It’s Friday, Ms H, and I’m slightly stressed.

If you actually read this journal when I hand it in each week, you’ll know that today is the day of the Big Triple Date. The one with Sam and Chelsea-Grace and Todd and Clara . . . and me and Brent.

The one I’m not at all sure I want to be part of. The one I have to be part of, because my two best friends are so looking forward to it.

We’re meeting before the movie, at the noodle place at the beach. Cleo and Chels told me this in the lunch room today, and my grump about the whole date thing put me in an argumentative mood.

‘Why the noodle place?’ I asked. ‘There are so many more interesting places to eat in Burnie. Why don’t we go to the Rialto for pasta? Or to Fish Frenzy at the beach? Or to Mecca! They do good pizza, and their live music is awesome. The others might like it there. Fergus . . .’ I trailed off.

Fergus used to love Mecca. The last time we were there, Fergus’s music teacher, Mr Zappa, was playing in a jazz quartet. Heaps of kids from Burnie High went, including Fergus’s charming old friend from primary school, Phil. Ioannis Poulos was there, too. He waved at me across the room, and Fergus ribbed me the whole night about him being my boyfriend. Phil kept saying, ‘Oh, Clementine. You’re breaking my heart. I always thought we were destined to be together!’ I liked Phil heaps, back then. I thought he was hilarious.

We all had ice-cream sundaes and the music was fantastic. Afterwards, Mr Zappa thanked us for coming and ended up sitting with us for a coffee. We stayed there way too late, singing and laughing. It was wonderful.

‘Anyway, you like those places, too,’ I reminded Cleo. ‘You loved the risotto you had at the Rialto, when we went there for my birthday.’

‘We were twelve, Clemmie!’ Cleo groaned. ‘And, carbs much? Besides, it’s better to do what the boys want.’

I was unable to hold back a snort.

‘We want to seem easy,’ Chelsea-Grace added. Cleo and I exchanged a look and burst out laughing.

Chels’s brow was furrowed.

‘Sorry, Chels,’ Cleo drawled when she’d calmed down enough to speak again. Then her eyes flicked to me and she was suddenly, uncharacteristically tentative.

‘Clem, we were thinking, too, that it might be an idea to keep the conversation to topics that Todd, Sam and Brent might be interested in. You’re always talking to us about your country music and your books . . .’

It might have been true once, Ms H, but I can’t remember the last time I talked about books with Cleo. She used to like historical epics, but I don’t even know if she reads anymore.

So I haven’t told her about the novel Fred loaned me.

I haven’t told her that it’s unlike any book I’ve ever read. That it’s set in an alternative version of the nineteenth century, where Queen Victoria the Second is in power and Neanderthals still exist, not to mention dodos, and everyone flies around in steam-powered airships, including the vampire prime minister. That it’s funny and bizarre and marvellous.

I haven’t told her I’ve been learning more about steampunk. That it’s a type of story, in which history is re-imagined and things like technology develop differently, often involving steam power. That there’s a whole movement that’s grown up around it, where people dress in Victorian clothes just for fun – the way Fred does with his bowler hat and his funny cape. Girls wear corsets and puffy skirts and hobnailed boots, or sometimes boyish clothes instead. They make the books come to life.

It’s very peculiar. And also seems quite wonderful. But I definitely haven’t told Cleo that.

‘We’re just not sure they’re the sorts of things the boys will want to talk about,’ Cleo finished.

‘So, no books, okay, hon?’ Chels confirmed.

‘No books,’ I sighed.

Chels beamed. ‘Good girl. So, next – what are you going to order? Cleo and I decided we’ll each have one of the Noodly Natural salads, only without the noodles. And we don’t—’

‘For dinner?’ I interrupted. ‘A salad?’

Cleo rolled her eyes. ‘Clem. It’s not cool to eat lots in front of boys – and besides, noodles would make you bloated in your new dress. Which reminds me, we should go for a run before dinner.’

‘I can’t. I’m busy. And besides, I’m not going to lose any weight between now and teatime.’ I said it grumpily. Cleo’s face flushed.

‘You know that’s not what Cleo meant, Clem,’ Chelsea-Grace said softly. ‘She just thought it might get us . . . geared up, right Cleo? Don’t you feel amazing after exercise?’

‘Sometimes.’ I thought of the Latin dance classes we did in sport a while back. Those were fun, and I’d felt energetic and invigorated afterwards. But running? ‘I’m not sure jogging is the exercise for me, though. It feels as if I’m on a horizontal hamster-wheel, running and running and not getting anywhere, and—’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Cleo said firmly. ‘You just haven’t done it enough yet to know you like it! And we all have a free last period. We can run then, before you’re busy.’

‘All right, all right,’ I sighed. ‘Get me to a runnery.’

‘Huh?’ Chelsea-Grace said. Cleo rolled her eyes.

And so, after class, even though what I’d actually like to do is get home early and sit down with a peppermint tea and read Fred’s book, to try to relax before this so-called date takes place, I will instead be running laps around the big hamster-wheel again.

And it will be my punishment, Ms Hiller. Punishment for every time I have not told 3CD that I don’t want to run. Punishment for all these years of being the Clementine they want me to be.