7

It’s period four on Thursday and I have Biology. I don’t need to use the map in the back of my diary anymore.

I get to the classroom and my teacher is a tall, grey-haired woman with a long skirt down to her ankles. She glances at me as I walk in. Her nametag reads Mrs Ellick.

I start for the only empty seat – in the back row next to a girl with a purple streak in her black hair, tied in a ponytail. She’s short and wears eyeliner. She’s resting her cheek on her hand, slowly chewing gum as she watches me take my seat. She’s the girl I saw with the group of friends at the shopping centre.

Mrs Ellick displays a worksheet on the smartboard and begins handing out small slides to each pairing of desks. She arrives at my desk and hands us a slide with a red smudge.

‘Today we’re going to be looking at red blood cells,’ Mrs Ellick says. ‘Red blood cells were first discovered by Jan Swammerdam in the sixteen hundreds.’

She rambles on some more about Jan Swammerdam and tells us we’re going to sketch what we see into our workbooks. The girl next to me doesn’t look at all interested in the slide, so I pick it up and bring it close to my eye. It’s definitely blood.

We move from our desks to the benches at the side of the classroom and Mrs Ellick wheels a trolley around, handing us microscopes.

‘Do you wanna look first?’ I ask the girl with the purple streak.

‘Why?’ she asks. ‘Because I’m a girl, and girls should go first? Fine, I’ll look first, Tony Abbott.’

She takes her eye to the microscope and peers in. She adjusts the dial and stares for a while.

Okay, I need to make friends. She seems cool, dark, edgy. I’m kind of weird, so maybe we’ll connect on some weird level. It feels like weights around my ankles, pulling me into the floor, because I’m so nervous to speak.

‘So … umm … what’s your name?’ I ask.

‘Tegan,’ she says.

‘I’m Jonah.’

‘I know who you are. Everyone’s talking about you.’

‘Really?’

She lifts her eye and opens her workbook.

‘Yeah, you’re the talk of the town. The new Aboriginal kid.’

‘Well, that’s good to know.’

‘Don’t worry. It’ll die down in a week or so. Someone’ll start gossipin’ about someone else, or someone’ll start fighting with someone else.’

I put my eye to the microscope. ‘I think you’re the first person here to tell me something true.’

‘Well, I can assure you I’m not here to coddle you.’

Her comment makes me smile for some reason. It’s kind of nice for someone not to be so nice.

I adjust the dial on the microscope and focus on the image below. I see little pink circles all huddled together. They look spongey, like if I pressed my finger into them, they’d squish.

I draw what I’ve observed, just as Tegan is doing. She pulls her hood over her head as if to shield her eyes from the sun coming in through the window.

‘Are you a vampire or something?’

‘Yep,’ she says. ‘I’m about to go all sparkly in a minute. It’s cold.’

I can’t stop myself from giggling, remembering that scene in Twilight when Edward sparkles like a thousand little stars are bursting on his skin.

‘It’s not cold,’ I say.

‘It is. Just cause you’ve got dark skin and can retain the heat, doesn’t mean it’s not cold.’

‘Well, now you’re just being racist.’

‘Wow. New Kid, are you flirting with me?’

I’m blushing. Mrs Ellick moves to the bench beside us and starts asking the other students questions, so I go back to my sketching.

After the lunch bell sounds, we leave class and I follow Tegan into the corridor.

‘So, where do you sit with your friends?’ I ask.

‘Duh. In the seniors’ area.’

‘Can I join you?’

Tegan looks over her shoulder at me with one eyebrow raised. ‘What? Like have lunch with me?’

‘Yeah.’

Tegan sighs. ‘Fine.’

We head out of the building towards the seniors’ area.

‘I wasn’t flirting with you, by the way. Before, when you asked. I wasn’t.’

‘I know, New Kid. No one flirts with me.’

‘Really? You’re really pretty, though. I’m not not flirting with you because I don’t think you’re pretty. I’m gay, actually.’

She stops and turns to me. ‘Okay. If we’re gonna be friends, don’t call me pretty. Never ever ever.’

‘Okay. I’ll never call you pretty. Never ever ever.’

‘Good. It’s cool that you’re gay. I’ve always wanted a gay friend.’

‘So we’re friends now?’

‘Depends on how you go. We’re quite an exclusive group.’

We arrive at a picnic table under a tall tree, where the boy and girl I saw Tegan sitting with at the shopping centre are eating their lunch. Just across the way, Harley and Jack are with their mates, some of which were at footy training the other night.

‘Guys, New Kid wants to sit with us,’ Tegan tells the boy and girl, as we bunch onto the plank of wood that is meant to be a seat. ‘He’s lonely, so we’re taking him in for now.’

‘I’m not lonely,’ I say, taking my lunchbox out of my backpack. Tegan pulls out a container of tuna salad and the smell of it rushes into my nose.

‘New Kid, we’ve seen you walking around aimlessly,’ Tegan says. ‘It’s okay. You’re in a new school. It’s hard to make friends. We get it. You can consider this a free trial. We’ll see how you go, and if you don’t make the cut, you can go back to your aimless wandering.’

I bite into my ham sandwich. ‘Wow. You’re mean.’

‘I’m someone who tells the truth. Remember?’ she asks, nudging me in the arm. ‘This is Zoey …’ Zoey’s got long brown hair tied in a ponytail. She’s tall and has a cluster of acne on her forehead. ‘… and Gordon.’ Gordon has bushy curls and tanned skin. His nose is long and he’s probably just a little chubbier than me.

My eyes wander over to the seats under the shade of the tall tree by the fence. There are three girls and a boy sitting beneath the tree. The girls are fit and beautiful, with straight hair and long fingernails. The boy is tall, skinny, with a thick curly black afro.

‘Those are the bitchezzz,’ Tegan says. ‘Ashley Crane, Laura Billman, Molly Hawk and Francis Gallagher. The girls are the popular ones who date all the boys and make fun of people like us at their parties. Francis is the only other gay guy that we know of. He’s as much of a bitch as the girls though.’

‘Right.’ I giggle.

‘Francis got outed on the Patience Goss page last year,’ Gordon adds.

Zoey gasps, her eyes stuck to the screen of her phone. ‘Oh, speaking of which, did you see the post on the Goss page this morning?’

‘What was it?’ Tegan asks.

‘Britney Walsh is pregnant.’

‘Really?’ Gordon shuffles along the bench to check Zoey’s phone.

‘What’s the Goss page?’ I ask, looking over to Francis sitting with the girls. Tegan said he got outed. That would have probably killed me, but there he is smiling with his friends. I guess it worked out okay for him.

‘There’s this Facebook page called Patience High Goss,’ Tegan says. ‘Some anonymous person posts rumours about people at school. It’s sick, really. Sad, even. Now, New Kid, introduce yourself. Give us your elevator pitch.’

‘My elevator pitch?’

‘Just give us a rundown of who you are, what you care about, what you love and what you hate. And in one or two sentences, please.’

‘Okay … umm … I’m Jonah. I’m seventeen, Aboriginal. I’m gay. I love reading and my dad thinks I’ve got a flair for writing … I haven’t written much in a while, though.’

The group are silent, staring at me, until Tegan clears her throat.

‘That’s the worst elevator pitch I’ve ever heard.’

‘Well … I dunno … what else do you wanna know?’

‘Nothing,’ Tegan says. ‘Except, what are you reading right now?’

‘Reading? Umm … well, we have to read Brave New World in English, so I guess I’m reading that,’ I say. I bite into my sandwich as Tegan sighs.

‘Well, sure, you have to read that ancient Aldous Huxley bullshit, but what are you reading right now?’ she asks.

I search my brain, trying to think of a book, any book.

‘Umm … well, nothing, I suppose.’

Tegan sighs again. ‘Fuck. Okay. Let me just finish this and I’ll go with you to the library.’

She begins to monster through her tuna salad.

‘What? Why?’ I ask, finishing off my sandwich.

‘You said you love reading. Readers read for pleasure. Instead of calling you a liar, I’m gonna help you get a book to read.’

‘Umm, okay.’

The other two giggle to themselves.

‘Don’t worry,’ Zoey says. ‘This is how Tegan holds you to your words.’

‘Are you guys going to Jack’s party Saturday night?’ I ask.

‘We weren’t invited,’ Zoey says. ‘We don’t really associate with them.’

‘Are you going?’ Tegan asks.

‘Yeah,’ I reply. ‘Jack invited me.’

‘Hmm. Well, we’re not really cool enough,’ Tegan says. ‘But I guess I’ll go with you.’

‘You’re going?’ Zoey asks Tegan, giggling again.

‘Yeah. I can’t let New Kid hang with those dickheads on his own. He’ll be eaten alive.’

After Tegan finishes her tuna salad in what must be record time, she grabs my arm and drags me away from the seniors’ area.

She’s almost jogging as she leads me through the quad, up the stairs and to the library. She rolls down her sleeves as we enter the air-conditioned quiet zone.

‘What kind of books do you like to read?’ she asks. ‘And don’t you fucking dare say you don’t have a preferred genre or anything.’

‘Umm … well … I like horror … thrillers.’

‘Good.’

She leads me through the bookshelves.

‘Okay … horror … horror …’ Tegan whispers to herself. We arrive at the THRILLERS section. She reaches for a book and slides it off the bookshelf. It’s thick, with a black cover. ‘Ghost Story, by Peter Straub. Have you read this?’

She hands the book to me and I scan the back cover. ‘Nah,’ I say.

‘It’s supposed to be like one of the scariest books,’ Tegan says. ‘I didn’t think it was so scary. Just a bunch of old white men being haunted. You might like it.’

I read over the blurb on the back of Ghost Story. It sounds really good and I’m excited to start. As we leave the library, I spot a display desk with a pride flag hanging above it and a sign that says LGBTQIA+ READS. My old school in Rushton would never have had that kind of display. I want to stay and browse the piles of books stacked there, but Tegan rushes me out the door.

When we get back to the hangout I open the book. But before I start reading, I hear a gentle voice call my name. It’s Harley.

‘Hey,’ I say.

‘Hey. I got those footy boots for you, so you can wear ’em at training tonight,’ he says. ‘I forgot to give ’em to ya in roll call.’

He pulls out a pair of white boots with black laces. The white has been dirtied over time and is beginning to look grey. Harley hands them to me and I examine the studs. ‘I cleaned ’em as good as I could,’ Harley says.

I kick off my shoes and try them on. Harley is a size bigger than me, but probably because my feet are fat, they fit pretty good.

‘Thanks,’ I say.

‘All good,’ Harley replies. ‘You can keep ’em if they fit.’

‘They do.’

‘Cool. I’ll see you this arvo.’ Harley smiles and takes his backpack back to his own hangout. I examine my new-old footy boots, glance over the book Tegan helped me borrow from the library.

I think for a moment about texting Ben, telling him I’ve made new friends. I’m always the one who texts first – it’s been that way since I asked him if he ever thought about me as more than a friend and he looked like he was gonna vomit. He’d probably just send one of those short replies. Maybe he wouldn’t even care. I decide that he can text me first this time, ask me how I’m going. I’d tell him I think I’m doing okay now.

After school, I leave through the gates. Everyone is crowding the footpath, lined up for buses. I emerge through a gap in a line and join a group headed home on foot.

‘Wanna come with us, Jonah?’ I hear behind me. It’s Harley, walking with Jack and another boy.

‘Oh,’ I say, and my stomach is fluttering and suddenly I’m extremely thirsty. ‘I … yeah. Okay.’

I walk with Harley and Jack and the other boy into town. I really need to take a lesson in responding appropriately and confidently to questions.

‘You playin’ Saturday?’ Harley asks.

‘He’s not ready yet,’ Jack says. ‘He’s gotta get some fitness under his belt before he takes the field.’

‘Yeah, Jack’s right,’ I say. ‘Once I’ve gotten through a few training sessions, I’ll play.’

We cross the main street and follow the road behind the stores until we arrive at the rec grounds, where footy players have started arriving. Some kick the football to each other, others practise their shots for goal with kicking tees.

I take out my phone, open Instagram. I type Tegan in the search bar, and she’s the only person named Tegan Huckney. I hit follow on her page. She’s got 466 followers, and she has heaps of black-and-white posts of random things – a kookaburra perched on a fence, a shot of a dark, cloudy sky in the daytime, a photo of her, Zoey and Gordon with their arms around each other’s shoulders, wearing camouflage suits with blasts of paint spattered on them. They’re all smiling. Zoey and Gordon are tagged, so I tap on Zoey’s profile. She’s got 708 followers and two photos – the same paintball pic with Tegan and Gordon, and a photo of her holding a blue heeler puppy. I tap on Gordon’s profile too. He’s just got one post – a selfie of him at the beach with the long coastline behind his shoulder. After I tap the follow button, Gordon’s got 209 followers. They don’t post much but they’ve all got more followers than me.

Harley, Jack and the other boy have dropped their bags on the field and are sharing kicks with an older guy. I change into the footy boots Harley gifted me and join in. They talk and joke with each other. The older guy mentions some disagreement he’s had with his girlfriend. Jack jokes about one of the guys from the team they are playing on the weekend who has big ears. Harley kicks me the ball and holds out his hands for me to kick it back.

Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can be a footy player, one of the boys.

As I kick the ball back to Harley, he bends his knees to prepare for the catch. His curls bounce back as he looks to the sky. His brown eyes are wide open. His fingers spread long as the ball falls to his chest and he makes the catch.

Harley is beautiful. He’s nice to me. He gave me his old footy boots.

Ah shit. I think I’m starting to like him.