New Girl

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From:	Ella
Sent:	Monday, 7:30 AM
To:	Olivia
Subject:	Weird, weird, WEIRD!

Hi Olivia!

Mum told me you went through to zone for the swimming carnival. That’s awesome! What else has been happening?

It’s week three now, which means one thing: my class tests must be soon. They’re just to stream us into our classes, but I’m a bit nervous about it all. Saskia reckons you can lose your scholarship if you don’t do well in them. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I hope I can do OK, especially in English.

Remember I told you about the stolen items at school? I’m investigating them for Eden Press. All the items have gone missing from the Year 7 dorm, except for one—a trophy from Mrs Sinclair’s office. But I can’t work out why on earth anyone would want to steal that?! Mrs Sinclair said it’s not worth lots of money. What would someone do with a trophy?! It’s really WEIRD.

Speaking of weird, I asked Violet to sit with us at dinner last night. She did, but then halfway through eating she went kind of pale and left. I just don’t get that girl.

Email me!

Love, Ella

PS. I STILL hear a clinking sound every night by my door. It’s so creepy! I’m too scared to get out of bed and check it out. I need a ghost trap—can you invent one for me???

I loathe PE. PE is physical education, or sports class. Don’t get me wrong, I love gymnastics and dance and I even got pretty good at soccer at the end of primary school. Because I am so nimble and agile (that means light on my feet), I was a pretty good goalie. But PE is not my favourite subject. In primary school we’d have to run laps around the oval. Or do a thousand jumping jacks. Or play tug of war, where the boys would get so competitive that it would feel like our arms were getting yanked out of their sockets.

I was sitting on the grass with Grace and Zoe. Two other girls in our year, Annabelle and Ruby, had come to sit with us too. Annabelle was the one who’d had her watch stolen from her room. I’d already interviewed her about it. We sat in a circle on the oval, waiting for our PE teacher to arrive. I stretched out my legs and felt the warm summer sun beating down on me. I rolled down my socks as far as they would go to try to avoid getting a sock tan line. So unsightly, as Nanna Kate would say!

We all wore matching sports uniforms, which consisted of a teal t-shirt with a royal blue collar. It also had royal blue cuffs at the shoulders and our initials were embroidered onto the sleeve. The t-shirt showed the Eden crest, which had the school motto printed in Latin underneath. ‘In Meliora Contende,’ I whispered.

We also wore royal blue shorts and white socks with white sneakers. For Christmas, I had received new purple sneakers with bright blue laces. They had a neon blue lightning bolt up the side and Dad said they would make me run extra fast. But then I found out Eden only allows white sneakers, which is very boring and not very expressive. So I have to save my cool sneakers for weekends. We also all wore matching royal blue caps with our ponytails pulled through the hole in the back. So much matchy-matchy at this school. It really does make it tough for a girl to express her fashion sense.

‘Can’t we just sit here in the sun all day?’ Grace said, dreamily. ‘I don’t want to get up and run.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Annabelle laughed, flicking her long, black ponytail over her shoulder. ‘Haven’t you heard about Coach Bright?’

‘EVERYBODY UP!’ a voice boomed from behind us. This was followed by what can only be described as excessive whistle use.

A woman ran onto the field. She wore sports shorts, a t-shirt and long, white socks. Around her head was a fluoro pink sweatband, and a silver whistle was clenched between her teeth. Her frizzy, blonde hair curled out the top of her sweatband and she looked a bit like Mum did that time she and Dad dressed up for an 80s theme party. I remember Mum yelling, ‘The 80s are BACK!’ and looking at Coach Bright, I guess she was right.

She jumped from foot to foot while intermittently blowing her whistle and yelling, ‘Up! Up! Up!’

‘Gather around,’ she yelled, which was odd because we were already standing pretty close to her. ‘Right, follow me!’

We were all too shocked to complain and ran after her like a clumsy pack of toddlers. She ran us around the oval four times (and the Eden oval is WAY bigger than our primary school oval). When we all got back to our starting places, we were hunched over, puffing and trying to catch our breath.

‘You are all so unfit!’ Coach Bright boomed. ‘You are meant to be my young, spritely Year 7 girls! Why so sluggish? Too many midnight feasts already?’

We all stretched out our arms, necks and legs, before collapsing into a heap on the grass.

‘Over?’ Coach Bright yelled, overhearing Annabelle. ‘Why, we’ve only just begun! Now the FUN starts! We’re going to play a game.’

I like plenty of types of balls—soccer balls, gumballs, Cinderella’s ball, crystal balls, disco balls, I could go on and on. But there’s one ball I really despise and it’s …

‘OK, grab a bib. Girls on this side, you are the red team. And girls on this side, you are the white team. I’ll line up the balls in the centre of the field. Everyone go to their team ends, and when I blow the whistle, you run in and get a ball. Remember, you can only hit people with the ball on the legs. If you get hit, you’re out!’

We all took our places. I had Grace, Zoe, Annabelle and Ruby on my side, as well as some other girls from my class. I could see Saskia, Portia and Mercedes on the opposing team. Portia and Mercedes looked most unimpressed, but Saskia bounced around excitedly, ready to compete. I could also see Violet standing towards the back of their team.

‘Take your mark, get set …’ Coach Bright blew forcefully through her whistle as everyone ran into the centre to get a ball.

As soon as I reached the centre, balls started flying around all over the place. I ducked and dodged and jumped to keep out of the way. In my peripheral vision, I saw a ball smack into Zoe’s thigh.

I threw my ball and it rolled into Mercedes’ ankle as she stood still, unmoving.

The numbers slowly began to dwindle as more and more people got hit with a ball. As much as I don’t like dodgeball, I had to admit, I was doing pretty well!

Soon there were only four of us left. Annabelle and me versus Saskia and Portia.

Saskia threw the ball hard and fast. Annabelle dodged it, but then lost her footing and fell over. While she was on the ground, Portia gently rolled the ball into her legs.

Annabelle got up and walked off the field. ‘Go, Ella!’ she yelled. I was the last one left.

I heard Saskia yelling tactics to Portia to get me out. ‘Portia, go left! Let’s attack, one after the other! Throw harder!’

Saskia hurled the ball towards my knees. I did a big jump over it and landed awkwardly on my ankle. It didn’t hurt, but it did cause me to lose my balance and my body came down into a crouch.

Everything went black for a second. I stumbled backwards, falling onto my bottom as a hot pain surged through my eye.

‘Oh, Ella, I’m so sorry!’ Portia squealed, as she came running over. ‘I was aiming for your legs—I didn’t expect you to be down!’

‘OK, clear the way,’ Coach Bright said, tutting as she waded through the crowd that had gathered around me. ‘Let me have a little look.’

She gently pulled my hand away from my eye. ‘You might have a bit of a black eye there, Ella,’ she said. ‘But I loved how you put your body on the line!’

Violet shuffled over from the back of the crowd and gently took my arm. ‘Come on, Ella,’ she whispered, as she helped me up. Everyone was staring at me and I felt mortified. Which means extremely embarrassed.

‘Everyone else, let’s get ready for ROUND 2!’ Coach Bright hollered. Everyone groaned.

Violet continued to loosely hold my arm as we walked off the oval and onto the path that wound its way through the school.

We walked in silence until we arrived at a little building down by the dormitories. Violet held the door for me as we walked inside. Everything looked clean and sanitary. White walls. White floor. White cabinets. There was the unmistakable smell of antiseptic in the air. The reception room at the front of the office was empty except for a desk and some chairs scattered around the room. I could see smaller rooms off the reception area and, as I peeked inside, I spied long trolley beds with crisp, white linen.

There was a little bell on the desk, which Violet rang. The school nurse came bundling out of one of the side rooms, her hands full of rolled-up bandages. When she saw Violet, she hurriedly dropped the bandages onto the empty desk.

‘Violet, are you OK? Do you need—’ the nurse began as she ran up to Violet.

‘It’s not me,’ Violet interrupted forcefully. ‘It’s Ella. She took a ball to the eye.’

The nurse turned to me. ‘Oh, sorry, Ella, I thought you were here with Violet.’

‘Let’s get some ice on that,’ she said, ushering me into a chair. Violet sat next to me.

Violet’s cheeks flushed pink. ‘I’ve been down for a headache before,’ she said quickly.

The nurse came back and gently pried my hand from my face. She carefully looked into my eye with a little light before handing me the ice pack.

‘I don’t think there’s any need to be concerned about damage to your eye, Ella,’ she said chirpily. ‘It’s just a bruise and it should heal pretty quickly. You might get some darker bruising over the next few days, but if you are in any way worried, please don’t hesitate to come back. Now, I’ll need to fill out an Incident Report, so just wait here with the ice on. Violet, you can go back to class.’

Violet nodded and then turned to me. ‘You’ll be OK,’ she said, smiling lightly.

‘I’ll see you later this afternoon, Violet,’ the nurse called out over her shoulder.

‘See you later, Ella,’ Violet interrupted as she hurriedly opened the door and jogged off into the sunshine.