Year Twelve’s last week of school may as well have been renamed Farewell Larrie Week, since every activity revolved around her. It started with assembly on Monday morning, when Mr Masch gave the same speech he’d given at every Year Twelve final assembly the whole time I’d been at Whitlam: sorry to see them go; best Year Twelve in Whitlam’s history; all destined for greatness; blah-yadda-blah.
“No tribute to Year Twelve would be complete without recognising the contribution made by one very special student,” he concluded. I prepared myself for the inevitable. “It gives me great – no, immense – pleasure to present the dux of Year Twelve and president of the Student Representative Council: Larissa Miller.”
After the clapping finally stopped, Larrie gave a gushing, Oscar-worthy speech about how Year Twelve would think back on their years at Whitlam as some of the most important in shaping them into the individuals they’d become, and how it was all thanks to Mr Masch and Ms Brand’s strong leadership. Maz mimed sticking her fingers down her throat, convulsing more and more violently until I couldn’t help laughing.
A bony hand clamped down on Maz’s shoulder like a vice. A second later I felt the same sting. Neither of us was laughing any more. Brandy pulled us out of our seats without loosening her grip, and led us out of the hall. She dealt with Maz swiftly, giving her a detention and sending her back to her seat. Then she started on me.
“This is the final straw, Allison. I’ve tried to help you overcome your seemingly uncontrollable urges to disrupt, distract and derail your classmates, but you obviously need more support than I can give. Perhaps Ms Shields can succeed where I’ve failed. I’ll ask her to schedule an appointment for the two of you.”
Patricia (aka Patchouli) Shields is Whitlam’s counsellor, meditation teacher and all round New Age hippie. She takes a week off each term to go to her guru’s ashram and recharge her chakras, and believes that school’s become far too stressful for young people. Which should have made meeting with her okay … except that an appointment with Patchouli is usually the first step towards expulsion, since Whitlam’s Student Code of Conduct states that any student who is “habitually and wilfully disruptive” must be counselled before any action can be taken.
Brandy had given me my first strike.
“What have you done now?” asked Larrie when she saw me standing outside the hall waiting for Maz to come out after assembly.
“Nothing,” I said. “Brandy’s being a bitch, as usual.”
There was no way I was going to tell Larrie about having to see Patchouli. She’d make sure Mum and Dad knew about it before I even had a chance to do any damage control.
“Well, if you’d quit acting like such a brat Ms Brand wouldn’t be on at you all the time,” said Larrie.
“She just hates me because I don’t suck up to her like you do,” I spat back.
By then a small crowd had gathered around us, including Beth. “Why don’t you two discuss this at home?” she suggested quietly.
Larrie looked like she’d rather keep showing me up in full view of the rest of the school, but she let Beth lead her away by the wrist.
“I can’t believe I missed all the action,” said Maz when I filled her in on what had happened on the way to Science. “If I’d been there when Larrie pulled her Mother Superior act, I’d have told her exactly what I think of her.”
Maz’s disdain for Larrie started on her very first day at Whitlam, when she transferred in Year Eight. Not having grown up in Kingston, Maz didn’t know who the cool kids were or who it was social suicide to be seen talking to. Most importantly, she had no idea who Larrie was or that we were related. So when Larrie was called to the stage in the first assembly for the year to accept a community service award for her work over the school holidays, Maz didn’t clap along with the other kids. Instead, she turned to me and muttered, “Shiz, someone needs to get a life.” We’ve been best friends ever since.
“I trust you’ve all completed your genetics worksheets,” said Ms Morales at the end of class.
Ordinarily, that would’ve been my cue to slump on my stool and practise blending in with the walls, but after Friday night’s nerdathon study session I didn’t have to. I followed Simon’s lead and held my worksheet over my head to show I’d done it, earning an approving nod from Ms Morales. So far so good.
“That was a practice exercise to warm you up for your major assignment for this topic. I want you to build as complete a genetic picture of yourself as you can, based on what you can observe and ask your immediate family about. You’ll then map the results on a gene wheel,” she held up a diagram of a circle divided into hundreds of small sections marked with different letter combinations, “and write a report about how you are genetically similar or different to your family members, and how you might explain any anomalies. Assignments are due four weeks from today.”
I was deflated. How could I ace the assignment if I didn’t even understand the task? More to the point, how was I going to get Larrie to answer the questions about herself when she wouldn’t even tell me when she was finished in our bathroom?
Simon’s hand shot up. “Instead of my family, could I map my finch breeding pairs? I already mapped two generations of the Lutz genome at camp last year, and I think this would help me work out which birds should breed together to achieve the most desirable colour variations.”
Ms Morales beamed. “That sounds fascinating, Simon. I’ll be most interested to see your projections.”
The only thing that stopped me from telling Simon to lay off on the sucking-up was the knowledge that, in four weeks’ time, I might need his help to prove Ms Morales’s beliefs about my scientific ability wrong.
“If I hear one more word about finch genetics, I’ll throttle him,” I told Maz as we joined the canteen queue. “I used to think it was bad sitting next to him when we were studying something he learned at nerd camp back in Year Five, but this is a fresh hell.”
“Come on, he’s not that bad.”
“Who’s not that bad?” asked Nicko, oblivious to the scowls from the Year Eights he’d pushed in front of to join us.
“Al’s venting about a certain finch fancier,” Maz told him, ignoring my raised right eyebrow (our unspoken sign to each other that a topic is off limits for public discussion).
“Simon?” asked Nicko. “He’s a good guy, Al. What have you got against him?”
“That’s what I keep asking her,” said Maz.
I usually tried to restrict my whingeing about Simon to Maz’s ears, especially since he and Nicko had become close friends in the band, but seeing the two of them exchange a smug, great-minds-think-alike smirk made me forget my diplomacy.
“Simon Lutz has been bugging me since our very first day of school. From the moment I hung my Wiggles backpack on the little yellow duck hook next to his little blue whale hook, he hasn’t left me alone. In Prep he used to carry me from one room to the other at nap time. By Year Three he was riding past my house on his bicycle ten times a day. In Year Six Mum made me go to the end-of-school square dance with him, and took that cheesy photo of us in cowboy hats that’s taped inside his locker door. I’ve been trying to give him the hint that I’m not interested for the past eleven years, and he still hasn’t got the message!”
Nicko took a step backwards, as if he was scared of me. “I didn’t realise it was such a touchy subject. I’d have thought most girls would be flattered to know a guy liked them so much.”
“I guess it depends on the guy,” I said, turning to face the front of the queue to hide my embarrassment at losing it in front of Nicko.
Which is when I saw Josh Turner standing two spots ahead of us in line, buying enough Power Kick energy bars to fuel an entire sports team. At the volume I’d been ranting about Simon, he must have heard every word.
Al Miller doesn’t think this week can get much worse.