Give Me Four Reasons (11 page)

I fling my skirt onto my bed and step into Felicity’s. It fits around my waist and hips, but the length is wrong.

‘What happened to the rest of it?’ I say, staring at my knees in the mirror.

Felicity steps back. ‘It’s a good length,’ she says. ‘Just remember to sit with your legs together.’

I dry my hair with a towel and comb it. It’s grown and gone sun-bleached. I like it. I decide not to pull it back into its usual ponytail, but the front bits hang down and I get toothpaste in my hair. I rummage through the drawers until I find a pair of scissors.
Snip, snip, snip.
I cut a long, blunt fringe across my forehead.

‘Are you ready, Paige?’ my sister calls out.

I stare at the girl in the mirror. ‘Ready,’ I call out.

* *

I’ve arranged to meet Jed, Rochelle and Elfi in the cockroach hole. It’s a place we discovered at Orientation at the end of last year. It’s a stairwell at the far end of the Science block whose balcony above looks out over the first-year students’ playground. It’s dark and gloomy and no one ever goes there, except the cockroaches we saw scuttling behind the garbage bins. It’s the perfect place to hide and look out at the world. At the moment, that is just what I need.

But Felicity and I are late. The bell rings as we enter the gates. Mr Dekker, the school principal, frowns at us. ‘The Seniors’ Room for you, Felicity, and the assembly hall for your sister.’

I’m amazed. No teacher has ever guessed we were sisters before.

‘Jeez,’ Felicity whispers behind her hand. ‘Even spending summer at juvie was better than this.’ She saunters off.

I chew my bottom lip and gaze around. I can’t remember where the assembly hall is. I walk down the path, down the stairs, along the corridor and outside again to a large yellow dome squatting in the centre of the playground. It looks like a giant beehive. Kids push and jostle and buzz through the side doors. The building hums. This must be the assembly hall.

But as I reach the doors, the dome is suddenly quiet. It is as though a beekeeper has doused the hive with smoke. I step through the doors and, as they close behind me, I am struck by how dark it is inside. I lick the sweat off my top lip and blow my new fringe up off my face while I wait for my eyes to adjust to the gloom.

Dust motes dance on the beams of sunlight streaming through the small windows in the doors behind me. I blink the spots from my eyes and scan the crowd for my friends. A hundred and twenty faces stare over at me. I search for Elfi, Rochelle and Jed beckoning me over to a saved spot in the throng.

Someone blows into a microphone. I look up at the stage beside me. A female teacher is standing there, looking cross. I remain glued to the worn timber floorboards as I search for a familiar face.

‘Sit down in your allotted group, please,’ the teacher says.

My allotted group? I’m too nervous to remember being allocated to a group.

‘Hurry up,’ the teacher says. I take a step forward, but my vision is still blurry like I’m underwater.

‘What is your name?’ the teacher demands.

‘Paige,’ I say. My voice is hoarse.

‘Payne?’ she says, scanning the lists in front of her.

‘Paige,’ I repeat.

‘Speak up,’ the teacher says. ‘Let us know who you are.’

‘My name’s Paige,’I say loudly. I remember Shelly’s silly joke. ‘As in Read It and Weep,’ I add lamely.

A few kids gasp, and some others titter.

I cringe on the inside. Did I really say that?

‘Paige … Winfrey,’ the teacher declares, turning to the final page in her stack. ‘You’re in Group B.’ She points to the back of the hall.

I begin to scurry in that direction.

‘And I’ll see you in my office at lunchtime,’ the teacher adds.

* *

‘Four reasons you might get expelled on the first day of high school,’ I say to my friends glumly after the assembly. We are standing outside the bubblers in the quadrangle unofficially reserved for first-year students. Double-storey buildings, each labelled with a large black capital letter, surround a concrete basketball court. Hundreds of kids scurry up and down stairways and along the balconies that look out over the quadrangle. A narrow strip of grass and a row of leafy trees line one side of the court. A large clock is mounted on the brick wall of Block D.

‘Being late,’ Jed says.

‘Wearing a really short skirt,’ Elfi says, tugging at my hem.

‘Telling the deputy principal to
read it and weep
,’ Rochelle says. ‘What’s that all about?’

‘It’s just something from my holiday,’ I say.

‘What else happened on that holiday?’ Rochelle pinches me on the waist. ‘You lost half your body and half your hair.’

And half my parents
, I want to add.

‘We didn’t recognise you,’ Elfi says. ‘You look so different.’

‘Speaking of different,’ Jed says, consulting his timetable and school map. ‘We’re all in different classes this year, so we’d better get going. It sucks that none of us ended up in home room together.’

We all look down at the mass of papers in our hands and up at the clock. We turn in four separate directions.

Suddenly, I stop and look back at my friends. They have also stopped. Something is not right. We run back together for a hug.

‘
Track three!
’ Elfi declares, thrusting her palm into the middle of the hug.

‘
Track three!
’ Rochelle echoes, slapping her hand on top.

‘
Track three!
’ Jed says, grinning at me.

I throw my hand down on the other three but, as I do, images of blank Passport pages fill my head. And then Claire, the Queen of Clairvoyance’s words haunt me.
If you are to survive the changes,
you
must change, too.

I can’t bring myself to say the words. As always, no one notices I have not joined in. They also didn’t notice I missed my turn at giving a reason for being expelled on the first day of high school. But today, instead of being grateful, this annoys me. I don’t know why.

At that moment the in-class bell clangs above our heads and, without wriggling our fingers up in the air and slamming them down in a hand sandwich, we race off to begin our high-school lives.

It looks like I’m the only one who realises we didn’t finish the ritual.

14

I stop outside a thick wooden door with a glass panel. Room Seven. My home room. What did Claire, the Queen of Clairvoyance, say about the number seven?

I take a deep breath and open the door. Once again, I am met with stares from my classmates and a disgruntled teacher standing at the front of the room, scanning a list of names.

‘Hey, it’s Paige,’ says a strangely familiar-looking blonde girl in the back row, ‘as in Read It and Weep.’

I sneak a sideways glance at the girl who made the comment. She smiles at me.

And so do a few of the others. Another girl removes her bag from the chair beside her and indicates for me to sit.

‘That’s not a very nice way to talk about a fellow student,’ the teacher says to the blonde girl.

‘But that’s how she introduced herself to Mrs McKenna at assembly just now,’ says a boy with messy brown hair.

Mrs McKenna must be the name of the teacher who wants to see me at lunchtime, I think.

‘Really, Nick?’ says our home room teacher. He sounds disapproving.

I gulp, wishing I was a million miles away from this high school. I’d like to be back on Bloodstone Beach. I wonder how Shelly is doing at her school this morning.

‘Well, Paige, as in Read It and Weep,’ the teacher says, ‘I’m Mr Reyne, as in Don’t Rain on My Parade. And now, because you were late, you can tell us a bit about who you are.’

I look down at my new leather shoes, already scuffed at the toe, then back up at the sea of faces. I recognise Stacy Lawler and Cat Stanley from my class last year. They are busy doodling on their new pencil cases, not looking at me. But some of the kids I don’t know are staring at me curiously. It feels weird.

‘Um, well, I went to Juniper Bay Primary,’I begin.

Mr Reyne nods encouragingly. ‘Excellent. And so tell us who you are
now
.’

My mouth moves but no sound comes out.

‘I’ll make it easier for you,’ Mr Reyne says. He smiles. ‘Tell me what you did in the holidays.’

I think about Bloodstone Beach and Shelly. It was a great holiday, though the caravan park wasn’t too luxurious. But even Fliss enjoyed it in the end.

Mr Reyne coughs, bringing me back to the classroom.

‘Um … I spent a month at … juvie,’ I blurt out. ‘I mean, that’s what my sister called it, but …’ I trail off. The silence in the classroom suffocates me.

The kids and Mr Reyne stare at me.

Mr Reyne walks to my side and whispers, ‘I’m sorry, Paige. I didn’t know.’

What did I say that for? My legs start to wobble. I can’t breathe. ‘No …’ I try to explain. ‘I … I …’

‘Shhh,’ he says. ‘You’d better sit down.’

I sink into a chair at the front of the classroom. I can feel the other kids’ eyes boring into my back.

Mr Reyne calls the roll. I don’t listen to the names. I only hear mine. I am last, as usual.

‘Okay,’ he says, putting the roll in the top drawer of the desk. ‘Look around you. These are the people with whom you will be spending your entire year. Get to know each other.’ He sits down at his desk and puts his feet up. Then he takes a curriculum folder out of his bag and starts to read.

I duck my head down and stare at the graffiti carved into the desk.
Dylan loves Felicity
, the desk says. I wonder if it is my Felicity. Probably. Everybody loves my sister. She never says anything stupid.

The kids around me start to talk and introduce themselves to their neighbours. Nobody talks to me. After my crazy comment, they’re probably scared that I’ll steal their lunch money.

There is a commotion at the back of the room. ‘No way!’ says Nick, the boy with the messy brown hair.

‘It’s true,’ says a pretty black-haired girl. ‘Sidney is the Starshine Girl.’ She is pointing at the blonde girl who had identified me as I entered the room. The girl has her arms crossed and is frowning at her friend.

Everyone, including me, turns to stare.

‘
Mi-ff
,’ the blonde girl whines.

‘People will recognise you eventually,’ Miff says.

The blonde girl sits up, then tosses her smooth hair over her shoulder. She has lightly tanned skin with a smattering of freckles across her nose. Her sapphire eyes are ringed by long black lashes and charcoal eyeliner. She smiles a movie-star smile. ‘Okay. I’m Sidney,’ she says eventually. ‘And, yes, I’m the Starshine Girl.’

So
that’s
why she looks familiar. She’s the star of my favourite toothpaste advert on TV.

‘But it’s no big deal,’ Sidney adds.

No big deal! I’m so excited, I forget all about the stupid things I said earlier. I’m in the same class as the Starshine Girl. I can’t wait to tell Elfi, Jed and Rochelle.

15

‘Paige!’ someone shouts as I head for the cockroach hole at first break. I turn and look for my fellow cockroaches but instead I am confronted by the Starshine Girl.

‘Come and sit with us,’ Sidney says, beckoning me over to the patch of grass her group has claimed under a leafy tree.

I look behind me, thinking she must be talking to someone else.

‘Yes, Read It and Weep,’ Sidney calls. ‘You.’

I cautiously walk over to the group of three girls sitting at Sidney’s feet. Nick and a few other boys from our home room are lounging nearby and they look over curiously as I approach.

‘This is Paige.’ Miff, the black-haired girl, introduces me to the two girls I don’t know. ‘This is Brooke and Mandi,’ she says to me. Then she turns to the girls and says, ‘You met Paige at assembly.’

‘Oh yeah.’ The pretty Chinese girl, Mandi, nods. ‘What a way to start high school. You certainly let that Mrs McKenna know who you are.’

‘I … I didn’t mean to be rude to her,’ I stammer.

‘Rubbish,’ Sidney says. ‘You told us in home room that you spent a month in juvie. I bet you talk back to teachers all the time.’

‘Really?’ says Brooke. She has shiny brown hair the length and thickness of a horse’s tail. It is pulled back and tied loosely at the back of her neck.

‘Yes, I really said that,’ I admit.

Sidney laughs. ‘Mystery girl, Paige. Sit down.’ She smiles her Starshine Girl smile. She is so pretty and cool. I sink to the grass.

‘So what else did you do all summer?’ she asks.

Cried about my parents splitting up. Cried about my empty Passport. Ate chickpeas and climbed mountains just to talk to my father for a minute.
‘Um … I spent it up the coast,’ I say. I’m so shy of these girls, my voice is coming out as a whisper. ‘You know, swimming, snorkelling, hiking, bodysurfing——’

Sidney mishears me. ‘You can surf?’ she says. ‘That’s cool! I wish I could surf. Then I could hang out with some really cute guys.’

Before I can correct her, Miff asks me a question. ‘Did you meet any nice guys?’ she asks. ‘Surfie guys?’

Nick must have been listening in on our conversation because he suddenly butts in. ‘Hey, we can surf,’ he says, indicating himself and the three other boys from our class who are sitting nearby. ‘Flynn here is a legend.’

‘A legend in his own mind,’ snickers Jay, one of the other boys.

‘Speaking of minds,’ Miff says. ‘Mind your own business. We weren’t talking to you.’

‘Ouch!’ says the fourth boy, Liam. The boys shrug, jump to their feet and walk off to play basketball.

‘So,’ Miff says again, ‘
did
you meet any surfie guys?’

I think of Felicity’s boyfriend, Jack, and his friends. They surfed all day, every day. Shelly and I would watch them from our mermaid rock. Sometimes Shelly would shout out to Jack, trying to distract him, as he’d swoosh past on the crest of a wave.

I smile at the memory, fingering the bloodstone pendant around my neck. It seems too hard to explain I was just bodysurfing. ‘Yeah, there were some nice surfie guys there,’ I say.

‘Ooh,’ says Sidney. ‘Sounds like someone had a summer romance.’

I smile again. ‘Well, not really …’ I say.