Give Me Four Reasons (18 page)

‘Strike one for you two,’ she says to Mia and Holly. Then Mrs McKenna glares at me. ‘And that’s strike two for you, Paige Winfrey, and for the rest of your crew!’ She strides off.

I look down at the table, unable to meet the other girls’ eyes. Beside me I feel Sidney’s shoulders begin to shake.

Oh no, I think, I’ve upset her.

But then I sneak a look at her. Sidney is crying but they are not tears of sorrow. They are tears of laughter. She has her lips pressed together and is trying desperately to keep her giggles inside.

‘Oh, Paige,’ she splutters. ‘This is the best camp ever.’

* *

Spin the Bottle.

Like the back seat of the bus, Spin the Bottle is one of those things reserved for the cool kids. The rest of the kids sit around the camp fire, pretending to be doing their own thing, but really they are listening in and watching as my gang gets ready to play. I know. I used to be one of them.

The six girls from our cabin, plus Nick, Jay, Flynn and Liam from our home room sit down in a circle a few metres away from the fire. I am nervous. I’ve never played Spin the Bottle with boys before, except Jed. And our version of the game involved Truth or Dare if the bottle pointed at you. Not kissing.

Sidney spins first. As the bottle, which is really Mandi’s orange drinking flask, begins to slow down, the boys start moving with it, hoping that it will point to one of them. It doesn’t. It points at me. Everybody whoops. My face turns as red as the coals in the fire. I don’t want my first kiss to be from a girl, even if she is the Starshine Girl.

‘Truth or Dare?’ Sidney asks.

I sigh with relief. ‘Truth,’ I blurt out, without thinking.

‘Have you ever kissed a boy?’ Sidney asks. ‘Outside of a game of Spin the Bottle, of course.’

The entire camp site goes quiet. Rochelle and Elfi are staring at me from outside the circle, waiting. The only sound I can hear is my heart thumping.

Before I can answer, Miff cuts in and says, ‘Of course she has. Her sixteen-year-old surfer guy, Jack. The question you should have asked is, “What was it like?”’

Elfi and Rochelle look at each other and roll their eyes. They know I’ve never kissed anyone, never mind a sixteen-year-old. They look away in disgust.

‘Hey, whose turn is this?’ Sidney says to Miff. ‘When it’s yours, you can ask whatever question you like.’

I grab the bottle and spin it wildly, trying to take the attention off myself. It lands on Nick. ‘Truth or Dare?’ I ask him.

Nick shakes his head. ‘I’ll take the kiss, please.’ He puckers up. The other kids squeal in anticipation.

‘
Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!
’ A chant begins, soon followed by clapping and foot-stamping.

‘Go on,’ Sidney urges. ‘Jack will never find out.’

‘Come on, Paige,’ Nick calls. ‘Don’t make me read it and weep.’

‘
Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!
’ The chant continues, getting louder. Why did I agree to play this stupid game?

I stand slowly, brushing the dirt off my jeans. The chant changes to an
Oo-ooh!
noise. I step cautiously across the dark ground, intending to kiss my finger, press it to Nick’s forehead, then scurry back to my place.

Nick grins at me. I raise my finger to my lips and then stretch it out towards him. But I trip on a raised tree root and fall forward. I put one arm out to steady myself, but it is not enough. I headbutt Nick in the face as I fall to the ground.

‘
Owww!
’ Nick howls.

Suddenly a torch shines down on both of us.

‘Get up, Paige Winfrey,’ Mrs McKenna says. ‘And go and pack your bags.’

24

I will forever be remembered as the girl who got sent home from camp.

‘But it was an accident,’I try to tell Mrs McKenna when she comes back from the office. She has made me sit outside my tent by myself for the last hour. No one has been allowed to come near me, and I’m supposed to have been thinking about what I’ve done. I think this is punishment enough.

‘Just finish packing your bags,’ she says. She stands by the door of my tent with her arms crossed.

The tent is poorly lit and I can barely see my bunk. I grab my sleeping bag and start rolling it up. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt Nick,’ I say. ‘I just fell on him.’

‘During a game of Spin the Bottle,’ Mrs McKenna says accusingly.

‘But I wasn’t going to kiss him.’

Mrs McKenna holds up her hand. ‘Stop! As if capsizing a canoe and having a food fight in the mess hall weren’t enough for one day.’ She sighs and comes over and kneels beside me. She holds the sleeping bag cover while I stuff the bag inside. ‘You knew the rules, Paige: three strikes and you’re out.’

‘But——’

‘No buts.’ Mrs McKenna stands. ‘Get your suitcase.’

I throw everything inside and zip it up. Mrs McKenna takes it from me and strides to the door.

‘Hurry up,’ she barks. ‘Grab your pillow.’ She switches off the light and the tent goes dark. I reach onto my bunk for my pillow and follow her out the door.

‘Please, Mrs McKenna,’ I plead as I stumble after her along the firelit path towards the camp office. ‘Can you give me another chance?’

Mrs McKenna stops and turns around. ‘You had three chances.’ She waves three fingers at me to make the point. On one finger is a large oval opal ring. The colours in the stone swirl and smoke in the firelight.

Claire, the Queen of Clairvoyance’s words whirl into my head.
I see danger in the colour orange. Stay away from it. If you encounter it three times in the one day, it will spell great trouble for you.

The canoes were orange. The pumpkin mash was orange. Mandi’s flask was orange.

‘I’m surprised it matters to you, anyway,’ Mrs McKenna continues. ‘Little-Miss-Leader of the I Don’t Cares. Well, let’s see how much you don’t care. You’re a troublemaker. I said that on the first day of school. And I said that I’d be watching you. But for the next three days your parents can watch you.’ She looks beyond me as a pair of headlights snakes its way through the darkness. ‘That will be them now. Stay here by the office.’

She walks off to meet the car. I don’t want to look. Mum will be so ashamed of me. She has enough to worry about. I gaze over to where the kids are gathered around the fire. They are singing and chanting and playing camp-fire games. The teachers are standing in the middle of the circle now, running the show, rather than letting the kids have free time. All thanks to me.

Elfi and Rochelle are sitting at the edge of the group. Even though it’s dark and their faces are in silhouette, I can tell it’s them. They see me standing on the path and turn their backs on me.

Mrs McKenna returns and taps me on the shoulder. ‘You can go now,’ she says. ‘I’ll see you in my office on Friday morning.’

I can see Sidney and Miff on the other side of the camp fire. Miff is piggybacking Sidney and they are racing some other kids around the makeshift track. I raise my hand in farewell but neither of them sees me.

A hand waves from the edge of the circle. Jed’s licorice-coloured hair glows red, but his face is dark. I hope he is smiling, or at least not glaring, but in the darkness I can’t tell. I turn and walk to the car.

‘Dad!’

My father is sitting in his car. His fingers are clenched tight on the steering wheel.

‘Paige,’he says. ‘Get in.’I throw my suitcase onto the back seat of the car and then get in the front beside Dad. I sneak a glance at him. My father’s angry and disappointed face glares back.

When we are out of the dark forest and on the highway, Dad asks, ‘What’s going on, Paige?’

‘Nothing’s going on, Dad. It was just all a big misunderstanding.’

‘So you didn’t upend a canoe, have a food fight and play Spin the Bottle?’

‘I … well … technically, yes, but I didn’t mean to do any of it. And I didn’t start any of it.’ I know I sound pathetic, but I have no other defence.

‘You’ve never been in trouble at school before. This isn’t like you.’

‘Well, maybe camping is not for me. Or maybe being unreliable and quitting before things are over runs in the family.’

‘You know how sorry I am about leaving you, Paige.’

‘But it’s not fair, Dad.’

‘No, it’s not fair, Paige.’ Dad glances in the rear-view mirror and then flicks on his indicator before moving into the inside lane to overtake a truck.

‘I realise this separation has been hard on you,’ he continues. ‘But you can’t take out your frustrations on your teachers and the other kids at school. This is not who you are. You’re a smart kid. You’re a thoughtful kid. And you’re a good kid. You’re not a troublemaker.’

I stare out the window at the ghostly trees flicking past. ‘I don’t know who I am any more,’ I whisper in the darkness.

25

When I walk into school on Friday, after three days of excruciatingly boring bedroom detention, household chores and lectures from Mum, kids stop and point and talk about me behind their hands. They know who I am. They know what I’ve done. And they wonder what I might do next.

I am a legend. Part of me likes it. But another part of me doesn’t like it. The part of me that loves my mum and my dad doesn’t like it. They are both so disappointed in me, and I hate the way it feels. But Paige-at-home and Paige-at-school feel like two different people these days, and I don’t know how to bring them together.

I go and see Mrs McKenna. She rants and raves and shows me the action plan for my rehabilitation. I nod and then walk out of her office. This time I kick the garbage bin outside the door really hard and hope that heaps of kids see me doing it.

When I get outside, Elfi and Rochelle stare at me from across the quadrangle. But that’s all they do.

The first kid who openly speaks to me is Flynn James from my home room. He sweeps his brown fringe off his face and smiles and nods at me. ‘Hey, Paige,’ he says.

‘Hi, Flynn,’ I answer. I have never spoken directly to this boy before. And he has never spoken to me. I’ll just have to get used to my new legendary status. ‘How’s Nick?’ I ask him.

‘He’s all right,’ Flynn says. ‘His nose took ages to stop bleeding but it’s not broken.’

‘Ooh.’ I grimace. I am still heading for our usual tree, hoping to find Sidney and Miff. Flynn suddenly steps in front of me and blocks my way.

‘What?’ I say, suddenly feeling uneasy.

‘We never did finish that game of Spin the Bottle,’ Flynn says. ‘If you want to come over to my place after school …’

My eyes goggle. ‘I … I wasn’t really going to kiss Nick.’

‘Yeah, right.’ Flynn laughs. ‘You couldn’t get over there fast enough.’

‘No. I … I tripped. It was dark. I don’t like Nick.’ I push past him and run across the quadrangle to find Sidney and Miff and the others.

But the reception I get from the group is a little chilly. ‘Hi, Paige,’ they all say, but then they go back to talking about their near-misses at archery and fencing.

‘So … um … how was the rest of camp?’ I ask.

Sidney turns to me, her face tanned a golden colour from four days in the sun. ‘It was brilliant!’

‘Really?’ I can’t imagine the Starshine Girl rating a school camp so highly.

‘Yes, it was great,’ Miff says. ‘We
really
got to know everyone.’

‘Yeah,’ Sidney says. ‘Kids that we probably never would have spoken to were teamed up with us for drama night and trivia night and the final clean-up. They were a lot of fun.’

‘And kids we
thought
we knew,’ Miff says, ‘weren’t really like they seemed.’

‘Which goes to show,’ Mandi says, ‘that you can’t judge a book by its cover.’

‘Or a
magazine
, for that matter,’ Mia adds.

Everyone is staring at me.

‘I wasn’t really going to kiss Nick,’ I say. ‘I’m not like that.’

Miff comes over and stands with her hands on her hips in front of me. ‘Not like what, Paige? Not someone who kisses another boy when they’ve already got a boyfriend? Or not someone who kisses boys anyway?’

I shake my head, confused. ‘Um, both.’

‘You can’t be both,’ Miff says.

At that moment the bell clangs. It is like the end of a round in a boxing match. My head feels like it has taken a pounding. Punch-drunk, I follow the girls to English class.

* *

The first task of the morning is to write about our experiences at camp. I raise my hand. ‘Ah, Mr Reyne. I … I didn’t spend much time at camp.’

‘Well, you’ll just have to read our great stories and weep,’ Jay Stern says.

The class laughs.

‘Or copy someone else’s story,’ Miff says. ‘I know you’re good at that.’

I stare at her, puzzled. Sidney is scrawling something on Miff’s book and tapping it fiercely. She holds it at an angle so I can’t see it.

‘Miss Winfrey,’ Mr Reyne says, ‘you can write about what you did at home while your classmates were at camp. And as you’re doing so, you can reflect on your behaviour and decide if getting sent home from camp was really worth it.’

I blush and start writing.

The morning wears on, and my new friends continue to act strangely towards me all through Maths and Studies of Society and the Environment. I’m glad when lunch rolls around. I follow Sidney and Miff to our tree. When we get there, everyone is talking about the game of netball we’ll be playing in Sports Afternoon when lunch is over. The sly glances and giggles seem to have stopped and I relax as the girls include me again in the group.

I remember enough about playing Wing Defence in school PE lessons to know where I’m allowed to go on the court, though that’s about it. But I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to bluff my way through.

We make our way over to the Sports block and get changed. Everyone is talking about the teams they played on when they were little.

‘The Flowerpots,’ Miff says. ‘That was the name of my first team. I was six and the ball felt as heavy as a pumpkin, but I shot four goals that day.’

‘Mine was called the Chocolate Ice-creams,’ Sidney says. ‘That’s what my parents used to buy the whole team if we won.’

‘Holly and I started in the Purple Dragons,’ Mia says. ‘We thought the name would scare the other team and give us a head start, but the first team we played against was the Kittens, and they tore us to shreds.’