Free Love-shy by Lili Wilkinson Page B

before (except for nachos, which doesn’t count). She tried to eat it with her usual precise neatness, but quickly learned that it was physically impossible to eat a quesadilla without ending up with salsa and sour cream all over your face. She dabbed at her chin with a serviette, giggling.
    We finished the puzzle in record time, largely due to Rin’s wholehearted support for my sorting-into-types jigsaw strategy (separate out the corners, then edges, then all the pieces of backpack, all the pieces of chimp fur, all the pieces of blue background, and so on). Dad and Josh were more ad hoc, randomly pulling pieces and trying to see where they might fit. Very inefficient.
    But Rin and I made a great team. I liked working with her. We chatted about school, and teachers, and Rin told me about how one of her friends had pretended to faint in Ms Leroy’s French class in the hope that Nick Rammage might catch her and ask her to the social, but that he’d been staring out the window, totally absorbed in his music.
    Rin even stayed for the movie, which she’d never seen. She laughed at all the right moments and applauded Josh’s Michael J Fox impression, and I chewed on my Pocky and decided that George McFly was totally love-shy.
    After the movie, Rin thanked Dad for dinner, and I walked her to the door. She paused shyly.
    â€˜Penny?’
    â€˜Yeah?’
    â€˜I’m glad we’re friends. I’m so glad I moved here.’
    22:57
I had the most vivid dream last night. I was at this church camp, the one my parents sent me to when I was eleven, except I was sixteen and all the other kids were still eleven. The camp director explained that I hadn’t done it right the first time, and I was going to have to stay at the camp until I could learn to behave like a real boy. He handed me a football and took me to the edge of the lake, where there was a boating ramp. And he pushed me off the ramp into the cold water.
It was so cold, the coldest water I’ve ever felt. I sank down, down, lower and lower. I couldn’t move my arms or legs to swim to the surface. I just kept sinking, for what felt like hours. Then at the bottom of the lake there were all these girls, with long floaty hair and eyes the colour of the sea. They swam around me, gently tangling me up with seaweed.
And I laughed and laughed, because they were so beautiful, and I felt so happy.
    I sat there, staring at the screen until my eyes hurt. Who was he? With a sigh, I switched off my computer and went to bed.

    I woke up at three in the morning, with Rin’s voice in my head.
    I’m so glad I moved here .
    I was a total and complete idiot. Of course the yearbook was out of date. I’d crossed off the boys who had left East Glendale at the end of last year. But I hadn’t taken into consideration the new boys who had only arrived this year.
    Well, new boy , actually. There was only one. The one who stared out the window in Ms Leroy’s French class as girls pretended to faint in order to catch his eye.
    Nick Rammage.

I was too impatient to
work at the usual duties
assigned women on
newspapers.
    NELLIE BLY

6
    N ICK RAMMAGE?
    Really?
    Nick Rammage, the boy who was too cool to speak to anyone? Nick Rammage, who dressed like an indie model and wore oversized headphones all day long? Nick Rammage, who every girl at East Glendale had a planet-sized crush on?
    Maybe there was another new guy in Year Ten. Surely.
    Although now I thought about it, Nick didn’t seem to have any real friends . I couldn’t remember actually speaking to him. In fact, I couldn’t remember him speaking at all.
    I’d never seen him hanging out with anyone at recess or lunchtime; it was as though he just disappeared. I was pretty sure he didn’t play any sports.
    I’d made one of the worst mistakes a journalist can make. I’d listened to those rumours about him kissing Olivia Fischer, and the mysterious girlfriend at