1

“Settle down please, girls,” says Ms Burns as we gather again in the hall three days later. “I won’t read out the cast list until everyone is silent.”

A hush falls over the hall. Kate grabs my hand and squeezes it so tightly I almost yelp with pain.

“I’m sure no one will be surprised to hear that Belinda has been cast as our Eliza Doolittle.”

“Yes!” Belinda punches a fist in the air (the same move she makes when she wins a tennis match, comes first in a test or brags about pashing some guy at a party – she’s a pretty expressive girl).

“I knew you’d get it, Bella,” simpers Bethanee. “Your version of ‘Bootylicious’ was the best ever.”

Kate’s grip on my hand gets tighter and tighter as the other roles are read out. By the time Ms Burns gets to the names of the chorus I’m worried she’s stopped breathing altogether. Bethanee and Brianna are announced in quick succession, causing squeals of excitement behind us. When Kate finally hears her own name she drops my hand and turns to join their celebrations. I feel a momentary pang of disappointment, but remind myself that the only reason I gave in to Kate’s nagging and auditioned in the first place was because I was certain that I wouldn’t get a part.

Kate, Belinda, Bethanee and Brianna form a circle with their arms around each other’s shoulders and sort of bounce on the spot and cheer. I stand in my usual place: awkwardly to one side of them, trying to look as though I don’t care. I don’t register that Ms Burns has started speaking again until Kate envelops me in a hug.

“That’s fantastic, Fray! Now you’ll get to come to rehearsals and meet all the cute guys!”

“What?”

“Didn’t you hear Ms Burns? You’re doing lighting!”

“I didn’t know you were interested in lighting,” says Brianna, looking confused.

“There must be some mistake,” I say, looking over to where Ms Burns is comforting a sobbing Year Seven kid and thinking I’d better get this straightened out immediately.

“Nah, they always give the backstage jobs to the re– I mean, people who don’t get stage roles,” says Bethanee.

“Never mind,” says Belinda with a smile akin to next door’s Rottweiler when he sees the postman. “We’ll still talk to you in the breaks, won’t we, KitKat?”

Kate nods furiously, like one of those toy dogs with a spring for a neck.

I shake my head. “My olds won’t let me do it anyway. You know how strict they are.”

A flash of panic crosses Kate’s face. “But you have to! Everyone is. You’ll be the only one left out.”

She looks around for someone to back her up, but Bethanee’s gone back to gushing over Belinda. Brianna gives a small smile. I’m not sure whether it’s aimed at me or if she’s just daydreaming about unicorns and Care Bears again.

If you’d told me a few years ago that Kate Smith and I would end up being best friends, I’d have laughed in your face. We didn’t even really talk to each other in primary school. She had her group, which played elastics and practised their flips on the monkey bars, and I hung out with my mates playing backgammon or reading Asterix comics. Then, on our first day at Westside Girls Grammar, we both realised we didn’t know anyone else, and we’ve been sort of clinging to each other ever since. Just the two of us. That is, until Kate went to the traditional end of Year Nine dance at Westside Boys High and somehow bonded with Belinda over the fact that they were wearing the same shade of lip gloss, giving her entree to the Bs, the coolest group in our year.

So now I spend recesses, lunchtimes and the occasional sleepover (if my parents have called the girl whose house it’s at and checked with her parents that there will be an adult there at all times; that no alcohol will be available; and that no boys have been invited) with the teenage equivalent of the Spice Girls: Bitchy, Bratty, Bleachy and Wannabe.

Belinda is Bitchy because she has nothing nice to say about anyone, ever, and is also queen of the backhanded compliment. (Example: “That’s a nice top, Freia. I had one just like it in Year Six.”)

Bethanee is Bratty because she chucks a tantrum anytime she doesn’t get her own way. (And in Bethanee’s mind, getting her own way is essential, whether it’s being on the winning hockey team or eating the last Tim Tam.)

Brianna is Bleachy because she’s gone so far with the dye that what’s left of her chemical-damaged hair floats around her head like a platinum halo.

Wannabe is Kate, who just wants to fit in and be popular.

And me? I guess I’m Nobody.

Anyone who observes us together in our sacred spot under the biggest tree in the playground, partially hidden from teachers’ prying eyes and out of bounds to anyone under Year Ten, can see that I don’t belong in this group. Amongst so much blond hair and perpetually tanned skin, I stand out because I am perfectly average. I’m of average height and weight. I have mousy brown hair that hangs limply somewhere around my shoulders, except for those days when it hangs in an equally limp ponytail. I have dishwater grey eyes. I have an average amount of pimples at any given time. And since starting at Westside, it would seem I am of average intelligence (although my parents are still in denial about this).

Sometimes I feel like a big fake for hanging out with the Bs when it’s only Kate I’m actually friends with but, let’s be honest, no one wants the trauma of finding new mates halfway through high school. Anyway, they’re not bad all the time. Last week Brianna let me borrow her purple nail polish (which I had to literally chew off on the way home before Mum saw it), and Belinda was pretty nice (for her) about me not getting into the play … Okay, so those are the only examples I can think of right now, but there must be more.

The Bs have been together since Year Eight, when Belinda went from being an average, somewhat sporty twelve year old to Westside’s answer to Scarlett Johansson over the Christmas holidays. When the school year started she ditched her old group of friends (including Vicky Soong) and by the end of first term we were used to the fact that wherever Belinda went Bethanee and Brianna would be trailing behind her.

I think it was Siouxsie Sheldon (back when she was still Susannah) who first called them the Bs – because they all worked for their queen and could give you a nasty sting if you weren’t careful. Instead of being insulted, Belinda took it as a compliment, and on the first Monday after Easter they all turned up at assembly wearing little gold bee pins next to their school badges.

Kate’s made no secret of how much she wants one of those bees. Once, when she was dropping hints about it, Belinda told her that it was a difficult situation, seeing as her name doesn’t begin with a B, but she has hinted that if Kate plays her cards right, she might – just might – get one for her birthday in November. There’s been no mention of me ever getting a little gold bee.

Eleven Things Not Many People Know About Me

1. I slept with a stuffed toy wombat every night from the day I came home from the hospital after being born, right up until the night before Year Six camp, when I gave it up cold turkey.

2. I bite my toenails. (Gross, I know, but strangely satisfying.)

3. Even though I passed my Bronze Medallion for swimming, I’m still too scared to go out of my depth at the beach or swim in any water I can’t see the bottom of.

4. I once stole money from Mum’s purse to buy an issue of Cosmopolitan magazine because it said on the cover that you could increase your bust size overnight (which turned out to be a fashion feature on padded bras that all cost a lot more money than I could ever sneak out of Mum’s purse without her noticing).

5. I get pimples on my bum. (Very careful to keep this one to myself during swimming season.)

6. I didn’t get my period until I was fourteen and a half.

7. After a really crappy day I play the Kylie Minogue CD that’s hidden under my mattress really loud and dance like Crazy McCrazy.

8. I don’t like being drunk. I just don’t.

9. My biggest fear is making an idiot of myself in public.

10. I have never kissed anyone. (Okay, so most people could probably guess this one, but I like to think that they don’t actually know just from looking at me.)

11. I have never spoken with a boy in a boy–girl-speaking way. Ever.