Things I Don't Know

by Meredith Badger

  Girl V the World: Things I Don't Know

  Meredith Badger

  Hardie Grant Egmont

  Contents

  Title Page

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Copyright Page

  It’s Anya’s idea, of course — the whole kissing competition thing. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Recently Anya has been doing a whole lot of things that I would’ve said are totally un-Anya-like. Straightening her hair. Wearing eyeliner. Doing these whatever shrugs all the time.

  Don’t get me wrong. I still love her to bits. But I sometimes miss the old Anya. The one I met playing lunchtime footy. The Anya who would nimbly weave around guys on her way to the goal, her dark curls streaming out behind her.

  Anya might look like a doll but she moves like a ninja. Or at least she used to. It’s the ninja girl that I made friends with. I’m not sure how I feel about this new version.

  The recess when Anya first brings up the kissing stuff starts off like any other Monday recess. Me and Anya and Soph, sitting on the oval together, sharing our snacks.

  Soph’s light brown braids swing as she turns to me. She wants to get her hair dreadlocked — like her mum’s — but dreads are banned at school, so for now she’s just growing it.

  ‘What’ve you got today, Leni?’

  I get out a zip-lock bag of grapes — small, green and seedless — and chuck them into the circle. Then Anya produces a packet of crinkle-cut salt and vinegar chips, opens it, grabs a handful and places the rest next to my grapes. Soph’s contribution is some kind of ethically made, cruelty-free chocolate bar — I’m guessing it’s one of the items she campaigned so hard to get into the school canteen. The ones only she ever buys.

  Anya looks at it with obvious dislike. ‘Haven’t you got something else? Those bars are so gay, Soph.’

  That’s another new thing about Anya. Suddenly everything is gay.

  ‘Nope,’ says Soph. ‘That’s all I’ve got. Try it. It’s yum, I promise.’

  I break off a bit of chocolate, just in case Soph’s feelings are hurt. Then, so I don’t offend Anya either, I also grab a chip and put them both in my mouth. For a final touch I shove in a grape as well. It’s a weird flavour — okay, a disgusting flavour — but that doesn’t matter.

  ‘Gross, Leni!’ giggles Anya.

  I shrug. ‘Mum and Dad reckon if there’s one thing the pie shop has taught them it’s that strange combinations can work really well.’

  ‘Maybe they should name a new pie after us then?’ Soph says, and I know what she means. The three of us are about as strange a combination as you could get. ‘The Soph-Len-Anya pie, maybe?’

  ‘The Anya-Len-Soph pie sounds better,’ says Anya, not missing a beat.

  I gulp some water from my bottle then flop back on the grass. It’s late autumn and the sun is gentle but still warm. I close my eyes and listen to people laughing and yelling and the sound of a football ponking off someone’s foot nearby. I know who it’ll be. Adam Wilcox and Josh Mackey and the rest of those guys. The usual crowd. My leg muscles twitch, urging me to run over and join in like I usually do. Correction — like I used to do.

  There used to be heaps of girls who played footy. Like I said, it’s how I met Anya in the first place. Then when we made friends with Sophie we got her into it too. But week by week, the girls started dropping out, although I don’t really get why. Soph stopped when she got busy with her ethical-food campaign, but that’s been over for ages and she hasn’t returned. I guess if I’m honest I’d have to say Soph isn’t that good at sports, but she always seemed to be having fun. Anya quit when she started getting her period and that really makes no sense to me. I’ve been getting mine for six months now and it makes no difference to playing sport, especially if you use tampons. And unlike Soph, Anya is really good at sport. I’m always trying to get her to come to running with me. But there’s always some reason why she can’t. Either she’s too stuffed or she’s staying at her dad’s place or something.

  She’s never said it directly but I get the feeling that the real reason she stopped playing footy is because she thought it made her look uncool in front of the guys. And now I don’t play either. I don’t want to be the only girl out there.

  ‘Leni! Are you listening? This is important.’

  The sherbet fizz of excitement in Anya’s voice pulls my attention back to my friends. I half sit up to look at her.

  ‘I’ve got something for you both,’ says Anya. Her eyes are all sparkly. ‘For all of us, actually.’ She pulls out these three little round badges. They’re bubblegum pink, each with a pair of puckered-up red lips in the middle.

  Anya hands each of us a badge, like they’re somehow valuable. ‘I had the best idea,’ she says. ‘We’re going to have a competition. A kissing competition!’

  Anya looks at us expectantly. She wants to hear that we love the idea. But honestly? The suggestion has made me feel a little weird — as if Anya is urging me to get on some train with her and I’m not sure I like where it’s going.

  ‘What exactly do you mean, a kissing competition?’ asks Soph.

  In the distance I hear Adam yelling, ‘Josh! Here! HERE!’ My leg muscles twitch again.

  ‘Well,’ says Anya, ‘we all get, like, two weeks to find someone to kiss. It has to be someone from school. When you do it you wear your kissing badge to school the next day. It’ll be like a secret signal to the rest of us.’ Anya beams brightly. ‘Fun idea, huh?’

  ‘Anya,’ says Soph, swinging a braid over her shoulder. ‘Sorry, but that’s the dumbest idea ever.’

  I have to bite back a smile. That’s pure Soph — straight-up and no messing around. Anya pulls a grumpy face, then turns to me. ‘You like the idea, don’t you, Leni?’

  ‘The problem is,’ I say slowly, ‘there’s no-one at school I’d want to kiss.’

  ‘Oh, come off it!’ says Anya. ‘There’s a heap of guys to choose from. What about Ricky Stanford? It’s so obvious he likes you. Did you know he’s scratched your initials with his on the bus stop?’ I didn’t know that and I make a mental note to scratch it off next time I’m at the bus stop.

  ‘Ricky would need an extension ladder if he wanted to kiss me,’ I point out, and Anya has to agree with that.

  ‘Well, how about Sam Grieve?’ she says.

  Instantly my brain pulls up a memory of the hockey game when Sam Grieve coughed up a big glob of phlegm as he ran past me. It landed right on my runner and stayed there, wobbling like a miniature lime jelly, until I wiped it off on the grass.

  ‘No thanks,’ I say.

  ‘Scott Telford then. He’s hot.’

  Scott Telford is not hot. Scott Telford has lips that look like two big, pink, glistening slugs slid across his face one day and decided to park themselves below his nose. There is no way I’d let those slug lips anywhere near me.

  ‘Chester Fealy?’

  That makes Soph snort with laughter. ‘Cheese Feet!’ she says. ‘Yeah, I can really see him and Leni hitting it off.’

  The muscles in my shoulders loosen a little. If Anya is suggesting Cheese Feet she’s obviously running out of ideas. Hopefully she’ll give up on this whole stupid thing soon.

  Anya hugs her knees tighter to her chest, a squiggle forming between her eyebrows. ‘There must be someone,’ she says. ‘Someone we haven’t thought of.’

  That’s when I hear — when we all hear — someone running up to us. It’s Adam Wilcox, with a mud-slathered footy tucked under his arm. His hair is sticking up a
t the front and it’s funny because I know that heaps of guys try to get their hair to look like Adam’s does right now. But his isn’t on purpose. His is just a combination of sweat and not really caring.

  ‘Yo, Beest!’ Adam says, stopping beside me. ‘Got a message for you.’

  Adam and I have known each other since primary school. I was always ‘fastest girl’ and he was always ‘fastest boy’. For a while there, when I went through a monster growth spurt in year five, I was the fastest kid full stop.

  It was around then that Adam started calling me ‘Wildebeest’, or ‘Beest’ for short. He said it suited me partly because of my long legs and big eyes, but mainly because of the way I put my head down and charge when I’m on the running track. I don’t love it, but there’s no way I can get him to stop. Believe me, I’ve tried.

  I guess it could be worse. At least it’s not ‘Snot-rag’, which was the nickname of another girl back in primary school who was always scrubbing at her nose with a sodden hanky. And Adam has never called me Beest in a nasty way — it’s always just been teasing. Even in year five, when I beat him every single time we competed. Even when my way of saying good luck was to give him a Chinese burn. Probably because he knew once he hit puberty he’d catch up and overtake me again. Which is exactly what happened. If we ever run against each other now — at athletics training, for instance — he always wins. But I’m okay with it because he was always such a good loser when it was me winning all the time, if that makes sense.

  Even though Adam isn’t a friend in the way that Anya or Soph are my friends, I’ve always felt like we have a kind of understanding. That our freak running ability meant that we got each other.

  ‘Hey, Adam,’ I say. ‘What’s up?’

  Adam starts passing the footy from one hand to the other. ‘Miss Kearns is holding an extra aths training session tomorrow morning before school,’ he says. ‘She told me to tell you. I think she’s starting to freak about the you-know-what.’

  There’s a big inter-school athletics carnival at our school next weekend. Miss Kearns, our sports teacher, has become obsessed with it. She keeps saying that we have to win every event. Last training session I asked Miss Kearns if it wasn’t more about doing your best than winning, and she said, ‘Usually it is, Leni. But this time West Central are competing, so it’s all about winning.’

  Miss Kearns really hates losing to West Central for some reason. The moment she even hears the word carnival she makes us run extra laps of the oval so we’ve started calling it the you-know-what instead.

  ‘Okay, thanks,’ I say. I try to ask him where we’re meeting this week — in the hall or on the oval — but Adam has already sprinted off, spinning the ball up into the air as he goes.

  Once he’s gone, Anya clutches her chest, looks to the sky and falls back on the grass. ‘Adam Wilcox is a god!’ she moans.

  ‘He’s not a god,’ Soph corrects her. But then, to my surprise, Soph’s face goes a little pink. ‘But he is kind of good-looking.’

  I squint at Adam’s retreating form. Adam Wilcox is good-looking? Really? Maybe there’s something wrong with my eyesight.

  Anya suddenly sits up super straight and this I’m a genius! look comes over her face. I instantly guess what she’s thinking.

  ‘I’m not kissing Adam so don’t bother suggesting it,’ I say quickly. ‘Anyway, he’s not in Mr Brennan’s class.’

  Anya smirks. ‘I didn’t say the person had to be in the same class as us, did I? I said it can be anyone at our school.’

  ‘Well, I’m not kissing him anyway,’ I say, crossing my arms over my chest like this will somehow protect me from Anya’s crazy suggestions. ‘Or Josh, or guys on the aths team. They’re just friends, okay? It’d be way too weird.’

  Anya exhales slowly. The way my mum does when I’m trying her patience. ‘Well, who then, picky chick? Name someone you’d like to kiss. It doesn’t even have to be a guy from our school.’

  Soph is looking at me too now, and I can see she’s curious to hear what I’ll say.

  But I can’t do it. I can’t think of one single guy in the entire world I’d like to kiss. I start to feel like I’m abnormal or something.

  The bell goes, but Anya ignores it. ‘Well, if you’re not interested in kissing Adam maybe I’ll give it a go!’ she says, laughing a little. ‘For the competition, I mean.’ I figure she’s kidding around and decide to play along.

  ‘Go for it,’ I say with a shrug.

  ‘We’re not actually going ahead with this, are we?’ says Soph. ‘This kissing competition thing?’

  Anya’s head tilts to the side as she looks at me and I realise that it’s up to me. I’m the deciding vote. I want to say no. But it’s hard when Anya is using her pleading-puppy-dog eyes on me. And I think about how often since her parents separated that she’s come to school with her face red and blotchy, no matter how hard she tries to disguise it with make-up. Anya needs something fun to happen. A distraction from what’s going on at home.

  And then something dawns on me. This whole kissing competition thing — it’s just a game, isn’t it? And you don’t always have to win when you play. Sometimes you can lose, on purpose. Like when you’re playing hide-and-seek with a little kid. You know exactly where they’re hiding, but you pretend you don’t. The important thing is just to look like you’re playing. I’ll speak to Soph later in private and explain my game plan. She’ll totally get it.

  ‘Sure,’ I say, and I even pull out one of those whatever shrugs of Anya’s. ‘Can’t hurt, I guess.’

  On our way to class Edi Rhineheart and her friends float by us in their cloud of coolness.

  ‘Hi, Edi!’ calls out Anya, in this hopeful way that makes my insides clench. Edi half-turns and throws Anya a fleeting smile, before turning back to her friends. She’s never straight-out rude to Anya — girls like Edi don’t have to be — but I sometimes wonder if she even sees us. Maybe Anya wonders that too. When she calls out to Edi it’s like she’s saying, Notice us! We’re here!

  I really wish she wouldn’t.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, grabbing her arm. ‘We’d better get to class.’

  I’m actually looking forward to class today. We’ve got some free-work time, which is when we’re supposed to catch up on assignments we’re behind in. We’re doing the Middle Ages in SOSE at the moment, and Anya, Soph and I are researching the different work people did back then. I came up with the idea of making a Middle Ages version of a job-search website — you know, where people could search for positions like ‘serf’ or ‘princess’ or whatever and find out what the job involved. At first Anya thought it was a gay idea but Mr Brennan, our homeroom teacher, liked it, so Anya came round. It is a lot of work though, especially as I’m the one making the website.

  I’m just getting my stuff organised when Mr Brennan calls me aside.

  ‘Leni,’ he says, ‘we need a couple of computer-savvy students to put together a flyer for the inter-school athletics carnival. I’m volunteering you.’

  Volunteering someone seems like what my mum would call ‘a contradiction in terms’, but Mr Brennan is already handing me a list of all the stuff they want on the flyer, so I don’t bother pointing this out. ‘There’s also a student from Mrs Murphy’s homeroom who’ll be working on it,’ adds Mr Brennan. He checks his watch. ‘The computer lab should be open by now.’

  ‘You mean, I should go right away?’ I say.

  ‘Got it in one.’

  Behind Mr Brennan I can see my friends, already sitting at our table, stuff spread out around them. Anya has said something that has made Soph crack up. I’m itching to go and join them.

  ‘But what about our assignment?’ I say. Last week Mr Brennan kept going on about how the SOSE project should be our top priority. It seems weird that now he’s telling me to do something else. But then, I gave up trying to work out teachers ages ago.

  ‘I’m sure you can find time for both,’ says Mr Brennan in that tight voice that adults use when, as
far as they’re concerned, the discussion is over.

  Then he turns to speak to another student standing behind me — Cheese Feet, by the smell of him — and there’s nothing left for me to do but grab my things, tell the others I’ll be back soon, and head for the computer lab.

  There’s another girl already sitting at one of the computers, and at first I have no idea who it is. I had assumed that the other volunteer would be someone from the aths team. But this girl definitely isn’t.

  ‘Um … hi?’ I say.

  The girl swivels around and smiles. ‘Hi!’ she says. Her hair is pulled up into a messy topknot and she’s wearing a pair of those cool-nerd glasses with thick, dark rims. Then I realise who she is. She’s the new girl in Mrs Murphy’s class. I saw her being dropped off on her first day and I remember thinking how awful it would be to start halfway through the term like that, when everyone’s already in their groups and no-one’s that interested in making another new friend.

  This girl didn’t look worried, though — possibly because her mum was dropping her off in this amazingly awesome red convertible. The other thing I remember thinking is how different she looked from her mum, who was really petite and Asian. The new girl is tall — almost as tall as me — with long brown hair and small, pale freckles. Maybe the woman I saw was her stepmum or something.

  The girl kind of reminds me of Edi Rhineheart and her friends. Not that she looks like them. Just that she looks like she’d fit in with them, I guess.

  ‘How did you get roped into this?’ I ask the girl, walking over and sliding into a spare chair.

  ‘I volunteered,’ she replies. ‘I like to design stuff. Well, usually I do.’ She bites her lip and points to the computer behind her. There’s a loading bar on the screen that’s clearly going nowhere. ‘I think I’ve crashed it,’ she says.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I say. She smells like honeysuckle body spray — the sort Mum won’t buy me because it’s a waste of money. ‘It’s not your fault. These machines are crud. You have to wait forever for them to do anything.’