Free Dinner at Rose's by Danielle Hawkins

knees and not bothering to lift your feet when you walk?’
    ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘That’s not cool at all – that’s just silly little boys trying way too hard. Real proper coolness is when you don’t waste your time trying to impress people because you know you’re awesome, so you don’t care what anyone else thinks.’
    ‘Then I was never cool,’ said Matt, opening the pantry and extracting the peanut jar that had lived on the second shelf for as long as I could remember. ‘I spent most of my teenage years trying to impress you.’
    ‘ Did you?’ I asked, touched.
    ‘Well, I didn’t know any other girls. I had to practise on somebody.’ He tipped about half the contents of the peanut jar into his hand and threw the entire handful into his mouth. I looked at him enviously; if I ate peanuts like that I’d be the size of a house. Damn boys and their testosterone-driven metabolisms.
    Kim stopped looking cross and started looking like a girl hatching a Plan. Probably a foolproof, Matt-and-Jo-have-actually-been-in-love-with-each-other-their-whole-lives-if-they-can-only-be-brought-to-realise-it Plan, guaranteed to cause maximum embarrassment all round.
    ‘Hey, Kim,’ I said hastily, in an effort to distract her, ‘it wouldn’t hurt to apologise to Mr Williamson. You know, on the grounds that teachers have feelings too.’ This reminded her nicely of her grievances and she ignored me pointedly for the next half-hour.

Chapter 10

    ‘I GOT OUT Burn After Reading ,’ Sara announced, coming down the hall and leaning against the bathroom doorframe.
    ‘You’ll have to let me know what you think of it,’ I said, carefully applying a second coat of mascara. Graeme and I had watched it last year and decided that it should have been called Burn Before Watching . I think the only movie I’ve ever enjoyed less was Scent of a Woman , which meandered on for three slow and painful hours and made me want to chew off my own leg.
    ‘Don’t you want to watch it?’ she asked.
    ‘I’m going out.’
    ‘Oh,’ she said, sounding disappointed. ‘So’s Andy.’
    I finished my mascara and frowned critically at my reflection. I’m a bit scared of makeup, which is a ridiculous thing for a grown woman to admit. I always worry that I will look as though I’ve tried too hard, and as a result I apply the stuff so sparingly I may as well not bother. But I thought of Chrissie with her enormous smoky eyes and dark spiky lashes, put my shoulders resolutely back and turned away from the mirror without rubbing my eyeliner off again with a flannel. ‘Scott Wilson’s having a barbecue. You could come along if you like – I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.’ Instantly I wished I had bitten my tongue.
    But Sara shook her head. ‘The DVD’s only for one night, and I’ve been wanting to watch it for ages,’ she said.
    This was a relief; Sara masks intense shyness behind a loud and crass manner in public, talking over people she doesn’t know in a voice so penetrating that nobody else can make themselves heard at all. I pitied her, although had she known it she would have been deeply offended – it’s got to be the most miserable feeling in the world to realise you’re not a social success but not understand why.
    ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Well, I’d better go.’ Not that I was late, but if I spent another ten minutes drifting around the flat she might change her mind and come with me after all.
    Carrying four bottles of designer cider, a packet of beef and tomato sausages and a bag of Twisties I walked across town. Down the hill from the flat, past Mrs McClintock who was, for some inexplicable reason, hanging out her washing at half past six on an overcast May evening, around the back of the soccer fields and across the railway lines. One of the low fogs that plague Waimanu’s residents during winter was already gathering and the town looked dilapidated and dreary. But to be fair I think that if you frequented the railway