Monday 1 August

What factors affect your self-esteem? Try getting slagged off by PSST. Try being Kate Turner or the other girls on that list. Try pulling yourself out of the slime pit where some anonymous piece of shit is imagining you having sex and posting their pathetic opinions about it online. Try turning your back on that and polishing up your self-esteem and having a great day. Wellness class is a good idea, no doubt, but it floats above the surface of what’s really happening.

So, the survey? Phenomenally irrelevant and useless, Malik. No. Just, no.

At times, I think I am no good at all. I certainly feel useless at times. I wish I could have more respect for myself. I feel that I have a number of good qualities . . . For each statement I tick all four responses: Strongly Agree. Agree. Disagree. Strongly Disagree.

Ten statements. Forty ticks. I feel about each one of the statements the way people’s compasses acted when the Krakatoa volcano erupted. So much shit in the air that the compasses spun around in circles. When I say shit, I mean iron dust or something. But, whatever. Spinning. All options equally plausible. Okay, I realise I can do something useful with this survey, this piece of former forest: I write a note to Kate.

In class we are finishing off bunting for the Winter Fair while Malik talks about self-esteem. There’s been a bit of talk about the PSST post, but my friends don’t even seem to care about it that much. It’s as though what happens online is ugly wallpaper that we can half ignore. Lola actually thinks it’s nice that someone’s including the boarders for a change. I’m going to give them a big feminist motivation talk one of these days.

Malik tells us that doing something crafty with our hands means our brains will connect to everyone else’s brains in a different way because we have a shared goal. We are being altruistic and purposeful. Imagine back through the centuries to when we had to come together to build shelter. And now he’s like, when we help others (the school), we tend to feel good about ourselves. It’s a pretty tenuous link between our slave labour on the bunting and the class topic of self-esteem, in my opinion. Anyway, he says it’s also neuro-diverse, or neuro-responsive, or neuro-annoying. Words to that effect.

So we’re cooperating on making bunting. I’m here in theory, but community arts isn’t really my thing. I’m definitely more in the auteur camp. Or, if you prefer, I’m a control freak. My kinder teacher, Ms Zink, told my parents I was aggressively expressive when it came to my art because I had a tantrum when she put her brush on my paper and ‘corrected’ (i.e. ruined) a chicken I was painting. I felt that my parents were on my side. But Clare heard about it and, being a complete smart-arse six-year-old, she didn’t hesitate to use it against me: Mu-um, Adelaide is being aggressively expressive again.

The school should look at its own self-esteem, anyway. Private schools never stop their competitive jostling, each one trying to outdo the others. Why do they expect us to find our quiet confidence when they clearly haven’t found theirs? Malik said teenagers hate hypocrisy because we are emerging from the protective half-truths of childhood into the reality of adult life, and we don’t want any more lies. Personally, I’d make an exception for Father Christmas and fairies, but I know what he means. He means our sharp eyes are fresh and hypercritical. It’s true. He said it’s one reason we’re so harsh on our parents during these years.

So, swear to God, despite the stupid questionnaire, Malik is quite often one hundred percent correct. It’s like when my father used to be drunk, I didn’t even really notice when I was little – what would I have been comparing him to? But anytime my friends have seen him like that in the last couple of years – even if it’s in the middle of a fun-looking party – I’m embarrassed. I am hypercritical. I do judge him.

Clem nudges me, holding up a finished flag end to tie to my finished flag end.

‘So, you’re part of the loop relay at the pool opening?’ I ask, making an effort since she is in my thumb-group.

‘Yes.’ She looks uncomfortable. ‘It’s not like I’ve got a choice.’

‘Didn’t you hurt your wrist or something? Is it better now?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Try to curb that wild enthusiasm.’

‘I’m keen. Who doesn’t want to perform like a gibbering dolphin? I’m just out of practice.’

‘I don’t know how you swimmers can stand those early mornings. I can’t even pretend I’m human until around eight o’clock.’

‘And even then . . .’ Tash chimes in, giving Clem a dismissive look and leading me away.

‘We need to talk about Friday night,’ she says. ‘I mean, what the hell, Ady?’

Her netball training at lunchtime gives me a reprieve until after school.