How to Get to Rio (2 page)

By the time the bell rang for lunch, I realised that something new and super exciting was going on in my life. It seemed too early to call Persephone a friend, but things were definitely changing between us. Little things like her saving me a seat and walking with me to class were small signs. But there were bigger signs, too. She’d invited me to stay with her and she’d even shared her secret nickname. She was breaking the ice between us. We weren’t proper friends yet and we were still in different groups. But I felt like now I had a chance to really get to know her, and I realised that she wanted to get to know me, too.

Maybe we could hang out one weekend during the holidays? Perhaps we could go shopping or to a movie? I’d only be camping for a week. After that Izzy and Mia would be back in the pool, training. I’d definitely have free time to hang out with Persephone.

It wasn’t like I wanted to trade in my besties, but I did like the idea of a new friend. Especially one who had time for fun. Persephone would probably be super busy over the break, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.

I waited for her outside the classroom. She finally came out with Tori, her best friend. Tori wasn’t as pretty as Persephone, but she stood out in the group because she had confidence, and bucketloads of it.

Tori was the one who started the whole braid trend at school. One day she wore a braid and the next day most of the girls in our year were wearing their hair like that. Except for the water-polo girls and me. We wore ponytails. Not that I played water polo. But I did my hair like them because that’s who I hung out with.

‘Hey there,’ Persephone said. But before I had a chance to ask her about the holidays, Tori led her away.

Persephone threw her arm in the air dramatically and arched her body backwards, like she was being dragged off to prison. She waved for me to follow. ‘Want to have lunch with us?’ she called out.

I grinned at the idea, but then shook my head. I always had lunch with Izzy and Mia. It wasn’t every day that I was invited to have lunch with the cool girls, but I knew it would be uncool to ditch my friends.

Mia and Izzy were at our usual bench. They smiled, but I could hardly meet their eyes. All of a sudden I felt a bit guilty for even considering having lunch with Persephone and the cool girls.

‘You okay?’ Izzy asked as I sat down. ‘How did you go with Blackmore?’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Got an extension. Until Thursday.’

‘How fun, doing assignments in the last week of school,’ Mia said, rolling her eyes.

‘I know,’ I said with a sigh, ‘but Persephone said she could give me a bit of help with some websites.’

Izzy’s face twisted into a grimace. She looked like she’d just sucked a lemon. ‘
Persesame
?’ Izzy intentionally mangled Persephone’s name. ‘Since when are you two besties?’

‘We’re not,’ I shot back. ‘We’re just in the same homeroom, so we sit together in class sometimes, that’s all.’ I hesitated. ‘And, you know, I hang out with her at the bus stop when you two have water-polo training after school. Anyway, she was just trying to help.’

Izzy stuffed a piece of nutritious-looking muffin into her mouth. She still had a sour-lemon look on her face when she finished. ‘I just don’t trust her.’

‘You don’t even know her!’

Izzy shrugged. ‘I know enough.’ Then she came up with a long list of reasons for not liking Persephone. Most of them were ridiculous. She didn’t like her name or the way she wore her hair or the way she talked. But Persephone’s main crime, according to Izzy, was being in Tori’s group. ‘They’re all stuck-up.’

I glared at my half-eaten muesli bar. Izzy didn’t know anything about Persephone. Maybe some of the girls in her group were stuck-up, but Persephone wasn’t. And besides, I didn’t need Izzy’s permission to be friends with Persephone, or anyone else.

‘Persephone’s actually really cool,’ I said. ‘And she loves The Lads, too.’

Mia and Izzy groaned. They couldn’t stand The Lads and always whinged when I played their songs.

‘I don’t know,’ Izzy said slowly. ‘There’s something not right about a girl
that
pretty.’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘So
that’s
why you don’t like her? Because she’s too pretty?’

Izzy shrugged.

‘Izzy, what’s that supposed to mean?’ Mia demanded. ‘So you like us because we’re
not
pretty?’

Izzy shook her head. ‘I didn’t say –’

Mia cut her off. ‘Kitty’s prettier than Persephone.’ ‘How come you like Kitty?’

Izzy shrugged again. ‘Kitty’s different. I’ve known her since forever. I knew her when she wasn’t so pretty.’

‘Hey,’ I protested.

‘Remember that time you came to a party in grade three as a cave girl,’ Izzy said, giggling, ‘and you were wearing some old skin thing out of a dog’s basket? And your face was covered in charcoal? And your hair was all stiff and covered in leaves, like you’d been sleeping in the backyard for a week?’ Izzy started choking on her laughter. ‘No, Kitty, you were definitely
not
a pretty sight. Your mum sure does have a warped sense of humour.’

‘True,’ I said with a laugh. It was always hard to stay angry with Izzy, especially when she had so many embarrassing primary school stories up her sleeve. ‘What was Mum thinking?’

Mia smiled at both of us. She hated arguments and looked pleased we were friends again. ‘It’s so great we’re all going camping together.’

‘I know!’ I beamed, even though I was still nervous about it. ‘A whole week in a tent. Yeah! It’s going to be
beyond
amazing!’

Izzy and Mia exchanged glances. I could tell that I’d laid on the enthusiasm way too thick.

‘You’re gonna love it,’ Mia said. ‘Trust me.’

Izzy smiled cheekily. ‘But you know we’ll be roughing it?’

I shrugged. ‘I can manage without a hair straightener for a week. And I’m not scared of a cold shower.’

Izzy laughed. ‘There won’t be showers where we’re going. And we’ll have to dig our own toilet.’

I flinched at the thought of a do-it-yourself toilet – the humiliation of leaving the camp site with a shovel and a roll of toilet paper, not to mention the flies and the smell. Oh, the smell! And what if I accidentally dug up someone else’s toilet? Gross!

Mia looked worried. ‘You okay?’ she asked.

I really wanted to erase the bush toilet from my mind. ‘So, anything else I need to know about this camping trip?’

‘You’re okay with snakes, aren’t you?’ Izzy asked.

Izzy knew I was
not
okay with anything that wriggled. Even lizards gave me the creeps. I knew they had legs and didn’t actually wriggle, but they were still too close to snakes for my liking.

But I could see how excited my besties were that I was finally going on one of their camping trips. ‘I’m okay with snakes. As long as they stay outside the tent.’

‘And you don’t mind leeches? There’ll probably be a few around at this time of year,’ Mia said.

Just the idea of one of those slimy blood-sucking worms of evil attaching themselves to my leg made my skin crawl. I used my shoe to brush off an imaginary leech from my ankle.

Izzy giggled, and I laughed, making out it was all a joke. But I knew it wouldn’t be so funny when I was actually in the bush. I wasn’t sure I was tough enough to handle leeches and snakes. I wanted to spend a week with Izzy and Mia but I didn’t want to put up with leeches or go without a shower to do it, and I certainly didn’t want to dig my own toilet. I was starting to regret agreeing to go away with them.

‘I like your attitude, missy,’ Izzy said, putting on a coach’s voice and giving me a hard pat on the back. ‘I know you hate leeches. But you won’t let them beat you.’

Then it occurred to me. Maybe I
could
get out of the trip. ‘I hope Mum lets me go,’ I said, sounding unsure.

‘Of course you’re coming,’ Mia said. ‘Mum said that she was calling your mum today.’

‘Great,’ I said feebly. I knew Mum would probably say yes. I was doomed.

‘It’s gonna be so cool,’ Mia said. ‘Eating marshmallows around a campfire, staying up all night telling ghost stories. You’ll see.’

The bell rang for the end of lunch.

‘Kitty, don’t forget we’ve got a water-polo meeting later. It’s tryouts, remember?’ Izzy said.

I shook my head. ‘There’s no way I’ll make the team.’

‘You’re great. C’mon, give it a try,’ Mia said.

‘Nah, I have to do my assignment.’ I sighed. ‘And, anyway, water polo’s not really my thing.’

I still wasn’t sure what ‘my thing’ was. I guess I was still looking.

I was actually okay at sport. But Izzy and Mia were so freakishly good they made everyone else look useless. They were super committed, too. Both of them had made the elite water-polo squad at the beginning of the year. Ever since then they hardly ever had any free time. They were always training.

That’s probably why I liked the idea of spending time with Persephone. Even though she was one of the cool girls, she was quite normal compared to Izzy and Mia. Persephone and I probably had quite a bit in common. It seemed she liked shopping, doing her nails, and going to the beach. Izzy and Mia, on the other hand, thought
camping
was cool. They basically only had one week a term off training, and they wanted to spend it with snakes and leeches. Who did that?

I headed off to class, wondering how I was going to survive the camping trip.
Why did it have to be camping?

I gulped. This trip was going to be hell.

Peering into my underwear drawer on Thursday morning, I asked myself the big question:
Knickers with no elastic, or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?

Ever since Mum started her new job, the chance of finding clean underwear any day of the week was slim. All I had were a couple of pairs of knickers that should have been thrown out at least three years ago.

Snow White knickers would have to do. Somehow I managed to wriggle into them. Then I threw on my uniform, grabbed my bag, stuffed in my finished geo assignment and raced out the front door.

After handing my assignment in to Miss Blackmore, I saw Persephone at the lockers.

‘Looking forward to bridge building?’ she asked.

Bridge building
? I’d been so busy finishing my assignment that I’d totally forgotten about it. We were going to spend the whole morning working with guys from our brother school, literally building bridges out of craft sticks, in the hope that we’d build ‘healthy and harmonious relations’ with them. That was our teacher’s idea, anyway. Really, we’d be spending the morning checking out potential boyfriend material.

As Persephone turned to a mirror inside her locker to apply some strawberry-scented lip gloss, I took the opportunity to rearrange my knickers. They were threatening to cut off the blood supply to my legs.

‘Coming?’ she asked. She looked perfect as usual.

‘Ah, no,’ I said, running my hand through my hair. I could feel my ponytail was lumpy. ‘I’ll catch you up.’

‘All right, I’ll save you a seat.’

I ran to the toilets to fix my hair and rearrange my Snow White knickers again. After I raced back to my locker for breath mints, I was really late for the bridge-building session.

I peeked in from the doorway. I saw Persephone at the back of the room with an empty seat beside her. Two boys were at the bench with her. I guessed they were our partners. They looked all right from the back, but then most people looked okay from that angle.