Life Was Cool Until You Got Popular
A Novel
by Sarah Billington
Copyright © 2011 Sarah Billington
Published by Billington Media at Smashwords
Cover design © Scarlett Ruger Designs
LICENCE NOTES
Life Was Cool Until You Got Popular by Sarah Billington is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Smashwords Edition Licence Notes
This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
DESCRIPTION
Thirteen year old Kaley’s best friend Jules is an alien clone. That has to be it. Because Jules wouldn’t dress like that or act like that…and she definitely wouldn’t be friends with Meg-a-bitch.
Kaley can't wait to start at her new school with her best friend Jules. Jules was away in Europe all summer (worst summer of Kaley's life!) But it's cool, now school is starting and everything is going to be awesome. However as the school bus pulls up on that first day, Kaley barely recognizes the silky hair and glossy lips as Jules gets off with the cool kids and with their arch-nemesis Meg, the popular girl (God only knows why) who made Kaley and Jules's lives miserable in elementary school. In Europe, Meg had somehow won over Kaley's best friend and Kaley finds herself frozen out.
LIFE WAS COOL UNTIL YOU GOT POPULAR is a first person upper middle grade novel told through Kaley’s eyes, chronicling the initial pain and incomprehension of what happened to destroy their friendship. But that doesn't last long. Kaley decides that underneath the bleached blond clone with the personality transplant, Jules is still in there. Somewhere. And she is going to get her best friend back!
Contents
Chapter One
I stood by the school gate at Cromwell Prep, feeling weird in the maroon and white uniform. Over the past two years at Malcolm MacGregor Middle I’d gotten used to blue, white and yellow. It’s not like I had a whole lot of school pride or would go and watch any of the team sports I wasn’t forced to, but blue, white and yellow sort of…I dunno, it became part of my identity.
So even though all the other kids were wearing the same colors, I felt completely conspicuous in maroon and white. Especially with my stiff, scratchy jumper, pristine blazer and school dress practically down to my ankles. Mom said I’d grow into it, but really – what am I supposed to do in the meantime? When exactly does your body stop growing, anyway? I hope I have that growth spurt everyone talks about soon or else my school dress will be down to my ankles until I graduate. I saw Stefan Gregorio at the park last week and he sure seems to have made the most of the summer because he grew at least a foot. He’s kind of funny looking now though because his arms and legs are too long for his body. I hope that doesn’t happen to me. But I do hope I start growing soon.
Looking around, I watched my new schoolmates file through the gate, calling out to each other, squealing and hugging their girl and guy friends they hadn’t seen since last year. I tried to hide a grimace. We didn’t squeal and hug at my old school. We just looked at each other and said hey. Most of the time we smiled when we said it. Maybe that’s why it got closed down, we weren’t enthusiastic enough. We sure weren’t peppy.
I heard a screech and two girls ran at each other and nearly fell on their faces the collision was so hard. And it wasn’t just the little sixth graders doing it, but like, the older kids too. Or maybe they were sixth graders and they just looked older. For a split second I wished I was back in sixth grade because then I’d have that excuse for not knowing anyone. But no, I was just the new kid. I don’t think anyone else from MacGregor is coming to Cromwell. At least not from my year. Except Jules, of course. I hadn’t noticed anyone I knew yet. We were the last sixth graders to go to Malcolm McGregor. It’s getting bulldozed this year to make way for an old person’s home. I cringed as my ears were assaulted with another scream and two girls hurled themselves at each other, talking over the top of each other until they were shouting to be the loudest. Thank God Jules was coming. I just wished she’d hurry up and get here already.
I watched what had begun as two really pretty girls lingering over under the beech tree on the lawn beside the front entrance. As I watched, it was slowly becoming a model reunion special. Boys with the perfect summer tan and the latest hair walked over and hugged them, who were soon joined by girls wearing shiny leather school shoes with heels and school dresses the size of tennis dresses and then there were other boys with hair styled into just the right amount of bed head, their ties artily crooked and loose. But it wasn’t messy. It was the kind of messy you’d find on the cover of a magazine. Entirely purposeful. It looked that way to me, anyway.
I looked at them some more. Actually, it might not have been purposeful. It might have just been messy. I watched a line of girls enter the school and walk past the pretty people, glancing over before sharing excited smiles and then proceeded to giggle as soon as they entered the building. Hmm. Every school had one, and before the learning had even commenced, it appeared I’d happened upon the popular clique.
Half the eighth graders hadn’t even arrived, but this group, you could just tell. They had the look, I couldn’t work out exactly what it was though. I guess I gotta give the students here props though. I mean those kids oozed cool. Unlike the popular group at my old school who were led by Hunt Mitchell who’s proudest moment was burping the national anthem through assembly one time and Hilary Whistler who spent the start of elementary school terrorizing the boys with games of kiss-chasey before they finally gave in by the fifth grade and started letting her catch them just to get it over with and get back to their game of football already. Then she came back to school after summer last year with these boobs she’d never had before and from then on she always had a boyfriend, though she’d go with someone different each week.
I don’t think the boys she was going with always knew they were with her though. So yeah, just by the quality of the popular kids alone, Cromwell Prep was turning out to be a top notch school. No wonder Malcolm MacGregor closed down.
I watched out of the corner of my eye with envy, as two of the girls in that clique hugged as if they hadn’t seen each other in forever. My guess? It was probably last night. They jumped up and down in a girly hug and held hands as they spoke over the top of each other, praising the other on how pretty they looked. I wanted to do that. But instead, I stood by myself feeling like a loser loner with no friends. But that would all change in a matter of seconds, when Jules climbed off the bus and came running over to me and I too would be involved in a big, jumping up and down type girly hug, some squeals of excitement and lots of exclamations of how much we missed each other. And unlike them, I actually hadn’t seen her since the last day of school last year.
It was our first time apart – like seriously apart with her traipsing all over a whole other continent on a school trip Cromwell ran– so we most definitely had a big girly squeal, jump up and down, hugging and telling each other how pretty we looked reunion due. I’d probably feel weird about the ‘you’re so pretty’ part, but, not that I’d admit it, the jumping looked fun.
I perked up as I heard the roar of an engine that sounded a little more intense than the station wagons and people-movers that were dropping kids off, and soon the bus rounded the corner and stopped in front of the school with a weary sigh. The front and back doors opened and the bus vomited out students in a tidal wave of maroon and white. I searched every face for Jules – okay, not the boys’ faces, obviously – looking for her dirty blond waves (the family trademark) and probably a school dress down to her ankles like me. I didn’t find her. Wait – was that…no. Oh – yes, it was. Jules’s unruly curls that she’d never managed to tame were now a slick, glossy mane of platinum blond. Her school dress sat above her knee, the right amount of short and her sweater was sitting comfortably on her hips as if it had been professionally tailored just for her.
And since when had she worn make up? We’re talking the biggest tom boy on the planet, Jules was. Worse than me. And since when has her mom let her wear makeup?
She stepped off the bus in school shoes with heels on them, and was busy dabbing her pinkie into a pot of pink lip gloss, smearing it across her already super shiny lips. And did I mention she was wearing dangly earrings with colored glass beads that jiggled around when she moved and sparkled in the sunlight? She had bangles on one wrist and… was that a gold watch? Jules. Looked. Ridiculous.
I stood there with my mouth hanging open, watching as more students flooded the sidewalk and manoeuvred their way around me. I don’t remember dropping my back pack but at some point I did. Hard. On my foot.
Jules was mid-conversation with someone and paused on the curb, waiting for them to join her. Had it been possible for my jaw to drop any further, it would have. She laughed at something that was said, and tossed her hair. She smacked her re-glossed lips together and placed the pot in her blazer pocket. My eyes narrowed somewhat. I didn’t mean for them to.
‘You drop this?’
‘Huh?’ I blinked, a tall boy with a mop of scruffy hair held my back pack out to me. My tummy fluttered. He must have spent the summer growing, too. But unlike Stefan Gregorio, he looked just right.
I took the bag. ‘I guess. Thanks,’ I said.
He gave me a crooked smile and my heart nearly stopped. Yes, totally because he was completely adorable but also a little bit because he’d snapped me out of my “who on Earth is that girl, is it Jules? No it can’t be but I think it is” trance and now I was starting to feel the pain of my bag having collided with my tootsies. It was starting to throb, but I had more important things to think about.
We’d never really bothered with boys before, Jules and me. Not the boys we knew. They were rough and sweaty and thought it was hilarious to fart and throw things at you. In fact our opinion on the matter had been: Boys are stupid. End of sentence. But this boy was completely different to any of the boys I’d come across before. This was the sort of boy Jules and I would discuss in minute detail in the tree house in my backyard. Except this boy wasn’t in a magazine. This was a real life lust-worthy boy! My stomach fluttered some more as I stood there looking at him. But it fluttered in a nice kind of way. Unlike my toes which throbbed in a bad kind of way.
‘No problem,’ he said, and with that he turned and ambled toward the building.
‘Travster!’ One of the boys from the model reunion called. Girls opened their arms to Mr. Tall and Scruffy and squealed. He dropped his bag on the grass and began an elaborate greeting ritual of air kisses, hugs and complicated high fives. My shoulders drooped. He was one of them. Of course he was. I turned back to Jules.
The person she was waiting for had gotten off the bus, and I realized with horror that Jules had to be an alien clone. There was no other explanation for it. Because there was no way that the real Jules would laugh and joke and enjoy the company of the finest playground bully there ever was, our sworn enemy, Meg freaking Colton. Of all the people from Malcolm MacGregor Middle School I would have been glad to be rid of forever, it was her. Absolutely her. How did I not know that she of all people was coming to the same school as me again? I’d suffered through elementary school with her and it killed me when she showed up on the first day of sixth grade at MacGregor as well, but this? She got into Cromwell too? A couple of the pretty people called out to Meg. One girl skipped over to her and Jules, her high heels clickity clacking on the pavement, and the girl opened her arms with yet another squeal. To Meg. She opened her arms to Meg and hugged her.
I take it back. I take it all back. No props to Cromwell. The props have been revoked. For if they actually like Meg (gag), then they must all be clinically insane and I’d in fact been transferred to a mental institution. You see, We hate Meg. Jules and me. We always have. I actually remember the day we decided that we would hate her forever.
It was first grade and she already had a posse of girls that followed her around and laughed at people when she told them to, and said ‘Yeah’ whenever she said something mean (so they said ‘Yeah’ a lot). There are tons of movies with girls just like them. Must be where they learned it from.
Jules and I had been playing on the jungle gym. We were sitting up the top, surveying our kingdom (we were princesses – actually I was the Queen and Jules was a princess but I didn’t tell her that) and we were deciding whether or not to send the knights out to war or let the enemy come to us and ram down the gate. Pfft. Let them try. All I knew was good luck getting over the moatful of crocodiles. Anyway Meg and her girls sauntered over and had a good old laugh looking up our skirts and from then on she called me Dumbo, cos I’d been wearing these cute little elephant underpants. Jules didn’t get a nickname at the time because she was wearing plain white ones. She probably hadn’t planned it out, that the nickname would catch on and everyone – especially the boys – would call me Dumbo for the next six years of my school life. I mean she was just a little kid. But I clearly remember the look in her eye when Louis Markowicz heard and laughed and announced to everyone that my name was Dumbo. She was thrilled. And this was just the beginning of Meg’s reign of terror against me. Jules got her fair share of abuse too. Actually in second grade she earned the nickname Tipper because she went through a clumsy phase and tipped over a lot.
But jeez, Dumbo? Jules was my best friend so she hated Meg for me. She was insulted for me and we spent a lot of time glaring at her from across the playground and staying out of her way. And besides, isn’t it really mean to call someone Dumbo for six straight years? Especially when other kids caught on to it but thought it meant I was stupid.
As I watched them standing over there, I remembered the last day of term last year, Jules and I walking home and we’d started running and skipping with joy because we were finally rid of the evil evil Meg. We’d really been looking forward to that. Then what on Earth was Jules doing laughing with her right now? I mean, Meg!
I was still standing on my own by the gate, trying to be inconspicuous in my school gown, but I probably wasn’t doing a good job of it because I think my jaw had hit the pavement and my eyebrows had most likely disappeared into my hair line.
And then Jules’s mascara’d eyes turned to me, but they didn’t light up like they were supposed to. She didn’t run over to me and hug me because she hadn’t seen her best friend in months. She didn’t exclaim about how boring that trip to Europe had been and how much she missed me, and wished I’d have been there because it would have been so much more fun with me by her side. Oh, and she was so sorry she got back two weeks ago but whisked off on an end of summer trip to the beach with family friends. It had all been so last minute!
What she did do, was nod and stroll over, blowing a bubble with her gum. She didn’t stick out like a new kid, even her knee high socks stayed up as she walked, unlike mine, one of which had fallen down ages ago. I pushed a flyaway strand of hair from my eyes and watched her walk over. Casually. Not excited. Her glossy hair swooshed out behind her. She looked nothing like her.
But it was.
‘Kale, hi,’ she said, she leaned in and blew a kiss near my cheek. She didn’t even really smile, just kept chewing her gum like a cow chewing grass.
‘Hi…’ I said. I didn’t know what else there was. My throat felt scratchy so I cleared it roughly. ‘So um, how was your summer?’
‘Cool, yeah.’ She shrugged.
‘Dumbo, hey.’ Meg sauntered up, smirking at me. ‘You got in here too, huh?’ she laughed. ‘Jules didn’t say.’
Jules remained silent. At least she looked embarrassed. She looked at the ground and around but not at me for a bit.
‘Yeah, I got in.’ I glared at her. She glared back. ‘Surprised to see you, though,’ I said, amazed to find my voice wasn’t shaking or anything, though my hands sure were. ‘I thought your parents would have sent you to military school or something.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Cute,’ she said, glaring at me. I looked right back. After a couple of seconds she rolled her eyes into the back of her head, huffed loudly and held up her fingernails and scrutinized them. I don’t know why.
‘Megs!’ We all looked over to the clique on the other side of the lawn, another girl, clearly impatient for Meg to join them and stop “welcoming” the new girl held out her arms excitedly and was skipping over to us. Meg and the girl hugged and squealed.
‘Who’s that?’ I heard the girl ask. Meg looked over to me and then Jules and then shook her head at her friend.
‘Nobody.’ I felt my cheeks flush and tried to keep the scowl from my face. The rest of the group were standing, watching, waiting.
Jules looked at them and back at me uncomfortably. ‘Meg, she was on–’
She flinched as the bell rang.
‘Come on Jules, let’s go,’ Meg said, taking her by the arm, she pulled her toward the group. Pulled her away from me. I caught a triumphant glance in my direction as Jules complied. The girls walked over to the clique and hugged and air kissed everyone there. Jules seemed to know them all. She fit right in.
‘Hey Jules, how was the beach?’ Tall and Scruffy smiled at her warmly and opened his arms for a hug. They were all very, very huggy. She smiled shyly, hugged him awkwardly back. She and I, we weren’t exactly huggy types.
‘Yeah, good thanks Travis’ Jules said. She knew his name.
‘Oh my God, it was so fun, wasn’t it Jules?’ Meg said loudly as they pushed open the doors and walked inside, leaving me standing alone, outside. Scruff – sorry, Travis – glanced back at me, all alone, but kept walking. I was humiliated. Guess I am the loser loner kid after all. Wait – she went to the beach with Meg?
Chapter Two
I shuffled into the assembly hall, spotted a girl thumbing through a magazine and figured she’d be safe to sit beside. I sidled into the row and as I bent to sit she looked up and waved her hands at me.
‘Hey, no those seats are taken.’
‘Oh.’ I shot back up, like I’d burnt my ass.
‘Sorry,’ she said. But good manners didn’t make me feel any better. She turned back to her mag and ignored the empty looking seats some more. She could at least put her bag on them, make them look saved. Stop newbies from making embarrassing mistakes like that.
I shuffled down the aisle some more and found an empty row save for a boy sitting in the corner. He was scribbling in a notebook, holding the pages up protectively so no one could see..
‘These seats taken?’ I asked. I wasn’t going through that again.
He looked up and blinked at me through his black-rimmed glasses. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Cool, thanks.’ I sat down, put my bag at my feet and watched the student body of my new school as they made their way slowly into the hall, to the beginning of the new school year. I hadn’t anticipated I’d be sitting here by myself.
I scanned the crowd, found her, and settled my gaze on Jules. She was a couple of rows ahead of me, but in the centre aisle, sitting in the middle of a long group of friends. They were passing around a bag of strawberry lollipops, and you could tell who was in the clique, by who was sucking one. Jules was most definitely in the clique. How did this happen? How did she know these people? I didn’t recognize one of them. Well, no, that’s not true. I recognized Meg, of course. And come to think of it, a couple of her sheep were sitting there too. Stacey and Priya were there. Oh wait – and there was Pixie. As average as they had always been. I suppose they were better groomed, clearly with hours spent in front of the mirror with make up brushes and straightening irons. How boring would that be. But all that hair dye and fake tan didn’t matter – I knew who they were. How a girl named Pixie got to be in the popular group, I’ll never know. If I was Meg, in kindergarten I would have immediately started calling her ‘Pix her nose’ or ‘Pox’ or something, and she’d have been shunned just like Dumbo. But I’m not Meg so I’d never do that.
A lady who I guessed was Principal Johnson was sorting out some papers at the podium.
She tapped the microphone and feedback shrieked, amplified by the speaker above my head. It made everyone wince; cover their ears; yell out or all of the above.
‘I guess I don’t need to ask if the microphone’s on then.’ Ms. Johnson laughed nervously. There were a few vague titters, and Ms. Johnson made a show of rubbing her ears from the pain, with a little laugh, looking around at her colleagues to check that they were laughing too. So she was going to be one of those principals.
I slid down in my seat and stared glumly at Jules. She seemed right at home. Completely comfortable on her first day of school. Completely comfortable without me.
The assembly dragged on as Ms. Johnson made a bunch of announcements about stuff that had happened last year, it really didn’t make any sense to me and I found myself cross eyed and zoning out.
That’s what made me notice them talking behind me.
‘How about that one?’
‘Who?’ There was silence.
‘Ten bucks says she’s in seventh grade,’ a boy said.
‘I’m in. She’s totally a ninth grader.’
‘She can’t be in ninth grade, you moron. Or she’d be in high school.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘And besides, that’s my sister’s age,’ said another.
‘Your sister’s hot.’ I heard a thump and some muttered expletives.
‘Ow. I’m just saying.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Keep it down, do I have to separate you two?’ someone else whispered.
‘Coby, I’ll see your ten and raise you twenty. I reckon she’s in with us,’ a girl said.
‘Twenty bucks? Where did you get twenty bucks?’ The first boy hissed. ‘Do you think I’m made of money?’
The boy with the glasses beside me looked up from his book and smiled, shaking his head. He glanced at the stage and then back to his notebook.
‘Hey shut up – I think they’re on to us.’
They went silent. Since they already knew, I turned in my seat.
There were three boys and a girl sitting behind me, each with their eyes fixed on me. Like the popular boys from outside, this group also wore their uniform unironed and their ties loose at the neck. The bed headed blond boy waved.
‘Busted,’ sniggered one with black hair that fell into his eyes. The girl leaned forward. She was Asian and wore the coolest thickest fake eye lashes I’d ever seen, and lots of little buttons on the lapel of her blazer. She had brightly colored clips holding her long, thick hair in place. Some rainbows, some skulls, all totally cool. I couldn’t believe she was wearing it all, dressing up her uniform like that. Isn’t the point of a uniform to make everyone look the same? Not that we did. When sitting, my school dress nearly touched the floor it was so long. Did she know something I didn’t know? Did the teachers not actually care about false eye lashes and earrings made out of feathers and skull and crossbone buttons?
‘So, which is it?’ she asked. ‘Who won?’
‘I’m starting eighth grade.’
‘Oh cool, us too,’ the boy with black hair said, leaning back with a satisfied smile. He turned to the girl. ‘Very impressive.’
She leaned across him and punched the blond boy on the arm.
‘Aw man,’ he groaned and put his head in his hands.
She held out her hand. ‘Pay up. Twenty bucks.’
‘I didn’t agree to that.’
‘Quiet.’ A teacher had appeared from nowhere, her eyes flashed at each of us, daring us to speak again. I spun around to the front again. I couldn’t believe I was in trouble already. The others went silent, but continued sniggering and whispering again as soon as she had gone. I snuck a glance behind me, and they all grinned. I grinned back.
‘Hey,’ the kid with the notebook said, turning his attention back to me. ‘What’s another word for bludgeon?’
My mouth fell open with surprise. ‘Uh...I...’
The brunette boy behind me leaned forward and held his hand out to me. I looked at it and back at him. No one except grown ups had ever expected a handshake from me before. Definitely no one my age. It didn’t matter, I mean, bludgeon? Jeez, what was he writing, anyway? Twisting in my seat, I awkwardly shook the boy’s hand. My face heating up slightly.
‘I’m Harvey,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s Coby,’ he nodded toward the blond boy who was absent-mindedly scratching the back of his head. He smiled and waved at me. Then sniffed his hand. ‘Miles,’ the black haired emo gave me some finger guns. ‘And that’s Maiyuki.’ She winked at me with a big friendly grin. Her eyes kind of sparkled. Sparkled. She was officially the coolest person ever.
‘Hey,’ I whispered, glancing nervously toward the teacher. ‘I’m Kaley.’
‘That’s Jonah,’ Maiyuki said, motioning toward the boy next to me. She kicked the back of his seat. He looked up, gave her the finger and continued writing. ‘Yeah, this whole vibe is pretty much Jonah in a nutshell,’ she said, waving her hand in his direction. I smiled.
Jonah glanced at me, at my new acquaintances behind us and back at me with a pitying look. ‘Welcome to Cromwell,’ he said. Somehow, I don’t think he meant it.
Chapter Three
The assembly was just a giant pep talk about how great the year was going to be, and all the stuff they had planned, and that our academic futures were looking bright and blah blah blah. Mr. Hand Shake Harvey and Maiyuki and the boys talked amongst themselves and they somehow managed to tune out the entire assembly. They weren’t bothering me, but there were some points where I really thought they should listen. But then I figured it was none of my business.
We got our timetables and soon after that, our locker assignments so there was a whole lot of mayhem as everyone went searching for their new locker for the year. It felt pretty pointless, looking for our lockers now though. I mean, it was a way of delaying classes a bit, but there was no real point because we didn’t have any books to shove in yet. You don’t bring all your texts on the first day. At least I never do. My backpack wasn’t that heavy with just note books and pens and stuff. Looking for locker 1732, I walked slowly past other eighth graders who had found theirs already. People with friends found their lockers, opened them up and commented about how close their locker was to their best friend’s and how exciting everything was and the boys were talking about what sports they were going to try out for, and what did you do this summer and the girls were pulling out mirrors and posters of their favourite movie stars to stick on the doors and talking about all the boys they met over the break.
Eventually, I found my locker. It was on the ground floor at the end of a row, right near the girl’s bathroom. Convenient…I guess. I got it open on the second try and peered in at the empty metal shelves. I put my backpack down and rifled through it, looking for something to put in. I placed a couple of pens and a notebook on the shelf. Well now it felt anonymous, but lived in. I waited around a little, hoping someone with one of the lockers in my row would turn up so I could say hello and introduce myself and make a friend. But no one did. I closed the locker and swung my backpack onto my shoulder again and took out the map and schedule I’d been given at the office. I looked up and saw a girl walking toward me. She was looking straight at me, heading in my direction. Her pink glossed lips curled up in a smile and the overhead light flashed off her braces. Suddenly I realized she was smiling at me. As I started to smile back, she reached me, pushed open the bathroom door and walked inside. My shoulders slumped. How embarrassing. Maybe she wasn’t smiling at me after all. Or she was but I’d taken so long to realize and smile back that she just gave up and went to the restroom. Or was she just being polite and smiled at me since I was standing there, but really she didn’t care who I was, she just wanted to go to the bathroom? Ugh, why was this all so hard? This was not how I imagined it. This was not how my new school life was supposed to be!
Jules and I were supposed to be giddy with excitement and laughing all the time, and it was supposed to be so infectious that people would come over and introduce themselves because we seemed so cool and they just wanted to be our friend. I slammed the locker closed, feeling very alone. At least one of us was getting that.
Checking the room number of my first class, I headed in the right direction. I hoped.
Owing more to sheer dumb luck than map reading skills, it was the right direction and I did find it.
There was already a teacher standing at the front and a handful of kids in the room. One of them I saw, was Maiyuki. She leaned back in her chair with a sneaker on the desk, tipping the chair back slowly and catching herself before she fell. Tipping and catching, tipping and catching. She seemed completely oblivious to it as she painted her fingernails fluoro yellow.
‘Maiyuki, foot off the table,’ the teacher said. Maiyuki removed her foot and slouched in her seat like a normal person. She didn’t even look up.
And then she did. At me.
‘Hey you!’ she said loudly with a big smile. ‘There’s a spot here.’ She patted the seat next to her. I smiled gratefully and walked over, quickly sitting down and trying to act cool and oblivious to the stares that Maiyuki’s bellow had attracted. I will not blush, I will not blush…no…shit…stop blushing!
My face was taking up a mortifying shade of scarlet but as soon as Jules walked into the room it all drained from my face and out the ends of my toes.
She looked a little out of her element as she gazed around the unfamiliar room and didn’t seem to spot anyone she knew. She saw me and looked even more self-conscious. I opened my mouth to speak – this was my big chance! – but then Meg, Priya and Pixie waltzed in and guided her to some empty seats by the window. Soon Jules was deep in discussion with her back to me and I shut my mouth, pouted and sulked.
‘It’s Kaley, right?’ Maiyuki said, snapping me from my misery.
‘Yeah. Maiyuki?’
‘Nice job. I usually suck at names.’ She held the bottle of polish toward me.‘Wanna try?’
I shook my head. She caught my eyes flit to Jules and back. She turned her gaze in Jules’s direction. ‘What are you looking at? You want to be a bubble head?’
My eyebrows shot up. ‘Bubble head? What?’
‘You know, like air bubbles under water.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘There’s nothing in there. You gotta label things that are stupid. And those girls over there, let’s just say they are people you definitely have to label.’
‘Well I don’t want to be a bubble head,’ I said. I lied. Well… ‘No, it’s just, that’s my best friend over there.’
‘Get out! You know one of those girls?’ she asked, looking at the group more carefully. Meg said something and laughed and suddenly Priya, Pixie and Stacey started laughing too. Jules looked around them, confused, and then cracked a smile.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Most of them, unfortunately.’
‘Unfortunately, is right,’ Maiyuki laughed. She dropped her smile and cleared her throat. ‘Wow that was rude. Sorry. Go on.’
Wow. Um… ‘That’s Jules,’ I said, nodding subtly at her shiny hair. ‘She’s not like the rest of them.’
‘Oh right.’ Maiyuki narrowed her eyes at Jules, scrutinizing her. ‘And she’s your best friend, you say?’
‘Yeah.’ I felt stupid.
‘Really.’ She turned to me, and looked me up and down.
‘Yeah.’
‘You can go and sit with her if you want,’ she said, painting a final nail and blowing on it.
‘Oh no, it’s okay,’ I said, glancing at Jules and then fixing my gaze on the graffiti scratched into the desk. Seems someone was once in love with a guy called Amar.
‘...Right,’ Maiyuki said.
‘Yeah,’ I let out a long sigh and closed my eyes for a moment. ‘I know.’
‘That’s cool chica. You can hang with us. Be nice to hang with a girl sometimes.’
‘Are you the only girl in your group?’
‘Yeah. I’ve been hanging out with those boys since fourth grade.’
‘Really?’ I asked. ‘No girls?’
‘Nah. The girls from my school were so giggly and prissy and lame,’ she said. She pointed her finger down her throat and pretended to vomit. ‘Complete bubble heads, you know?’
I laughed and nodded. ‘I know exactly.’
‘Excellent.’ She smiled. ‘You seem alright though.’
‘Thanks,’ I replied. ‘You seem alright too.’
This being my eighth year of school, I have come to realize that all classes on the first day are always boring and the same. The getting to know you games where by the third class you’ve heard the same ‘I have a cat called Coco’ story from the same girl three times, and already know a little bit – the same bit - about most of the kids in the room and are frankly ready to do some learning already. Not that I’m complaining really. I mean, Yes, one minute I’m all ‘boohoo I don’t know anybody’ and the next minute I’m so over the meeting people, but come on. This isn’t really meeting people. And we know you have a cat called Coco. Let’s hear something else already!
I was intrigued (ecstatic – if things had been different) to find Jules in a couple of my classes. But so were Meg and others of their friends. I was so fixated on them. When she walked in to my fourth period class, I perked up because she was alone. This was it, I thought. This would be our big opportunity, she’d tell me what had happened over the summer. What had changed. When she walked in she saw me too and sort of paused at the front of the class, like she was going to come over to me but was hesitating. I sat up straight. I was sitting next to Maiyuki and knew all would be forgiven when she came over, the three of us could be best friends. But she didn’t come over. After a couple more people entered the room, Meg and Stacey and some boys from their clique were through the door too, and by her side. Meg saw me, linked her arm with Jules’s and dragged her to some empty desks on the other side of the room. Foiled again.
I didn’t know what I was going to say when it got around to my turn in the introductions: ‘Hi everyone, my name is Kaley and I have a best friend but over the summer she defected to the enemy’? Or how about ‘What’s up, I’m Kaley and that’s my best friend Jules on the other side of the room there, sitting way over there away from me with Satan – sorry, I mean Meg’?
‘Hi guys, I’m Jules, short for Juliet,’ she started, nervous when it got to be her turn. ‘And I went on the trip to Europe, the one the school organised? Um, with some of the crazy kids from this school, my new school, over summer and came away with some great new friends,’ she said. ‘Like Meg here.’
Meg giggled and beamed around at everyone. ‘So fun,’ she said. I grimaced. Ugh.
‘And I’m really looking forward to trying out for Grease. I think it’ll be really cool. I’m thinking of trying out for Sandy.’
She wants to do musical theater now? And as the lead? Are you kidding me? This from the girl who got stage fright doing show and tell. Who was she now? I came to the sudden conclusion that in Europe she had been abducted by some Eurovision loving aliens who sucked out her soul and squished an airhead back inside.
Suddenly the class was all looking at me.
‘And you’re Kaley?’ Mr. Connelly prompted, glancing down at the attendance list on his desk.
‘Sorry, yeah. Hi – I’m Kaley and I like to draw.’ I shrugged. That would do.
‘You draw?’ Mr. Connelly asked.
‘Yeah, I do comics mostly, a bit of manga.’
I heard Meg snort. ‘She reads comic books.’
Mr. Connelly cleared his throat deliberately. Meg went silent but had this annoying satisfied smirk on her face. God I hated her.
‘Well, that’s very interesting Kaley,’ he said. I gave him a half-hearted smile, shrug and stared at the desk.
‘So you must be looking forward to Art class.’ he said. ‘Have you had Art yet?’
‘No.’
‘Mrs. Liebermann is fantastic.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’m sure you’ll learn a lot from her.’
‘Great.’
‘Well I hope you enjoy the art program we have here, Kaley,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ I said. Moving on.
I was completely lost in my gloomy thoughts when one particular introduction filtered through my ears to my brain.
‘Hey everyone, as lots of you know, I’m Harvey, what’s up. Okay the interesting thing about me that I’d like to share with you all today is…I’m totally in love with Kaley over there.’
There was silence. A few surprised giggles. I looked up. Everyone was staring at either me, or across the room. I looked at the boy who had spoken. Harvey. Friend of Maiyuki Mr. Hand Shaker Harvey.
‘I’m sorry – what?’
He grinned and waved and the room erupted with laughter. Everyone laughed. Even Mr. Connolly couldn’t hide it behind his pretend sudden coughing attack.
Maiyuki threw a pencil at Harvey, which clattered off his desk. Mr. Connolly didn’t even scold her for it. ‘Harvey! Don’t gross her out, she’ll never come back!’
Harvey picked up the pencil and threw it back, then turned his focus to me and gave me an over the top wink.
The bell rang. I scooped up my books and was the first one out the door.
The whole day was weird. Totally not what I’d expected. Mom wasn’t picking me up so I trudged home alone – not before seeing Jules get on the bus with Meg and a bunch of her new friends. I heard them talking in sing-song tones about going to Centro and what they were buying, like the tank top in the Miss Shop that Meg had been hearting from afar for ages and she just had to get it so she could wear it after school tomorrow. And Priya was all about the new shades of eye shadow at the MAC counter that had just come out and she couldn’t wait to try. And then Jules chimed in like she belonged, saying she was totally in need of some new shades from the Sunglasses Hut, cos hers were so last year. Shades. She never called them shades, they were sunglasses. And I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her wear sunglasses, she hated how dark they made everything. It was like she was speaking this whole other language to the one that she used when talking to me.
I slunk home, opened the front door and dropped my school bag in the doorway. Trudging up the stairs I threw my school uniform across my bedroom as I took off every article. I pulled on jeans and a tee shirt and my beloved Converse All-Stars and already felt a bit better. More like me. Opening the window I stepped out onto the roof, a little three foot hop-skip and I was in the tree house my dad had built me. I ducked inside and sat, arms around my knees determined to be miserable. This was where Jules and I used to play with our Bratz and GI Joes (he was way cuter than the metro Bratz boys), and more recently it was all about poring through magazines and crushing on celebrities and gossiping about the kids at school and how stupid the boys there were. How they just seemed so much more grown up in Hollywood. We’d listen to my ipod and whine about our parents. It was our space, our private Jules and Kaley space and no one else was allowed inside. And I’d neglected it this whole summer. No, not neglected. It didn’t feel right without Jules. It was waiting for her return as much as I had been. Ever since we found out our school was closing and we’d both got into Cromwell we’d been aching for today, the first day of our fresh start where we’d come straight here like we always did and go over everything that had happened in the tiniest of detail. That had been the plan. I’d been looking forward to it all summer. And she was off doing that with someone else. She was off doing it with Meg. Ugh, Meg! Of all people! I didn’t understand what had happened. I just didn’t.
‘Girls, you out there?’ Mom called. I didn’t answer.
‘Kaley? Hello?’ I sighed and rolled my eyes. If I didn’t answer she’d probably try and climb up here and find me. Moms are so irritating.
I poked my head out and looked down at her in the backyard.
‘Hey,’ I said.
‘Hey yourself,’ she looked amused. I hate parents. ‘How was your first day? Is Jules up there with you?’
I swung myself out and around onto the steps Dad had nailed into the trunk and started climbing down. ‘No.’
Mom didn’t say anything. I jumped down and my feet sort of slipped in my shoes. My laces were barely done up so I bent down to tighten them.
‘Oh Kaley, those shoes,’ Mom tsked. She didn’t understand.
‘What about them?’
‘They’re so old.’
‘So?’
‘And they’re so bad for your feet.’
‘So?’
‘Come on,’ Mom said as she turned and strode toward the side gate.
‘Where?’
‘We’re getting you new shoes. Today. Those ones are history.’
‘Mom, no way!’ I said. There was no way on this earth that she was throwing out my All-Stars. I was not getting new shoes.
‘No buts, Kaley. We are going shopping right now and we are getting rid of those sneakers.’
I was about to scream and cry and throw the biggest hissy fit I could muster, but something she said stopped me. ‘Shopping?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can we go to Centro?’
‘I guess, why-’
‘I’ll make you a deal,’ I said. Mom’s eyebrows shot up and she crossed her arms in front of her.
‘Okay...’
‘I’ll get new shoes if you take my school dress up. Like, a yard.’
‘Kaley-’
‘Mom, it’s embarrassing.’
She sighed. ‘Well okay I’ll take it up a bit but we’ll work out how much when you have it on.’
‘So we have a deal? And we’re going to Centro?’ I stuck my hand out to her.
She shook it with a smile. ‘We have a deal.’
I nodded, walked passed her and out the gate, without looking back. ‘Okay.’
Chapter Four
At the shopping centre Mom walked a couple of feet ahead of me (I’d taught her well) and there was no dilly-dallying in the Homewares store the way she always liked. Today she was on a mission.
I strolled along, pretending to window shop, while actually keeping up with my mother and keeping an eye out for any sign of a gaggle of giggly girls that contained my best friend. I was torturing myself, I knew it but I couldn’t help it. In an eight week period of no contact with me she had transformed. Morphed into a clone. All these years of friendship, had I been her grounding influence? Was this what she was really like but somehow I had managed to keep her stable and sane?
I had to see. I had to see if there was anything left of her. But of course they were nowhere around.
We walked straight past all the good clothes stores, and music stores, jewelery and make-up counters right to the shoes. They weren’t in any of them. Mom was determined that I pick out something so I sulked and pouted and pointed at the most expensive shoes I could find, and then when Mom said ‘no’ I pointed to the next most expensive. Hehe.
Mom held her breath and I could practically see her counting to ten in her head. I picked up some electric blue All-Stars and sat down. This sucked. I was only just getting mine worn in. Mind you, electric blue was a whole lot cooler than my navy ones.
I stepped on the heel of the other foot and pulled my rainbow sock clad feet out of my shoes one by one. Until now, my rainbow socks and rainbow watch had felt cool, quirky even. But now they just felt stupid and babyish. I took off my watch and stuffed it into my pocket as a saleswoman with a big bubbly smile and bouncy pony tail came over to help us and measure my feet.
I scowled and crossed my arms, staring out of the store at people walking by. I froze when I saw Jules and Meg and half a dozen other girls go past with smoothies. The food court – that’s where they’d been! They were giggling – as they always seemed to be doing – and Jules was right in the middle of it.
‘Gotta go to the bathroom.’ I jumped up and hurdled over the woman and her foot measurer thingy and hurried out of the store, slipping on the shiny wooden floor. Mom made some ‘what’s going on, come back’ noises – none of them in English – but I took no notice and kept going.
I scurried inconspicuously – okay, conspicuously, totally conspicuously – along behind Jules and Meg and the rest of the clique, pausing behind potted palm trees, crouching behind trash cans and sneaking behind small clumps of people, peeping through the middle to snoop on what they were doing.
All eyes were on Jules, and Meg was speaking. They stopped by a bench and crowded around.
‘I totally think he likes you,’ Meg said, grinning at Jules. Jules smiled back weakly, looking pleased, but nervous and embarrassed. Oh my God – who were they talking about?
‘He so does,’ Stacey agreed.
‘Did you notice the way he said ‘hey’ to you this morning?’ Poxie – I mean Pixie – said. ‘He sure didn’t say it like that to me.’ Who were they talking about?
‘Really? How did he say it?’ Jules asked, surprised.
That stumped Pixie. ‘Oh, well he, you know, he –’
‘What are we going to do about this, ladies?’ Meg took charge, silencing Pixie with a scary stare and flipping her hair off her shoulders.
‘I know I know I know,’ Jules said. ‘I like him so much, what should I do?’ She buried her head in her hands. The girls rallied around her with giggles and suggestions. Who were they talking about?
‘Cute socks.’ I realized I was sort of bent over, peering around a potted palm tree, and someone had spoken. Not to them – to me. I peered up and nearly strained a muscle cos he was tall and I was bent low.
I couldn’t believe it, it was him, it was Travis!
I stood up quickly. ‘Ow!’ I clamped a hand to the back of my neck. ‘Hi!’ I yelled. Then cringed, at his startled expression.
He laughed at me. ‘Hi! Yourself. You alright?’
‘Fine.’ I cleared my throat and removed my hand and tried not to wince.
He looked from me and down to my feet and then at me again. ‘Is there a new rule about leaving shoes at the door or something?’ He was joking, smiling when he said it but it was not physically possible for me to be more mortified.
‘Oh, er…’ I stammered and stuttered and quite frankly have no idea what I said. My toes curled up in my socks and my face went the same red as in the rainbow.
‘Travis, hey hun.’ Meg walked over, followed by all the other girls. I was wrong. It was possible for me to be more mortified. I could see Jules trailing in the back, sort of hiding behind Priya and this other girl. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights, her eyes were all wide and glassy. Whoa. It was him. They’d been talking about him.
Meg leaned in and gave Travis a hug.
‘What are you doing here?’ She looked to me, looked me up and down and sneered at my socks which looked like I had no toes, I’d curled them up so much.
‘Oh my God,’ Meg laughed. ‘“Nice socks”,’ she looked around at her girls, who soon started laughing too. Jules forced a smirk, but her heart wasn’t really in it, she kept glancing nervously at Travis.
‘That’s not very nice, Meg,’ Travis said.
I wish I’d said something catty back at her and walked away, my head held high while they all gasped, their mouths hanging open at whatever I’d said.
But I didn’t. I muttered ‘see ya later’ and scurried back to the shoe store, my body so stiff and shoulders so high it wouldn’t have surprised me if people thought I had no neck.
I slammed my locker closed before school the next morning and pushed open the bathroom door. I looked in the mirror and spun around as I discovered I’d been followed inside.
‘Jules, hi…’ She was there. She’d followed me in - she wanted to talk to me! I didn’t know what to say, where to begin. I had so many questions, what was going on? Had I done something wrong? I had to have done something, I mean why wouldn’t she talk to me, sit by me? Why was she hanging out with Meg? So many questions, but I just stood there, my mouth opening and shutting. I didn’t know how to ask her. Didn’t know how to find out what I’d done. Didn’t know where to begin. But that was okay. Because she did. Hands on hips, she leaned into one hip and narrowed her eyes, glaring at me. She looked angry.
‘What were you doing at Centro last night?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘You were spying on me!’
‘Spying?’
‘You were! Don’t deny it – I know you were,’ she said. ‘Travis caught you.’
‘Caught me? Jules-’ She turned to the door as it swung open and in walked Meg, Stacey and Priya. They didn’t seem surprised to see me. They walked in, stood in a line behind Jules and crossed their arms, glaring at me. It was a set up. It was a total set up and I was trapped.
Jules faced me again. ‘You’re a stalker!’
‘Are you serious?’
‘God you are so lame,’ Meg sighed.
‘Yeah,’ Stacey agreed.
Priya chimed in with ‘Totally lame.’ And those few words were all it took to transport me back to the playground by the jungle gym in first grade. Meg smiling smugly at me, backed up by a bunch of little girls. The same little girls. But back then Jules had been on my side, standing beside me.
‘She doesn’t want to be friends with you anymore, Kaley.’ Meg stepped forward and placed a hand on Jules’s shoulder. ‘Isn’t that right, Jules?’ I could tell it wasn’t really a question.
Jules looked from Meg to me, to the girls behind them. ‘Yeah. That’s right.’
‘She has new friends now,’ Meg continued. She was enjoying this. She was loving every moment of it. ‘She doesn’t want to be associated with someone like you.’
I watched Jules. A flash of panic crossed her features but when she saw I was watching, the expression wiped clean, a haughty glare firmly back in place.
‘Someone like me?’ I asked Jules.
She looked at her feet. ‘That’s right.’
The bell rang and the door was pushed open once more. Everyone turned around. Maiyuki stopped in the doorway, looking around the crowded room. Her blank gaze lingered on me for a second.
‘Oh my God, is this a meeting of some secret society or something?’ she asked, clapping her hands with excitement. She walked over to the mirrors and dumped a bunch of cosmetics onto the counter and fluffed her hair. No one I knew had as much makeup as Maiyuki emptied out right then. Except maybe my mom. Meg wasn’t impressed, and rolled her eyes to prove it.
Maiyuki smeared a a cherry lip gloss onto her lips and smacked them together. ‘Because I so want to join.’
‘Actually this is a private conversation,’ Meg said.
Maiyuki ignored her. ‘Do you have buttons or anything?’ She spun around from the mirror. ‘Oh please tell me there’s a secret hand shake.’
‘Let’s go,’ Priya said.
‘Yeah,’ Jules agreed, ‘we’ll be late for class. You,’ she pointed at me. ‘Stay away from me.’
With a look of disgust at Maiyuki and a last glare at me, the girls filed out of the bathroom leaving Maiyuki and me at the sinks in silence.
‘You alright?’ Maiyuki said.
I shrugged and nodded. Then I shook my head and then I nodded it again.
‘What was that all about anyway?’
‘Jules.’
‘Your best friend.’
‘Yeah.’
Maiyuki thought for a moment. ‘Friendly.’
‘Yeah. Look, I gotta go to class.’ I strode over to the door and walked out. Then walked back in. ‘Um, where is it again?’
Chapter Five
After dinner that night I sat down and stared at the phone. I picked it up, dialed and hung it up again. I stared some more. I really wanted to call Jules. This was getting out of control. I wanted my best friend back. I needed my best friend back. I picked up the handset and dialed again. It clicked and we were live.
I heard some squeals and laughter and then Jules, mid-giggle said ‘Hello?’
I opened my mouth to speak, but then I heard Meg in the background, and nothing came out.
‘Hello?’ Jules repeated. My mouth moved silently. I hung up. Great. I slapped myself upside the head. I deserved it. Now they’d call me a phone stalker too.
The next day at lunch I was walking out to the quad with my ham and cheese sandwich, water and honeycomb yogurt. I rounded the corner and bumped into Jules. No – seriously, I actually bumped into her.
She screamed (which frankly, I thought was a bit of an overreaction) and backed off quickly. But there was something funny about her scream. I didn’t notice it immediately though.
‘Jules, sorry!’ I looked around – she was alone. ‘Hey, can we talk?’
‘That really hurt, you know,’ she said, rubbing her arm.
‘Jules.’
‘What?’
I sighed. ‘Um...’ Think, Kaley, think. ‘How was your vacation?’
She started playing with her silky platinum hair, stroking it on her shoulder. She used to always wear it in a ponytail, keeping it out of her face. She used to hate her hair.
‘It was fine.’
‘Fine,’ I repeated. ‘Oh.’