Play the Game (6 page)

Jean was waiting for me as I walked in. ‘Bad?’ she asked.

I just nodded.

‘Come on. I’ll do your nails.’

‘No thanks,’ I said, dreading the idea. I couldn’t work out why my sister thought
a manicure would solve anything.

But Jean ignored me. ‘I have chocolate. I have those horrible red jelly snakes you
like, and I have twelve different colours of nail polish to choose from. What else
are you going to do? Go upstairs and sulk?’

That had totally been my plan. To lie on my bed, staring at my phone and hoping for
a text from Tess. I could see Jean’s point. It was kind of pathetic. Besides, red
snakes. And chocolate.

Jean must have seen that I was wavering. She held up a bottle of lime green nail
polish. ‘Bet
the
part would rock this colour,’ she said.

‘Nail polish didn’t exist back then.’

Jean shrugged. ‘Well, if Juliet was around now, she’d be totally into it.’

I rolled my eyes and reached for the enormous block of chocolate on the table, but
Jean snatched it away before I could grab it.

‘No manicure, no chocolate,’ she said, holding it high above her head. ‘Come on.
Green is definitely your colour.’

I sighed, giving in. ‘Alright, alright.’

Looking triumphant, she handed me the chocolate and manoeuvred me into a chair. She
took hold of my right hand and eyed my stubby little chewed-off fingernails, looking
horrified. ‘Gross. You don’t have any nails!’

‘I can’t. Because of netball.’

Jean rolled her eyes. ‘Bo-ring,’ she said, dunking my hand into a bowl of goopy water. ‘I’m
glad you’re doing the play. You’ll be much more fun now. Besides, I heard you were
pretty good.’

Despite how bad I felt about Tess, I smiled. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Jean never said nice things to me.

‘Who told you that?’ I asked.

‘I have contacts,’ she said mysteriously.

While Jean painted and filed and polished my nails, I ate half a block of chocolate
and about a gazillion red snakes. But I still felt awful. Even though I’d known Tess
would react the way she did, I was hurt that she wouldn’t even try to understand
why I was doing the play. I reminded myself that soon I’d be onstage, and it would
all be worth it. At least, I hoped so.

‘O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?’ I said theatrically into the tiny mirror
near my bed.

‘Juliet had better hurry or she’s going to be late for school!’ yelled Jean through
the door.

‘Juliet doesn’t go to school!’ I yelled back.

‘I think her mum might have something to say about that,’ called Jean.

I looked at my phone. Argh! She was right. I’d have to ride like the wind if I was
going to make English. It was all Tess’s fault for going in early. She’d usually
come by in the morning and hurry me up. I wondered if she’d sit next to me in class,
or if that was off limits now, too. I grabbed my bag, then ducked back to check my
hair before racing down the stairs. My bright green nails flashed at me as I ran.
Jean was right, they did sort of cheer me up.

‘Want to ride together?’ called Jean as I hit the bottom step and almost went flying.

‘Ah, sure.’ I was still a bit suspicious about why Jean was being so nice to me,
but I was glad to have the company.

‘What’s with your hair?’ she said, staring at the flicked bits at the side. I’d tried
to do something new – obviously it hadn’t worked.

‘Bad?’ I waited for the crushing comment, but it didn’t come. Instead, she flipped
out a hairbrush from her backpack and started fixing it. ‘Maybe we could have another
hair lesson tonight,’ Jean said, yanking the brush through my hair.

‘Ow!’ I tried to move away but the brush was wedged. ‘I can’t tonight. I have drama
class.’

‘Oh, is that why you’ve done this to yourself?’ said Jean, gesturing vaguely in my
direction.

Panicking, I looked down at the top I was wearing. It was a new green shirt that
Mum had bought me for Christmas. I thought it looked good. Anyway, I didn’t have
time to get changed. But Jean shook her head. ‘The clothes are fine. But the hair
… it’s wrongtown.’

Any chance I had of making it to school on time went out the window as I waited impatiently
for Jean to fix me. After what felt like ages, she stood back and smiled, pleased
with herself. ‘That’s better. Not great, but given what I had to work with …’

‘Thanks a lot,’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘Can I go now?’

By the time I’d pulled on my helmet, ridden to school, then taken it off again,
I’m sure my hair looked exactly the same as it did every other day. But now I was
also late. I skidded into class, wrote down some stupid excuse, and looked around
for Tess. She was sitting next to some girl I’d never really noticed before, and
there was no spare seat for me. In fact, the only seat left was right at the back
of the class. I had to squeeze past about ten other kids just to get to it.

By the time I sat down, dropping all my stuff on the desk and getting a dirty look
from Mr Eccles, I was feeling pretty awful. Usually I loved English, but today it
was impossible to focus. I kept sneaking little looks over at Tess, but she didn’t
look back. Not once.

After class, I packed up really quickly to try and catch Tess before she escaped
out the door. But as I slid my books into my bag I heard a voice behind me whisper,‘Only
a few hours until we know!’

I spun around. It was Freddy. He looked even cuter than usual in a white skater T-shirt
and jeans.

‘Excited, my lady?’he asked, giving me a theatrical bow.

Grinning, I nodded. I liked being called ‘my lady’. ‘I can’t wait.’

Freddy nodded. ‘Me either. I’m dying to find out what part I got.’ Then he rolled
his eyes. ‘Pity I have double maths to get through first!’

I pulled a sympathetic face, but before I could say anything, I saw Tess walk out,
looking super sad. I dashed off, calling back,‘Gotta go! Later, Freddy.’

Tess was already outside by the time I caught up with her. I was glad to see that
the girl she’d been sitting with in class had disappeared. At least we could talk
alone.

‘Tess?’ I called, chasing after her.

‘Doesn’t Freddy want to walk to class with you?’ she said, refusing to even look
at me.

I was pleased to see she was still wearing her friendship bracelet. We’d bought them
years ago. They were identical, and the only time we took them off was for netball
games, and only because the umpires made us. Surely that meant she hadn’t given up
on me altogether?

‘Can we just talk? Please?’ I begged.

But she just started walking faster. I knew she had geography now, so I probably
wouldn’t see her again until lunch. That is, unless she decided not to meet me in
our usual spot near the netball ring. Our school was a big place – it would be easy
to hide for an hour.

‘Go and find one of your drama friends, Edie. Maybe they’ll understand,’ she said,
walking into her geography class and leaving me outside, feeling awful.

I know we’d always talked about playing state netball together, but I’d never imagined
that would mean giving up drama. The more I thought about it, the more I realised
that it was Tess’s idea to try out for state netball. I’d just gone along with it.
She’d begged our Sapphires coach to put us forward. She’d found out the tryout dates.
She’d tried to get me to practice before, during and after school – though I’d managed
to negotiate that down to just lunchtimes.

I’d always loved playing netball, but maybe Jean was right. Maybe it did come easy
to me, maybe that’s why I’d stuck with it. Maybe it was time to chase my own dreams. And
that meant playing Juliet.

It also meant I was also going to be late for chemistry, if I didn’t get myself into
gear.

Somehow, I made it to chemistry on time. I sat on a stool and took out my books reluctantly.
Chemistry wasn’t one my better subjects. When I looked up, I realised Jackson was
sitting on the stool next to me.

‘Hi,’ he said with a smile. ‘You excited about finding out your part?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, wishing I could just tell him.

‘You’d make a great Juliet,’ he said, fiddling with his books restlessly.

‘Thanks,’ I said. I knew Jackson had tried out for Romeo – we’d all watched each
other’s auditions – but everyone assumed Freddy would get that part. I hoped Jackson
wouldn’t be too unhappy with a smaller role.

‘So, are we blowing anything up today?’ asked Jackson.

‘I hope so,’ I said, remembering the class when we’d experimented with Bunsen burners
and weird-smelling chemicals. The reaction had made little blue clouds of smoke puff
up around the room. We’d been nagging Mr Gibson, our chem teacher, for explosions
ever since.

‘Right, could everyone take out their notebooks?’ said Mr Gibson. Jackson already
had his book out, but he wasn’t writing notes. He seemed to be drawing. I tried to
lean closer to see the picture, and accidentally bumped into him. His pencil slipped,
dragging a black line right across the page.

‘Sorry,’ I whispered.

‘That’s okay. It’s only pencil,’ he said, rubbing out the line. Then he slid the book
over so I could see the pictures properly. There were little elf-like creatures dotted
across the page, with tiny wings and tiny faces. They were pretty incredible. All
I ever did in class was scribble notes to Tess. I slid it back with an impressed
smile. He shrugged, pretending not to care what I thought, but I think he was secretly
pleased. He blushed a bit, just like I did when Kerry said I’d done something well
in drama class.

It turned out that Jackson wasn’t just good at drawing. He was also really good at
chemistry – so he made the perfect lab partner. He explained why certain reactions
happened when chemicals were mixed and amazingly, I
almost
understood him!

When the lunch bell sounded, I hurried off, anxious to see if I could talk to Tess.
‘See you later, Jackson,’ I said. ‘Thanks for the chemistry help!’