Contents
Tuesday 29 January
Wednesday 30 January
Thursday 31 January
Friday 1 February
Saturday 2 February
Tuesday 5 February
Wednesday 6 February
Thursday 7 February
Friday 8 February
Saturday 9 February
Sunday 10 February
Monday 11 February
Tuesday 12 February
Wednesday 13 February
Thursday 14 February
Friday 15 February
Saturday 16 February
Monday 18 February
Tuesday 19 February
Wednesday 20 February
Thursday 21 February
Saturday 23 February
Tuesday 26 February
Friday 1 March
Saturday 3 March
Monday 4 March
Tuesday 5 March
Wednesday 6 March
Thursday 7 March
Monday 11 March
Wednesday 13 March
Thursday 14 March
Friday 15 March
Saturday 30 March
About the Authors
Hey! What’s goin’ on? I’m 16 now. I love hip-hop and my hobbies are kickboxing and horse-riding. I have four guinea pigs. Their names are Annabelle, Katie, Sarah and Lu Ann. I also have a sister named Katie. I loved writing this book with my mum even though it was frustrating when she’d insist on deliberating for about five minutes in order to choose exactly the right word. It’s satisfying to think we might be helping kids like Kaitlin, who find it hard to fit in. If you’re one of those, I’d just like to say: don’t worry if you don’t have heaps of friends in school. You’re there to get an education so you can have a future! Don’t let other people tell you what to think or do. You are the only one who deserves that privilege!
I still don’t like school that much. I can’t wait to finish and become a detective in New York City and write novels about it.
About the Authors
I vividly remember how scared I was to start high school. I was so terrified I might say the wrong thing that I hardly said anything at all! Maybe it’s my ability to recall the intense feelings of those days that makes me want to write for kids. It’s great making up stories with Anna, because she knows what’s happening inside classrooms these days.
Kaitlin is a braver girl than I was. She’s not afraid to figure out what she thinks about something and then act on it. That’s a wonderful thing about writing fiction: you can make your characters more admirable then you are. Although it’s true they do tend to take on a life of their own, especially when you’ve lived with them as long as Anna and I have with Kaitlin. If you heard Anna and me in a cafe, discussing what Kaitlin might do or say in a certain situation, you’d think she was a real girl.
Anna and I are working on a third novel about Kaitlin. If you have any questions or ideas about that, you could write to us at Penguin. We love to hear from our readers.
PUFFIN BOOKS
Whatever happens at high school, I know what I don’t want to happen. I never want to be a loner or a loser or a dork ever again!
It’s the first day of Kaitlin’s first year in high school. Everything’s different, but her old friends from primary school are in her class, so at least she’s got someone to sit with.
Trouble is, they’re both boys, and Kaitlin’s pretty sure it’s dorky to have boys for best friends – specially one who’s in the chess club. The cool girls sure seem to think so, and Kaitlin wants to be in their group more than anything. But just how far is she prepared to go?
Also by Anna & Mary K Pershall
Two Weeks in Grade Six
Escape from Year Eight
Also by Mary K Pershall
Making Jamie Normal
Too Much to Ask For
Ruby Clair, The Trouble with Ghosts
For our good friend and godmother, Gill
What if I die on my first day at high school? People can die of fright: I read about it in one of Sarah’s abnormal psychology books.
I guess I have to find out tomorrow if nervousness will kill me. Right now I’m sitting on my bed, my back propped against the pillows, clutching the big, plush panda Eve sent me for my sixth birthday. I need to hug her close, even though it’s incredibly hot and stuffy in here.
I hardly thought about school the whole time I was staying with Dad and Sarah in Canberra. I flew up there the day after Christmas and I just got home yesterday. I didn’t want to leave! I mean I did want to see Mum again, but it was so hard saying goodbye to my little brother, Jake. At the airport he insisted on me carrying him, and when we got to the departure gate he held on so tight Sarah had to pry his arms and legs off me and of course that made her cry, too.
I hug my panda closer, squishing her softness against my chest. Eve bought her for me from the RSPCA shop at the London Zoo. She told me about it when she was sitting here on my bed, talking to me for ages the last night before she left. ‘Don’t you forget you’re my favourite granddaughter in the whole world,’ she said. Actually I’m her only granddaughter. But that didn’t keep her from flying back to England and her precious cafe.
Someone’s tapping on my door. That’ll be Mum, as she’s the only other person who lives in our house now.
‘Come in,’ I say, plopping the panda down beside my bed.
Mum opens the door, then stops a few centimetres into my room. She’s scared to come too near me till all of Sarah’s germs or vibes or whatever get rubbed off. Also, Mum is narky because Sarah took me to this posh hairdresser and got blonde streaks put through my hair. Me and Sarah think it looks great, and Dad says it goes good with my new slimmer figure. But Mum reckons Sarah should have got her permission before we did it.
‘Can I get an air-conditioner?’ I ask Mum, plucking at my sweaty T-shirt to make a point.
She gives me a look that says, ‘Is this ridiculous person really my daughter?’ My mother has to deliberate for about five hours before she spends a dollar. Could have something to do with her being an accountant.
There are ceiling fans in Dad and Sarah’s flat in Canberra. Way up high in the big, airy rooms. I remember how the light came in through the tree outside the lounge room window and danced across the polished floorboards on the morning my sister Alice was born. Four weeks ago today.
Mum frowns as though she too can see the picture in my mind. She doesn’t want to know anything about Dad’s family, and she especially doesn’t want to know about his new baby daughter. ‘Where’s your little window fan?’ she asks.
If we put a ceiling fan in this pokey room I’d slice my fingers off when I did star jumps, which I’ve started to do forty of every morning and night.
‘I don’t know,’ I say in answer to Mum’s question. ‘Maybe under the bed.’
She crosses the room with confidence now that she has a purpose. She kneels down, peers under the bed, fishes around and produces the small dusty fan. Her triumphant look makes me laugh. ‘Last of the big game hunters,’ I quip.
Mum laughs, too, for the first time since I’ve been back. Then she sits beside me on the bed and smooths the streaky hair she doesn’t approve of. ‘So,’ she says, ‘my little girl’s starting high school.’
‘Looks like it,’ I sigh.
‘Scared?’ she asks.
No more scared than if I had to descend into a cellar of snarling wolves, I think. I say, ‘A little.’
‘That’s only natural.’ Mum’s turned on her business voice, the one she uses when she talks to clients. ‘But think of it this way. It’s a great opportunity as well, starting out at a new place. It gives you a fresh chance to
… to … well, to be what you want to be.’
I can’t get to sleep. Surprise, surprise. Mum’s words keep going through my head. This is a fresh chance to be what you’d like to be … I don’t know what I’d like to be! But I sure know what I don’t want to be at high school. I never want to be a loner or a loser or a dork ever again!
I’m walking to school. It’s about a kilometre from home, which is like five times further away than my primary school. I wish it was five million kilometres. Then I could keep walking and walking through the summer day and never have to get there.
Mum did offer to drive me. I was impressed that she got up so early, but she was in that pink dressing-gown that makes me feel like gagging and she didn’t seem to have any intention of getting dressed. I could just imagine everybody staring at her when she dropped me off. What if she decided to kiss me good luck for my first day?
‘I know how to walk to school,’ I told her.
‘You sure?’ she asked. ‘You won’t get lost?’
I’m not an idiot! I felt like saying. But Mum looked so worried, like I was setting off to India without a guide-book. I said, ‘Eve showed me how to walk there, remember?’
‘I know.’ She gave me a smile but she still looked sad. ‘It’s just that you’ve never had to go so far on your own before.’
The truth is, I’ve hardly gone anywhere on my own before. But I know I’m not lost, because I keep seeing things that Eve pointed out to me when we walked this way: a white house with all its window frames painted blue, a garden full of gnomes, a neatly lettered sign that says Len’s Plumbing Service stuck to a picket fence. Plus there are other kids walking in the same direction as me, dressed in the same maroon and grey as I am. I’m trying not to look at them too closely, in case they decide to inspect me back.
I walk in through the gates. There’s dozens of kids streaming across the yard, all dressed in maroon and grey. And they all have at least one friend with them! How did this happen? There were some people walking on their own on the way here. But now everyone’s talking, laughing, acting like they’re thrilled to see one another. Boys are smacking each other on the shoulders, girls are checking out each other’s hair … I look around frantically but I can’t spot a single other person who’s alone. Maybe I should have called Matthew and Stephen and arranged to meet somewhere in the school-yard. But I’m not sure if it’d be good to be seen with them on my first morning. What if it’s dorky to hang around with boys? Especially boys like them.
There’s a bunch of huge guys slouching against the fence by the basketball court. They make me feel like a midget. I try not to look at them as I sidle past, but I can’t help noticing their goatees and pierced eyebrows. I have a sudden image of them yanking the legs off ferrets and sucking the blood as it spurts out.
Please, I beg them in my mind, don’t say anything to me. They don’t, thank goodness. In fact, I seem invisible to them. In my mind I hear two little voices screeching, ‘Kaitlin!’ Last year I was a big kid, and to the preps I was the most important person in school.
Does that mean I want to be back in grade six? I don’t think so! I just want to be on the couch in Canberra, reading Possum Magic to Jake as he scrunches up as close to me as he can. But that’s impossible.
Sarah says that when my thoughts start getting negative, I should replace them with positive ones. Well, I think as I fight my way up the steps into the building, at least Ashleigh isn’t here. Her mother made her go to a Catholic girls’ school. Boy, am I glad I don’t have to see her again!
She never picked on me after I stood up to her last year. Not to my face, anyway. But she hated me more than ever. In her view, when I started hanging around with Matthew and Stephen I went from being Number One Loner to Leader of the Losers.
Where am I? These long grey corridors all look the same. I’m supposed to go straight to my home room. Our home group teacher told us on orientation day we didn’t have to bring all our stuff today. Just our diaries and pencil cases, and we’d be assigned a locker during the day. But I’ve forgotten where my home room is! All I can see are crowds of maroon and grey. Nothing looks familiar.
I’m so stupid! Jake has a better sense of direction than I do. I guess I’ll just walk along and pretend I know where I’m going until I stumble onto room B6.
‘Excuse me.’ Someone taps me on the shoulder. ‘Do you need some help?’
I turn and see a tall, skinny girl with a badge that says School Leader. So much for looking like I know where I’m going. I don’t want to start my high school career by admitting I’m lost. But she’s waiting so intently, as if she’ll be disappointed if I don’t need help. ‘Um … could you tell me where B6 is?’
‘Sure.’ A smile lights up her thin face. She begins to march through the crowd and I follow, feeling like a kindergartener who’s lost her mum.
‘Here you are,’ my School Leader announces cheerfully. She leaves me outside B6 and goes off to search for other lost souls. I want to go with her. But I can’t. I have to face my home group.
I step into the doorway. There’s our home-group teacher, sitting behind her desk at the front of the room. Mrs McBain is written on the whiteboard behind her. She reminds me of Eve. Suddenly that’s who I want. Eve! Why couldn’t she have stayed here? Or why couldn’t I have gone to England with her? I’m smart enough to work in her cafe. I’d love to make cappuccinos and hand out donuts to old ladies and never have to be judged by a whole room full of people my own age.
Mrs McBain smiles at me. ‘Sit anywhere you like,’ she says. ‘You can chat quietly till the bell goes, then I’ll take the roll.’
Sit anywhere I like? As I scan the room my heart clatters so loud I think the other kids must be able to hear it. These three girls in the second row sure are looking at me like they can. I may not be able to remember how to get anywhere, but I remember them from orientation day. They all went to the same primary school and they’re surrounded by this atmosphere that says, ‘No one in our lives ever called us losers. In any given situation we know exactly what to wear, do and say.’
They make my stomach hurt. I look away from them. Who else do I recognise from orientation day? There’s those two Asian girls in the front row, who stuck close together and didn’t talk to anybody but each other. I remember they had very short names that sounded like musical notes. Mi and La, something like that. Then there’s that fat boy who’s about as tall as the average grade two kid and managed to get a lunchtime detention for being cheeky to the teachers … can’t think of his name.
I scan to the back of the room and there he is. My heart lights up at the sight of those blond curls. And the shy smile he’s sending me. Stephen. My primary school friend. You might know he’d choose the seat in the furthest corner of the room. Should I go back there and sit with him? Or would that lump me together forever with the world’s greatest twelve-year-old expert on starfish in the Southern Ocean?
‘Katie!’ a familiar voice bellows behind me. Then suddenly he’s standing beside me in the doorway. Matthew. ‘You’re lookin’ good, Katie!’ he announces loudly. ‘Lost some weight, huh?’
The whole class is staring at us. They’ll think I used to be as fat as a hippo.
Matthew reaches over, picks up a strand of my hair and lets it fall back. ‘Blonde streaks!’ he observes. ‘You aren’t turnin’ bimbo on me, are you?’
He touched me. What if they think he’s my boyfriend?
‘Why don’t you two find a place to sit?’ Mrs McBain suggests.
‘Good idea,’ Matthew agrees enthusiastically. To me he says, ‘Is Mr Marine here yet?’
‘Back there.’ I wave weakly towards the corner.
‘Stevo!’ Matthew yells, marching through the class to claim the seat next to Stephen’s. Then he pats the chair beside him. ‘Come on, Katie, what’re you waitin’ for? We already had Christmas.’
I walk towards him. It seems to take five minutes to get to the back of the room. Past what seems like hundreds
of pairs of X-ray eyes. I wish I was invisible, like the baby possum in Jake’s current favourite book.
At last I reach the chair next to Matthew, and sit. ‘Hi, Kaitlin,’ Stephen says over him, ‘how was Canberra?’
‘Okay.’ I can’t concentrate on that stuff now! A girl has appeared in the classroom doorway. She hesitates, like I did. She wasn’t in our class on orientation day. I’d definitely remember her if she had been: she’s nearly as tall as those guys I saw on the basketball court, and she has frizzy red hair that springs out from her head in a fiery halo.
I hope I didn’t look as scared as she does. She’s just standing there in the doorway, shoulders hunched over, peering at the class as if she was a wounded wildebeest and we were a pack of lions.
The seat next to me is empty. I want to call out to her, ‘Come sit with me.’ But I somehow I don’t think that would be a good thing to do.
‘Hey! Come sit here!’ a voice calls to her from the front row. The voice belongs to Chloe. I didn’t notice her when I came in. But I do remember her name because she was my partner for a getting-to-know-you activity on orientation day. The red-haired girl walks over to her, gratefulness in every step.
Why didn’t Chloe call out to me when I was standing in the doorway? My stomach burns with the most likely possibility: she’s already decided I’m someone to avoid.
‘Katie, Stevo, guess what?’ Matthew’s all excited. ‘I saw Phar Lap over the holidays.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. He’s not lookin’ bad, considering he’s been dead for fifty years.’
Stephen chuckles at that. So do I, which cools down the burning in my stomach a bit. Maybe Chloe wasn’t avoiding me after all. It could be that Matthew appeared beside me before she had a chance to call out.
Term in Year Seven Page 1