again. Clearly, Oscar Finley was a slow learner.
As Penelope marched, she felt the good, sensible, calm Penelope being taken over by the BOSSY, ANGRY, FRUSTRATED ONE.
She was going to give Oscar a very good talking to. But as she walked, Penelope recalled that Oscar Finley had voted for her to be Class Captain. He told her he’d voted for her. Ms Pike hadn’t revealed the actual
scores, but Penelope (who was very good at figuring things out) suspected that she had only won two votes – hers and Oscar’s. Everyone else would have voted for Eliza Chung.
By the time she reached Oscar, Penelope had calmed down.
‘Oscar,’ she said patiently, ‘please can you remember to call me by my full name?’
‘Sure,’ Oscar said. He didn’t seem to understand how serious she was, but Penelope didn’t have time to comment. Oscar seemed to be all around her at once, dribbling the ball and switching it from hand to hand.
‘Defend me,’ he urged, ‘then I’ll try to make a fast break.’
Penelope wasn’t certain she knew how to defend, but she supposed she could do this favour for Oscar. The basketball court was a good place to keep an eye out for Brittany O’Brien. And besides, it would be good to look busy when Brittany arrived. Penelope stepped in front of Oscar and stuck her hands up in the air.
Oscar circled her, bouncing madly. Penelope turned with him.
‘Good defence,’ Oscar said, ‘but now I’m breaking free!’
Penelope followed, swatting at the ball as Oscar dribbled towards the goal. One of his bounces was so high, the ball hit him in the chin. It then bounced into Penelope’s shin, but she absolutely failed to grab hold of it. Oscar didn’t even seem to notice. When he got the ball back and took his shot, it only reached halfway to the ring before falling back to the court and rolling away. Oscar scooped it up and ran back to Penelope for another go. Penelope looked around, feeling self-conscious. It would be terribly embarrassing if Brittany O’Brien had arrived in time to see all that clumsiness!
‘Try a bit harder, Oscar,’ she urged, already holding her hands up for a better defence.
Penelope watched out of the corner of her eye as other kids began to arrive. She saw Alison and Eliza, Rita and Tilly. As she defended Oscar again, doubt knotted in Penelope’s stomach. Perhaps she should go and stand with the girls? But sometimes when Penelope tried to join in, the other girls talked and giggled together and didn’t seem to hear her. It wouldn’t be good if Brittany saw that.
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