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chant was Amanda Cosgrove.
    She stood over to one side, watching with a sad expression on her face, looking as if she wanted to carry me off to an international community service conference so that the major industrialised nations could rally round and help me.
    I stood there, determined not to cry.
    I didn’t want to give Darryn Peck the satisfaction, and I didn’t want to give Amanda Cosgrove the excuse.
    I couldn’t understand why a teacher hadn’t come over to break it up.
    Then I saw why. The teachers were all over on the oval helping a man unload the marquee for the parent and teacher barbie off the back of a truck.
    The chanting continued.
    Darryn Peck and three of his mates clomped around pretending to be sick.
    I felt volcanoes building up between my ears and suddenly I had a strong urge to remove Darryn Peck’s head with a pair of long-handled pruning shears and carry it into class on the plate and feed it to the frogs.
    And I didn’t care what the others thought, because I didn’t want them as friends.
    I didn’t need them.
    I could survive by myself.
    That’s when I decided that instead of killing Darryn Peck, I’d become a nun.
    I’d take a vow of silence, which would be a walkover for me, and a vow of solitude, which wouldn’t be much different from how things were now, and I’d spend the rest of my life watching telly.
    I was just about to walk out of the school gates to make a start, when Amanda Cosgrove did something amazing.
    She walked through the chanting kids and came up to me and pulled the Gladwrap off the plate and picked up a fritter and ate it.
    She looked at the other kids and chewed it with big chews so everyone could see what she was doing.
    The kids stopped chanting.
    Darryn Peck screwed up his face.
    â€˜Yuk,’ he yelled, ‘Amanda Cosgrove’s eating a frog fritter!’
    Amanda ignored him.
    She picked up another fritter and went over to Megan O’Donnell and held it out to her and gave her a steady look.
    I put the plate down to tell Amanda about Megan’s problem with apples, but before I could, Megan took the fritter and started eating it.
    She didn’t look as though she was enjoying it.
    That didn’t bother Amanda.
    She picked up the plate and went round to each of the kids and held it out to them.
    They each took a fritter.
    And by the time six or seven of them were chewing, and nodding, and smiling, the others crowded round and emptied the plate.
    â€˜Don’t eat them,’ shouted Darryn Peck. ‘You’ll get warts on your tongue eating frog.’
    Everyone ignored him, except Amanda.
    â€˜You should know, Darryn,’ she said, and even his mates couldn’t help laughing.
    Then the bell went.
    Amanda held the empty plate out to me.
    â€˜Thanks,’ I said.
    I decided not to be a nun after all.
    We went into class without saying anything else, but halfway through the morning, when Ms Dunning asked for volunteers to go out and help put up the marquee, I glanced over at Amanda and saw she had her hand up, so I put mine up too.
    Inside the marquee, while we struggled with the thick ropes, Amanda looked at me.
    â€˜I’m sorry I took you being a community service project for granted,’ she said. ‘I promise I’ll never think of you that way again.’
    Her face looked so serious in the middle of all the curls that I could see she meant it.
    I couldn’t answer her because I was pulling on a rope, so I gave her a smile.
    She smiled back.
    But even as we grinned at each other, a tiny part of me wondered if she’d be able to keep her promise.
    I tried to squash the thought, but it wouldn’t go away.
    It didn’t stop me saying yes, though, when Amanda invited me to the milk bar for a milkshake later this arvo.
    We’re back in class now and Ms Dunning’s telling us some really interesting stuff about the early explorers.
    As they sailed new oceans and