Nick this morning instead of racing off to get the early bus. Youâre an idiot. And another thing, youâve got a hot guy living in your house and youâre not making the most of it.â
âAnd what would you be doing?â
âHeâs got the best body out of any of the guys in Year 12. So for starters, Iâd accidentally walk in on him in the shower.â
âYes,â I say. âThatâs right. Because youâre a perv. Iâm just waiting for the day you ring me from prison asking for bail money. And havenât you got an early guitar lesson? Get going and let me concentrate on my job.â
âOkay.â Then she drops to her knees, grabs my hand and starts pleading. âPleeease come to the cast party next Friday night. Pleeease.â
âNo.â
âGod, youâre a stick-in-the-mud.â She pokes out her tongue, and says, âIâll see you at morning tea.â
In the next twenty minutes I bust two Year-9 girls for wearing illegal black lace hair ribbons; a Year-11 girl for wearing her sports uniform; a swampie Year-10 boy for black nail polish; and Simon Guilfoyle for trying â again â to walk through the gates wearing a beanie. Despite the fact itâs summer. And about twenty-four degrees. I donât enjoy busting people. I pride myself on being one of the nicer prefects. A shoulder to lean on, a big sister to come to in times of crisis. But I still have to give them all warnings or detentions. Rules are rules. And the school community has entrusted me to help uphold the image of the school. Iâm not helping these students by letting them look messy, by letting them flaunt their beanies in my face.
And then Nick McGowan strolls through the school gates in his sports uniform. And even though this is a detention-worthy offence, even though I busted someone just fifteen minutes ago for doing the exact same thing, I find myself turning my back and pretending not to see him.
The day drags. In Modern History, Mrs Finemore says that if weâre well behaved sheâll let us watch a video about Stalin. Only at school is a Stalin documentary offered up as a treat for good behaviour. As usual most of the class fails to respond, except Jenny Hamilton, who puts up her hand and asks if itâs the documentary that was on the ABC last week. And werenât we supposed to be doing a pop quiz today? Someone groans. Someone else throws a pencil at the back of Jennyâs head. Mrs Finemore doesnât notice or doesnât care â she has a headache. Again. She wants us to spend the first half hour reading quietly from Crossroads of Modern History . Again. So Stacey McMaster and I spend the entire thirty minutes writing notes to each other about Mrs Finemoreâs dress looking like it was made out of a curtain. Accordingly we spend the rest of the lesson referring to Mrs Finemore as âDWTâ: Drapes With Teeth.
When the lights are dimmed and the video comes on, Emma P and Meredith tap me on the shoulder and ask if itâs true that Nick McGowan is living at my house. That theyâd heard that he and I had to share a room. A bedroom. They smile conspiratorially at one another when they say this. So I find myself filling them in on the story so far. Even though I donât really like these girls, even though I wouldnât usually have much to do with them. As the words pour out of my mouth I can tell that as soon as my back is turned theyâre going to twist what Iâve said â pretzel my words â and turn them into something completely different. But right now I canât have them thinking that Nick and I are room-buddies. When DWT starts to walk over to us, I turn back around and try to watch the film. But I find myself watching Mark Martin put pencil shavings in Jenny Hamiltonâs hair. Jenny doesnât even realise theyâre there until Stalinâs third five-year plan.
Through all of