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.

Miss Blackmore was out the front explaining the exercise. Quietly, I slipped into the classroom and took my seat. I smiled at Persephone and tossed my sketch pad on the bench. It was only then that I looked up to acknowledge the two guys that we’d be working with.

I froze.

One of them was Rio.

It was one thing to watch Rio on the bus from a safe distance, but it was a totally different thing to sit opposite him for two hours. What was I going to say?

‘Jordan and Rio, meet Kitty,’ said Persephone.

Rio was looking right at me. My heart started thumping like I’d just run two laps of the oval. When he leant in towards me, I could feel my cheeks getting hot. I put my head down and stared at the desk, finding a black ‘Real Madrid’ sticker on Rio’s folder to study. I guessed it was his favourite team.

‘I know you from the bus, right?’ he said.

Oh, no! I thought, suddenly looking up from Rio’s folder. He might have remembered saving me from the rogue ball, but it was more likely he’d noticed me staring at him practically every afternoon on the bus. He probably thought I was a stalker!

I was choking on the lump in my throat, but I had to play it cool. ‘You do look kind of familiar,’ I said, casually. ‘We catch the same bus, do we?’

Rio gave me a knowing little smile. I wasn’t fooling anyone. How embarrassing.

I turned my attention to the front to avoid any more questions. Miss Blackmore was still talking about bridges. I wasn’t sure exactly what she’d just said, but the whole class was sniggering.

Miss Blackmore waited until everyone was quiet before she continued. ‘Do we have an artist who could sketch a bridge design on the whiteboard for us?’

I slid down in my chair to try to make myself invisible. But I could feel her looking straight at me.

‘Kitty MacLean, would you grace us with your drawing skills?’ she said, holding up the whiteboard marker.

It didn’t sound like I had a choice, so I reluctantly scraped my chair out.

Giggling started before I reached the front of the room. By the time I was at the board drawing, everyone was in hysterics.

What exactly is so funny? I wondered as I sketched a bridge on the board. My bridge was a bit wonky. I tried to block out the laughter, and grabbed the board eraser to rub out the wonky lines.

Behind me, I could still hear the class sniggering and giggling and I could feel my cheeks getting red. I quickly drew the lines back in neatly. As I took a couple of steps back to check my picture, there was a huge snorting laugh. I just had to find out what was so funny. I spun around to face the class, and saw that every single person was staring at my bottom.

I reached around, and that’s when I realised: the back of my skirt was tucked into my knickers! Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were waving at the class!

Two guys in the front row were waving back and another one, who looked a lot like Dopey, was whistling ‘Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go’.

Oh. My. God. It was definitely the worst moment of my life. Full stop. I wished I could disappear into the floor then and there. But I didn’t, of course.

Instead, I flicked my skirt free and turned back to the board. I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the world. But there was nowhere to hide. All I could do was take a deep breath and just finish drawing the bridge that the teacher had asked me to draw.

‘Very well done, Kitty,’ Miss Blackmore said kindly. ‘You can return to your group now.’

I slunk back to my seat, with my eyes glued to the floor. I couldn’t look at anyone, least of all Rio. I was sure Persephone would never be friendly to me again.

I put my head in my hands, silently cursing Mum for being too busy to do the washing.

Someone touched my hand and then I heard Persephone whisper, ‘It’s okay.’ I opened my eyes and glanced at her sideways.

‘That was a great bridge you drew. And you’ve got a cute butt.’ She looked to Rio and Jordan for support.

I groaned. She might be trying to help, but she was making things worse. Now Rio and Jordan were staring at me.

‘Great bridge,’ Jordan said, grinning.

Rio nodded. ‘You’re really good at drawing.’

‘Mmm,’ I mumbled, putting my head back into my hands.

I noted the time and the date. This was it. The end of the world as I knew it.