I take a handful of popcorn. ‘Well, no. Not yet,’ I admit. ‘I haven’t had a chance.’
‘Yes, you have!’ says Anya. ‘You seem to have training practically every day.’
‘Well, yeah,’ I say, ‘but I figured you didn’t want me to ask him in front of Josh and all the others.’
It’s a pretty good point and Anya goes quiet. For a minute I think maybe she’s given up on the idea, but then she says, ‘You’ll have to call him.’ She sounds really determined.
A piece of popcorn sticks in my throat and I gulp some water to push it down. ‘Anya! I can’t do that!’
‘Why not?’ says Anya. ‘You’ve got his number, haven’t you?’
I do, of course. Everyone on the aths team has each other’s numbers. Miss Kearns will sometimes let one of us know about a change to the training schedule and we’re supposed to let each other know. But I really don’t want to call Adam to ask if he likes Anya. Especially not right now when he’s acting so strangely.
But like I’ve already mentioned, it’s really hard to say no to Anya. ‘All right, all right, I’ll call him,’ I say.
‘Tomorrow?’ asks Anya.
‘Tomorrow.’
Anya perks up straight away. ‘Thanks, Leni. You’re the best. I bet I’ll still end up being the first of us three to kiss a guy.’ Anya might not run anymore, but she’s still super competitive.
‘You can’t be,’ says Soph, pouring herself a mineral water from the bottle on the coffee table. ‘Because I’ve already kissed someone.’
Then there’s a massive silence as Anya and I stare at Soph in astonishment. Finally Anya says, ‘When?’
‘Last summer,’ replies Soph.
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ asks Anya. She sounds a bit annoyed.
Soph takes a sip of her drink and shrugs. ‘I didn’t think it was important.’
This is so like Soph. Kiss someone, and then not even bother to tell us about it. I start laughing. But Anya doesn’t. ‘Of course it’s important,’ she says. ‘Tell us about it now. Every little detail.’
‘There’s not much to tell,’ says Soph, shrugging. ‘But okay. Remember how I went to my cousin’s place at the beach last holidays?’
We do. Soph tells us that she met a boy down there called Todd. A friend of her cousin.
‘I decided that I wanted to learn how to kiss someone,’ Soph explains — saying it how someone else might say I decided to learn how to waterski. ‘And when I told Todd he said I could practise on him if I liked.’
Even Anya is laughing now, and she isn’t looking so annoyed either. ‘That’s the most unromantic thing I’ve ever heard,’ she says. ‘What was the kiss like?’
Soph thinks before answering. ‘It got better the more we did it.’
Anya squeals. ‘Sophie Bennett. You kissed this guy more than once?’
Soph’s face breaks into a grin. ‘Well, der, yeah, of course! I figured I should try to get it worked out while I had the chance. Todd didn’t mind. We were both pretty good at it by the time I went home.’
‘Trust you, Soph,’ says Anya, shaking her head. ‘You have to get an ‘A’ at everything — even kissing!’
It feels good, laughing like this, so your stomach hurts. And after we’ve finished we actually manage to watch the rest of the DVD without stopping. It’s a first for us.
And I almost — but not quite — manage to forget about what Anya has asked me to do.
My plan is to ring Adam first thing the next morning. Get it over and done with. But when I wake up there’s a delicious smell wafting into my room and I decide I’d better investigate first. Anyway, it’s probably too early to make a call.
I find Dad in the kitchen, whistling and chopping up strawberries. On the bench is the waffle-maker we gave him for Fathers’ Day a couple of years ago — back before money was too tight for stuff like that. He’s never used it before. I slide into one of the seats at the kitchen bench near where he’s working. There’s a pot of coffee percolating and the table has been set with matching plates. There are even napkins.
‘Wow! You must have been up all night getting this ready, Dad,’ I say, stealing a strawberry.
Dad unclips the waffle iron and a cloud of sweet-smelling steam rises out. ‘Yep, pretty much!’ he says cheerily. The waffle is a bit blotchy-looking. ‘Hmmm,’ says Dad, spearing it with a fork. He lifts it onto a plate and slides it along the bench towards me. ‘That one was just a test. Want to risk it?’ he says, refilling the iron with batter. Of course I do.
I’m just finishing it off when Nana walks in, wrapped in a shimmery green bathrobe. As she sits down at the table I think she smells kind of smoky, but I guess if you’ve been smoking solidly for forty years it takes a while for the smell to leave your clothes.
‘Good morning, Angela!’ says Dad. ‘Sleep well?’
Nana tightens up the tie on her robe and sighs. ‘Not particularly,’ she says. ‘The birds woke me at dawn. The glass on your windows is so thin.’
‘Well, it’s good that you’re up early anyway,’ says Dad, opening up the waffle iron, ‘because we’re having a special welcome breakfast for you today.’ This waffle is perfect — golden-brown and even. Dad puts it on a plate and places it with a flourish on the table in front of Nana.
Nana barely even looks at it. ‘That’s kind of you, Trevor,’ she says, ‘but I only ever drink tea in the mornings.’
Dad somehow manages a smile and takes the plate away.
It’s past nine now so I decide it’s a good time to call Adam. I put my plate in the dishwasher and then head for the phone in the lounge room. I ignore the fluttery, nervous feeling in my stomach and dial his number.
Adam’s mum answers the phone and she doesn’t sound in the least surprised to hear me. ‘Hi, Leni!’ she says. ‘Just a moment. I’ll get Adam for you.’
It’s probably only a few seconds until Adam gets to the phone, but it feels like forever. Long enough for me to seriously consider hanging up. ‘Beest!’ he says. ‘Hi! What’s up?’ He sounds strange on the phone. Maybe he’s got a cold or something.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I was just calling to ask …’ And then I totally lose my nerve. I just can’t get myself to say, if you like my friend Anya. Not on the phone, at any rate. Maybe it’d be easier face to face.
So instead I ask him if he feels like going for a run. There’s an oval that’s not far from where either of us live. We’ve met there once before, but that time Josh was with us. ‘I thought it’d be good to do some extra training before the you-know-what,’ I add quickly. To my relief Adam seems totally into the idea. We arrange to meet in half an hour.
Mum is in the kitchen when I get back, and Marcus too, with a cup of black coffee he’s pretending to drink because he’s so sophisticated these days.
I tell Mum about the run I’ve just organised. ‘I can ride my bike there,’ I add quickly. ‘You don’t have to give me a lift.’ The last thing I need is Mum watching from the car.
Luckily she agrees to it and I’m just wondering if I’ve got time for another waffle when Nana says, ‘Helena, dear, if you keep doing so much exercise you’re going to develop very muscly legs.’
This genuinely surprises me. ‘What’s wrong with that?’ I ask frowning.
Nana puts a spoon of sugar into her tea. Then another. ‘Well, nothing, of course, darling,’ she says, ‘except that — well, it isn’t very pretty for a girl to have legs like tree trunks, is it? And you might want a boyfriend one day.’
‘Mum!’ says my mum.
Nana takes a sip of tea. ‘Calm down, Paula. I’m merely pointing out that boys like soft girls. Feminine ones.’
She says it like it’s this solid fact, known throughout the entire world since the beginning of time. I’m opening my mouth to argue with her when I catch Mum giving me this pleading look. I know what it means. Just let it go, Leni. Please.
So I don’t say anything. I just leave the kitchen and go to get my running stuff. But e
ven twenty minutes later when I’m heading off to the oval on my bike I’m still annoyed about it.
The funny thing is, right now I’d almost rather have the angry feeling than the squirmy, embarrassed feeling I have when I think about what Anya wants me to ask Adam.
‘Slow down, Beest!’ calls Adam, as I streak further and further ahead on our first lap. ‘This is a warm-up. Repeat. Warm-up. Not the Olympics, okay?’
‘I can’t slow down,’ I call back over my shoulder. ‘I’m too steamed.’ My muscles feel tight and tense. Running fast is what I need to do right now. Have to do. I put my head down, wildebeest style, and charge. This time, Adam doesn’t try to stop me.
When I’ve done two laps I see that Adam is taking a break on the bench by the perimeter fence. I jog over to join him.
‘Feel better?’ he says as I throw my sweating, panting self down on the seat beside him.
I nod. I do feel better actually. Heaps. It’s like my mind has loosened and stretched along with my muscles. I lean back against the oval railing and turn my face upwards, eyes closed. There’s a gentle breeze blowing, cooling me down. I feel the fence sway a little as Adam leans back against it too.
‘So what was that all about?’ he asks. He seems to be his normal self again, which is a relief. I tell him about how Nana is driving me nuts. How she always seems to disapprove of everything I do or say. How she wraps nasty words up in sweetness — like bitter medicine drowned in syrup. When I tell him her comment about muscly legs I’m totally expecting him to laugh, or tease me about it. Start calling me trunk legs or something. But he just shrugs. ‘Having muscly legs is a good thing,’ he says. ‘It means you do stuff instead of just sitting around all day doing nothing. Who wants to be like that?’
‘Yeah, exactly. Thanks,’ I say, gratefully. It’s just what I need to hear right now. It feels like Adam and I are having a moment right then — an honest one. Something different from the way we normally joke around. I guess this is why I figure it’s a good time to bring up the Anya thing.
‘Adam, what do you think of Anya?’ I say. The words kind of fall out of me. ‘I mean, you like her, right?’
‘Sure, she’s okay,’ says Adam.
‘She’s more than okay!’ I say. ‘She’s cool and funny and really pretty.’ I feel like a telemarketer trying to sell a set of knives.
‘I guess,’ says Adam slowly. ‘Why are you asking me?’
There’s no getting out of it now. I’ve got to just say it. I take a breath. ‘Well, the thing is, she likes you. And she’s really great. So I was wondering if maybe you liked her too.’
Adam gives me this look then — like I’m the biggest lunatic he’s ever known.
‘It’s not Anya I like, Leni,’ he says. His voice is suddenly kind of husky and I realise that I’ve never noticed before just how blue Adam’s eyes are. ‘It’s you.’
My brain refuses to accept what’s going on. The words make no sense. I mean, I’m still struggling to process that he just called me Leni for the first time in ages — possibly ever. And even as Adam is leaning towards me I am thinking that maybe there’s snot on my cheek or something and he’s leaning in so he can point at it and laugh at me about it. I know. Dumb. But that’s what the Adam Wilcox I’ve always known would do.
So it’s not until Adam’s lips are actually pressed up against mine that I actually get what’s happening here.
Adam is kissing me.
It turns out that kissing Adam is not like kissing Jo’s teddy bear or a mirror. His lips aren’t cold and he’s not dropping fur. He smells different too — a little sweaty, of course — but also minty, like he’s used half a tube of toothpaste on his brush this morning.
The most surprising thing about the kiss is that it’s actually pretty nice. Way nicer than I would’ve expected.
I pull away and look at him. ‘Well, that was weird.’
Adam runs a hand through his hair, making it stick out at even more bizarre angles than it usually does. ‘Maybe a little,’ he says. ‘But it was also good. At least, I thought it was.’ Then he laughs, kind of nervously.
‘Why did you just suddenly decide to kiss me?’ I ask.
Adam toes the ground and shrugs. ‘I didn’t just suddenly decide,’ he mumbles. ‘I’ve been thinking about it for ages.’
Then it hits me. The bizarre, unbelievable truth. Adam Wilcox — the guy who once filled my running shoes with wet sand just before a race — is crushing on me. Me. The wildebeest whose legs are, according to Nana at least, dangerously close to looking like tree trunks.
I actually check that I haven’t slipped off the seat without noticing and landed on my head. I’ve never thought about Adam in that way. He’s always just been my goofy friend. So the whole kiss thing is a bit of a shock. What’s even more of a shock is that it wasn’t gross. Adam is actually a pretty good kisser, which makes things way more complicated. I mean, if the kiss had been horrible I would’ve known exactly what to do. That I could deal with. But a good kiss?
‘I like you, Leni,’ says Adam. ‘I thought maybe … we could start going out.’
It’s then that I start feeling a little sick. Because how am I going to explain this to Anya? I sit silently, watching a small bird hopping along the grass, eating bugs. I wish I could swap places with it. Eating bugs instead of having to deal with this awkward situation sounds like a fair trade to me. I have to fight the urge to get up and run away as fast as I can. I can so clearly picture myself doing it — jumping up onto the seat, hurdling the fence then running off down the street, leaving Adam and this mess far behind.
My phone suddenly rings and I whip it out of my pocket, glad for the distraction, until I see the name on the screen. Anya. I shove the phone away. I’m going to need some time — about fifteen years, probably — before I figure out how to tell her what’s just happened. My confused, churny feelings loop and swirl.
‘This is all wrong!’ I say, mostly to myself.
Adam looks at me, puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’ At first I don’t answer, as I struggle to get everything straightened out in my head. But I can’t. It’s all just one big knotty jumble. I just wish we could go back. Back to when Adam was fastest boy and I was fastest girl. Back to the Chinese-burn days. Back when he would refuse to high five me after our team won a relay race for fear of catching girl germs. Back to before he kissed me into total confusion.
‘Can’t you just like Anya, not me?’ I mumble. That would make everything so much simpler.
Adam stands up and slings his sports bag over his shoulder.
‘Where are you going?’ I say.
‘You’re being dumb about this, Leni,’ he says quietly. ‘Call me when you want to talk about it normally.’ Then he walks off in that lollopy way of his.
I watch him go, a little annoyed but also pretty astonished. Since when did Adam get so freaking mature
For a while after he’s gone I sit there, feeling kind of numb. The bird eats another bug, then flies off. Finally, I get up and start to run. I surge around the track, pushing forward as fast as I can, feeling my muscles stretch and flex, the burn of air as it rushes into my lungs.
When I get home I jump in the shower, crank the pressure right up so the jets pummel my scalp. Having a shower always makes me feel better, and the longer I stay in, the better I feel.
Mum knocks on the bathroom door. At first I think she’s going to tell me off for using too much water but instead she says, ‘Jo’s on the phone. Should I say you’ll call back?’
I quickly turn the taps off. ‘No, I’m coming,’ I shout back, grabbing a towel.
Five seconds later I’m hurrying down the hallway, dripping water. Nana’s in the loungeroom, supposedly engrossed in a book. Because we are the only family in the world who don’t have a cordless phone, all I can do is I turn to face the wall, so that Nana won’t be able to eavesdrop quite so much.
It’s so nice to hear Jo’s cheerful voice. ‘Feel like coming over?’ she says. ‘Sandy sa
ys we can use her computer today to finish off the flyer. I thought you could use the break from your nana.’
‘Good idea,’ I say gratefully. ‘I’ll be there soon.’
I do need a break. But not so much from Nana. From the stuff in my head.
Mum and Dad say I can go, and I spend the next fifteen minutes flying around getting ready. I grab my good jeans and my favourite yellow top. Then I dry my hair and I’m about to pull it back into its usual ponytail when I change my mind and shake it out over my shoulders instead. I dig out a silver bangle that Mum gave me for my last birthday, which I’ve never worn.
Unfortunately Marcus has chosen this time to take a break from his study and he’s in the kitchen when I go hunting for my boots. I can feel his eyes boring into me as I search.
‘You look like you’re going on a date,’ he says.
‘I’m just going to a friend’s house.’
Marcus shakes his head. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he says in a sing-song voice. ‘There’s something going on.’
‘Nothing’s going on, Marcus,’ I mutter. Seriously, could he be any more annoying?
I open the laundry door and start searching for my shoes. Maybe I left them in here last time I cleaned them.
Marcus follows me in. ‘So why are you so dressed up?’ he persists.
‘I don’t have to wear a uniform or running gear all the time,’ I point out. I fish a dirty sock out of the laundry basket and piff it at him. He takes a quick step back and the sock falls on the ground. Luckily I find my boots in the box where we stack the paper for recycling. I’ve no idea how they got in there. I grab them and escape my brother and his questions.
The thing is, I’m not really sure why I’m dressed up. Maybe it’s because Jo always looks cool, or because her house is so shmick. Or maybe it’s connected to what just happened with Adam. I dunno. All I know is that I feel like looking different to how I usually look.
Jo meets me at the door with a hug and we go down to the kitchen. She’s wearing holey leggings, a baggy pink T-shirt and sheepskin ankle boots, splitting at the toes. She somehow still manages to look good, though.
Things I Don't Know Page 5