Free Affection by Krissy Kneen

pretend that I was popular at the last school, leave behind the reek of the nerdy girl. The next three years had the potential to pass with relative ease. Or not.
    There were three other kids on the bus, all younger than me. Two of them sat quietly rocking into their reflections on opposite sides of the bus. A Down syndrome boy named Toby grinned from his seat beside the driver. He told me his name and asked for mine. He tried to
unclip his seatbelt and shake my hand. The driver grabbed him by the waistband of his shorts and made him sit back down next to her. He grinned and waved and when I waved back he made faces and stuck out his tongue in a way that made me laugh.
    There were other kids to collect on the way, a couple of sullen young boys kicking their bags to the back of the bus with all the force their attitude could muster. The bus stopped and a blond girl with a big smile clambered aboard and grinned almost as broadly as Toby.
    â€œWell, hello there,” she said and held out her hand for me to shake.
    She was pretty in a slouching, wholesome girl-next-door kind of way, and her name was Emily. She was two years younger than me but she drove a truck on the farm and she was just like Annie in Annie Get Your Gun . She chatted away to me about her brothers and the farm and the rodeo that was coming up. The rodeo ball was something that I shouldn’t miss, apparently; she talked about the boys smelling of bulls and sweat and winked at me as if it was a secret we shared. She had a list of rock stars that she loved, and she was very fond of television. I had nothing in common with her, but she made me laugh and when I told her about Dragonhall, about my family, she said she was dying to meet them and I believed her.
    â€œYou should come over for a sleepover,” she said.
    â€œI’m not allowed out of the house except for school.”
    She thought about this and then shrugged. “Well, you’d better invite me over for a sleepover instead. You’ve got a video player?” We
did. “We could have a movie night. I’ll bring some vids. We’ll make popcorn. I can meet your folks.”
    She continued on in the special school bus, which would take her right past the Catholic school that she was enrolled at. I waved goodbye as I clambered onto the larger school bus, waiting at the Boyne Island turn-off.
    I had made a friend. Already. It seemed impossible, but as I watched her waving to me out of the back window of the minibus I felt that it must be true. My first Queensland friend. A sleepover planned and I hadn’t even set foot in the schoolyard.
    The school was little, low set, sprawling over hilly lawn. It was very green and there were trees. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone, but they all seemed to want to smile or wave at me. I distrusted their friendliness out of habit and I sat on an empty bench near one wall. A tall, skinny girl with big teeth and the edgy frightened energy of a rabbit sat at the other end of the bench. Another new girl. I knew this because she was wearing a different uniform, a blue check dress from another school.
    She grinned shyly in my direction and her whole face was overtaken by the darkest blush. I smiled back, but I refused to speak to her. At my old school she would be the girl that I would sit with, the awkward, intellectual type, prone to being picked on. I cruelly hoped that someone more ordinary would come up to talk to me, someone with the potential to raise me up into a more popular crowd. I was sick
of clinging to the rejects and the nerds. Surely I could sneak up the social ladder if I played my cards right. Not the most popular group of course, but just something in the middle ground, a group of kids less likely to get beaten up at lunchtime.
    The bell rang and I followed the milling herd into a large auditorium. They seemed to know where they were going and I let them lead me. We all sat cross-legged on the cold concrete floor and