How to Make Friends

by Charlotte Barkla

  The hot room had turned my Surprise Slime into a sticky slime-tastrophe.

  My classmates spilled into the classroom, gaping as they discovered their green-stained belongings.

  ‘It’s everywhere,’ said Annie B, her lower lip trembling as she picked up her slime-spotted maths book.

  ‘It’s disgusting!’ The boy with spiky black hair was on the verge of tears.

  An ear-piercing squeal hit the air. ‘My trophy!’

  Emily James stood at her desk, her jaw practically on the floor. She gingerly held the corner of her Science Fair trophy, which was dripping with green liquid.

  My stomach twisted.

  That wasn’t good. Not one bit.

  But things got worse when I saw Mr Zhu’s desk.

  His big pile of slime, which I’d emptied onto the centre of his desk, had spread out, oozing all over his laptop.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said, frowning and scratching his head. ‘How did this happen?’

  ‘Don’t worry, everyone!’ I sprang into action and grabbed a handful of paper towels from the sink. ‘I’ll fix it!’

  As Mr Zhu comforted a girl in the front row, whose soccer ball had been an unfortunate victim of the slime, I hopped around the desks as quickly as I could.

  ‘Won’t take a minute,’ I said determinedly, swiping and wiping at the green goop.

  The slime on the books and desks was wiping off okay, but the bits on the pencil cases, library bags and carpet wasn’t as easy to dislodge. In fact, as I scrubbed at a pool of slime on the carpet, I realised I was probably making it worse. Every time I tried to wipe it up, it would spread even further.

  ‘Who would do this?’ Emily James clutched her trophy to her chest, her brow furrowed and her mouth in a straight line. She didn’t look much like a physics buddy any more. More like a professional kickboxer, ready to unleash on whoever had slimed her precious trophy.

  I ducked my head and concentrated on a stubborn piece of slime on the windowsill. (How it got there, I really had no idea.) I hoped nobody would notice the new kid casually cleaning up in the corner.

  No such luck.

  ‘Do you know anything about this, Edie?’ Mr Zhu’s smile had completely disappeared. He no longer reminded me of a teddy bear; more like a mother bear woken up from hibernation.

  The whole class looked at me.

  I gulped. How did he know?

  Then he pointed to my lab coat, which was covered in green splotches.

  ‘I can explain . . .’

  Mr Zhu marched me straight to the principal’s office.

  When I saw the principal’s name on her office door, I breathed a sigh of relief: Ms Newton. Perhaps she was a descendant of the famous scientist, Isaac Newton? Maybe she loved science too, and would sympathise with my attempt to surprise my class with an experiment?

  As I sat on the cold, uncomfortable bench outside her office, I imagined us joking about my failed experiment over mugs of hot chocolate, and bonding as fellow scientists.

  ‘Miss Baxter?’

  The grimace on her face told me the hot chocolate was probably a bit of a stretch.

  I didn’t give up hope. Not yet.

  As I stepped into her office, I glanced around to see if there were any framed photos of apples falling from trees. She only had two pictures though: one of a chihuahua in a red raincoat, and the other of a chihuahua standing next to a ball. I could tell from the look in the chihuahua’s eye it had not been planning to play with the ball anytime soon.

  ‘So . . . vandalising the classroom on your first day at our school, Miss Baxter? Care to explain?’ Ms Newton peered down her nose at me. It wasn’t exactly the expression of someone on the verge of offering a hot beverage.

  ‘Yes, about that,’ I said. ‘It was an honest mistake, really. I was just trying to make a present for my classmates, that’s all. Surprise Slime . . .’

  Ms Newton frowned. Her glasses slid to the bottom of her nose, and she pushed them up again. ‘Surprise Slime?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘I see,’ she said, although the way she was glaring at me told me she didn’t really see at all. ‘The thing is, Edie, classrooms are strictly out of bounds at lunchtimes. You do remember this from your induction last week, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Miss,’ I said obediently, although really I didn’t. Once Ms Newton had answered my questions about the school’s science labs, I’d almost fallen asleep in that induction. And not just because I’d been unpacking boxes till late the night before. Mainly because it was dead boring.

  Ms Newton raised her chin and blinked at me through her glasses. ‘I hope this isn’t the behaviour we’ll be expecting from you in the future, Miss Baxter.’ She paused. ‘Miss Baxter?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘No, Miss.’ I’d gotten distracted by the mini chihuahuas on the corners of her glasses. Ms Newton’s earrings had chihuahuas dangling off them too. (Fake ones, I should add.) She even had a bracelet with tiny puppy pendants hanging off it. One thing was for sure – this lady either loved chihuahuas, or had recently been to a jewellery sale at a pet shop.

  She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. ‘I’ll be ringing home to let your parents know, and I won’t be having any of this behaviour again, do you understand?’

  A whole colony of butterflies took over my stomach, and started doing star jumps.

  ‘Ringing home?’ I squeaked. ‘Do you have to?’

  ‘Well, yes, I’m afraid I do.’ The chihuahuas dangling from her ears bobbed up and down as she nodded curtly. ‘We have high standards here at Cedar Road Primary.’

  ‘But . . . but . . .’ My heartbeat quickened. The words toppled out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop them. ‘It’s not my fault! There was no airflow in that room. Do you know how hot it gets during lunchtime, when the air conditioning’s off? It must take massive amounts of power to cool it back down in the afternoon. Have you even considered the power usage in this school? You really should look into passive cooling. If you cared even a tiny bit about the environment –’

  I stopped. Ms Newton’s eyebrows had practically hit the ceiling.

  ‘And for that outburst, young lady, not only will I be calling home, but you can come for a detention tomorrow at lunchtime too.’

  The butterflies switched from star jumps to kickboxing. Detention on my first day? It was not the start I’d been hoping for.

  Amazingly, Mum and Dad were pretty understanding.

  ‘Oh, Edie.’ Mum reached across the dinner table and squeezed my hand. ‘Not the best first day, was it?’

  I shook my head. When I’d returned to class, nobody had said a word to me all afternoon. Not that I blamed them – I’d be annoyed too, if someone had covered my belongings in green gunk. Ling, the boy with spiky black hair whose belongings had ended up particularly well slimed, had been so traumatised by the ordeal that Mr Zhu had sent him to sick bay for the afternoon. And even Annie B, who’d been so friendly to me that morning, had barely looked at me.

  I’d been thinking about Winnie all afternoon, wishing she was still my desk buddy. She would’ve seen the funny side of it. Actually, she probably would’ve been making the slime too, and getting into trouble alongside me. Still, it would’ve been an improvement.

  ‘It was an honest mistake,’ said Dad, stabbing a piece of pasta with his fork. ‘That new principal of yours doesn’t seem to have much of a sense of humour, does she?’

  Mum glared at him. I stifled a giggle.

  ‘So does that mean I don’t lose screen time?’ I asked hopefully. Screen-time bans were my usual punishment for experiments-gone-wrong. I’d ended up with a month after the Hair-Fire incident.

  ‘Nice try,’ Mum replied, cocking an eyebrow. ‘One week screen-time ban?’ She looked at Dad.

  He nodded. ‘Yep, sounds fair.’

  Oh well, it was worth a shot.

  I shuffled pasta across my plate. ‘I’ve never had a detention before.’ I didn’t like the idea
of it breaking my perfect track record. Especially since it was only day one at my new school.

  Mum patted my hand. ‘Oh, Edie – don’t worry, it’s just the one.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s not so bad,’ Dad agreed. ‘When I was your age, I’m pretty sure I’d had more than one detention.’ He grinned. ‘And your mum would’ve had at least twenty!’

  ‘Mark!’ Mum glared again. ‘Twenty is a bit of an exaggeration.’

  I stifled a giggle. According to Aunt Evelyn (Mum’s twin sister), she and Mum used to get in their fair share of trouble at school. It was hard to imagine now, when Mum was all talk of early bedtimes and the five food groups.

  Max banged his spoon against his tray table. ‘Twen-ty, twen-ty!’

  ‘See!’ Dad laughed. ‘Even Max agrees!’

  Mum shook her head, but the corners of her mouth were turning up. ‘Look at it this way,’ she said to me. ‘At least it’ll be a new experience.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  A new experience . . . perhaps Mum had a point. As Dad chopped up fruit salad and Max stole all the grapes (like always), I started to get another idea. And it was a good one.

  Sure, a detention wasn’t the perfect start to my plan to make friends, but it would be a new and different experience. In fact, it would actually be an experiment of sorts . . .

  As soon as the lunch bell rang the next day, I bounded out of the classroom and sprinted down the corridor to Room 1B. A crumpled piece of A4 paper was stuck to the door, with DETENTION ROOM written in thick letters.

  ‘Come in, Miss Baxter.’ Ms Newton, sitting primly at the front wearing a chihuahua-printed blouse, didn’t even look up from her laptop. ‘Take a seat.’

  I gingerly stepped into the room, wondering whether fake spiders were about to drop from the ceiling, or if some kind of torture device was hidden in a corner somewhere.

  But the detention room wasn’t at all what I’d expected. I thought it would be a dark, lifeless, ‘torture-y’ kind of place with no windows, perhaps with some kind of spooky music playing in the background. But it was just a regular old classroom.

  ‘Interesting,’ I said to myself, tapping my chin.

  Ms Newton glanced up sharply. ‘What’s interesting, Miss Baxter?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, Miss.’ I took a seat at the front, eagerly waiting for the action to begin. Two other kids slouched in a few minutes later and sat right at the back. I guess they’d experienced detention before, so weren’t as excited as me.

  ‘Right, here are our school rules. Copy them into your notepads, please.’ Ms Newton handed us each a sheet of paper.

  What? Was that all? Copying notes? I turned to the other kids to see if they were as shocked as me, but they didn’t bat an eyelid. I shrugged, took out my notepad and got straight to work.

  Ten minutes later, I raised my hand.

  ‘Finished already?’ Ms Newton frowned. ‘Are you sure you copied all thirty-eight rules down?’ She cocked her head to the side, and one of her chihuahua earrings brushed one of the printed chihuahuas on her shoulder. I almost expected them to start yapping at one another, like the chihuahuas at the dog park always did.

  I snapped out of my daydream. ‘Yes, Miss.’

  She peered at my notebook. ‘Hmm . . . very well then.’ She fished around in her folder and pulled out a maths worksheet. ‘This should keep you busy for a while.’

  ‘Thanks!’ I turned to the kids at the back. ‘Do you guys need one?’ I figured they’d be almost finished with the rules too.

  But they just shook their heads and glared at me.

  The worksheet was pretty easy and not very ‘torture-y’ at all, to be honest. I finished it in no time.

  ‘Have you got any more, Miss?’

  Ms Newton stared at me over her glasses without saying anything. Then she glanced around the room, her gaze settling on the back wall. ‘Perhaps, Miss Baxter, you could assist with tidying the bookcase?’ The corners of her mouth lifted a little, and I could tell she thought she was giving me an unenjoyable task.

  But she was wrong.

  ‘No problem.’ I hopped up right away. Bookcase ordering was my specialty. I had a great collection of books at home, and they were always beautifully organised. I skipped down the back, but paused halfway, turning to Ms Newton.

  ‘Will the army sergeant be coming soon?’ I was only too happy to help with the bookcase, but I didn’t want to be stuck at the back of the room and miss out on the main event.

  ‘Army sergeant?’ Ms Newton gave me a look that could freeze hot chocolate. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, never mind, Miss.’ I closed my mouth and scurried up the back.

  After the bookshelf was properly ordered – something that took five minutes at the most – Ms Newton searched on the classroom computer until she found a first-aid training program.

  ‘There you go, that’ll keep you entertained,’ she said dryly, as she started the video and plonked back in her seat.

  I think she was trying to find something boring for me to watch, but in actual fact the video was very informative and entertaining. I learned all about venomous snakebites, compression bandages and even some basic CPR techniques.

  Ms Newton didn’t seem to share my interest in first aid though. Every time I asked a question about one of the procedures, she’d sigh, glance at the monitor and give me a one-word answer before going straight back to her laptop.

  The video finished at 1:50 pm, a full ten minutes before detention was meant to end. But before I could ask what to do next, Ms Newton cleared her throat.

  ‘You three are dismissed,’ she said. ‘Don’t let me see you back here again.’

  The other two kids exclaimed, ‘Yes!’, and raced out the door.

  I walked slowly behind them, doing a last-minute check for booby traps that might be hidden around the room. (I couldn’t see any. There were just regular classroom things like desks and whiteboard markers. Boring.)

  As we collected our backpacks from outside the classroom, one of the kids turned to me and grinned. ‘You should come to detention more often.’

  I smiled. It was nice of him to say so, but in actual fact, my Lunchtime Detention Experiment was one I was hoping not to repeat anytime soon.

  ‘Nothing experimental today?’ Dad raised his eyebrows at my muesli bar and banana, at afternoon tea two days later. ‘Or are there some chilli flakes hiding under there?’

  I sighed. ‘No, not today. I don’t feel like experimenting at the moment.’ It had been a long few days at school.

  He cocked his head to the side, his shaggy fringe half covering one eye.

  ‘Everything all right, Edie?’

  ‘Okay, Dee-Dee?’ Max mimicked Dad by tilting his head to the side.

  ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’ I nibbled my muesli bar. ‘I’m just not really enjoying school at the moment.’

  Dad frowned. It was the first time he’d heard me say those words. Ever.

  ‘Are you feeling okay?’ He planted a hand on my forehead. ‘You’re not sick, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m not sick.’

  Butterflies seemed to have permanently moved into my stomach, but I didn’t think that would be classified as a medical problem.

  The truth was, making friends at my new school was proving much harder than I’d hypothesised. I’d completed heaps of complicated experiments in the past (and plenty that hadn’t exactly gone to plan), but this project was the trickiest I’d attempted so far.

  It had been three days since the failed slime experiment, but I was still getting the feeling that my classmates hadn’t forgiven me. For one thing, Emily James kept glaring at me in class, and muttering ‘Slimy Edie’ under her breath. And when I was paired up to read with Ling that morning, he’d stayed on the edge of his seat the whole time. He kept glancing at the door, in case he needed to make a run for it.

  Even Annie B didn’t seem that interested when I tried to share the results of my Lunchtime Detention Experiment with her. She just nod
ded politely and said, ‘That’s interesting,’ before hiding behind her perfect plaits and finishing her maths problems.

  Overall, things were not looking good. I was starting to feel like I’d be destined for solo experiments for the rest of my scientific career.

  Dad reached across the table and patted my hand. ‘Would it help if you called Winnie? It might be nice to have a chat with a friend.’

  My heart lifted. ‘That’d be great!’

  So that afternoon, I called Winnie. It turned out she was missing me as well!

  ‘You know,’ she said, after I’d explained all about the slime disaster, ‘I’m sure everyone will forget about it in a day or two. Remember the Exploding Crayons Experiment in Year One? That only took a week for everyone to forget about, and that one involved a fire truck.’

  I giggled. ‘That’s true. Dad reckons they’ll forget about it in a few days too.’

  ‘There you go!’ Even though I couldn’t see her, I could tell she was smiling. ‘You should’ve seen the principal though,’ I continued. ‘She was really mad. I had to do a detention – can you believe it?’

  Winnie gasped. ‘Detention? Wow. Even Mr Blair never put us on detention.’ Mr Blair was the principal at my old school. He was pretty strict. Rumour had it that he once kept an entire class of Year Ones at school for an entire weekend, just because one of them whispered during Friday afternoon assembly. (It had never been proven.)

  ‘I know, right? A bit over the top, if you ask me.’

  ‘Totally,’ Winnie agreed. ‘Although maybe Surprise Slime was a bit adventurous for your first day. Next time maybe you should try Surprise Baking Soda Volcanoes,’ she added, giggling.

  I snorted. ‘Yeah, maybe!’

  Talking to Winnie was so good. It felt like she was next door, like she used to be, and not twenty kilometres across the city.

  By the end of our conversation, I felt much better.

  I was feeling so good, in fact, that I had a brainwave for my next experiment while I was helping Dad with dinner that night.