Friendship on Fire (5 page)

‘Roman asked me yesterday if I'd like to come up the coast to Marion Bay with their family. Apparently his mum asked for me specifically, because I like the beach.'

Mum smiled. I frowned.

‘What?'

‘Are you sure his mum knows how much you like the beach? How well does she know you?' I stared blankly at her. She went on, ‘Come on, Daisy; do you reckon Roman's mum wants you to come, or Roman?'

She looked at me like I was stupid.

‘What? No. That's not how it is,' I said, shaking the idea out of my head. That was all I was willing to say before the boys sat down and latched on to the conversation.

‘Yeah why don't you go for someone like Roman? You've gone for idiots in the past, and Roman seems to dig you.

Even if his name is weird,' said Josh, chewing through a mouthful of egg.

‘Soooo not having this discussion right now,' I said, pushing my chair back. I picked up my plate. Shane was too fast.

‘No you don't,' as he stole the plate from my hands. ‘If you're not going to finish it, let me have the joy of being the garbage bin,' he grinned.

I shrugged and walked towards the bathroom to get ready for school.

It wasn't the first time people had claimed there was a ‘thing' between Roman and me, and it wasn't the first time I'd thought about it either. It was … easy, I guess. Like we got along too well and he was so perfect for me in so many ways that there didn't seem to be any challenge, any chemistry. I couldn't make it magically appear.

A couple of summers ago, in a crazy flirty moment close to sunset at South Beach, he'd tried to kiss me. But when you get back to reality, everything changes, or goes back to normal, whichever comes first. I know both of us value our friendship way too much to ruin it over one little fling. I adore him. I really do. And I admire him. He's so much smarter than me, and better looking. I don't see what he would see in me at all.

My blue eyes stared back at me in the mirror before I stepped into the steaming shower. The freckles on my nose still showed after the warm summer and endless hours of sunbaking at the beach. I looked myself up and down critically. I wasn't skinny, but I wasn't large or really tall either. At five foot eight inches, I was convinced I was quite average all over. I don't think there is anything particularly special about me. I pictured myself with honey blonde regrowth blending with flaming red hair and rolled my eyes.

Pushing thoughts of Roman and body image to the back of my mind, I relaxed to enjoy my hot shower. I remembered the boy we saw in the Addison Grammar uniform. Who was the girl? Niece? Cousin? Friend? I would have to find out, and fast. He seemed to have an air about him, maybe danger. Definitely charm. I could see it burning in his eyes. He knew he was hot, and I bet he knew how to use it, too.

Loud banging startled me from my daydream. I frowned a silent protest at Josh's muffled voice. I didn't have time to straighten my hair most mornings. This was ridiculous.

I arrived at school to a balmy reception. It was still summer and I craved the beach more than ever. I knew it was a hopeless farce to dream about keeping my tan; school would win soon, and free time would be non-existent until my life finally began at the end of year twelve. I found Rach making herself a hot chocolate in the common room.

‘Sunshine, now,' I said, and dragged her outside for a walk to the canteen. It was one of our oldest rituals and completely dorky but we didn't care.

This morning there was an unusually big line up so we happily chatted about movies. I overheard a few year ten and eleven girls talking about the mysterious ‘hotty' from yesterday and they were trying to conjure up a way to accidentally meet him on his way to Addison Grammar school.

I smiled. They'd be pretty lucky to officially meet anyone from Addison Grammar, let alone a wayward new boy outside the golden gates of the most expensive private school in Twin Rocks. Their uniform alone stank of French Revolution soldiers' garb and their bright green scarves and top hats in winter gave us endless things to laugh about. OK, so our uniform wasn't much better. Navy blue summer dresses, but us girls got to wear pants in winter if we wanted to. And normal coloured scarves.

Still, the girls' discussion humoured me. I kept listening. The boy from yesterday sounded like a movie star, the way they carried on about him.

Suddenly, they noticed me in line behind them and looked at each other with communal telepathy.

‘Daisy.' A year eleven girl named Bree looked at me, her eyelids batting with well-practiced innocence.

I pretended not to hear her and kept talking to Rach. Rach pinched my arm. I glared at her.

‘Yes?' I turned to face Bree and raised my eyebrows.

‘How are the school captain duties going?' she purred. Her white blonde hair was perfectly styled and secured with hair spray, although with a few tugs I was pretty sure it would fall out.

‘Considering it's only the second day of term, pretty sweet actually,' I replied before thinking.

Wrong answer.

They smiled and closed ranks. ‘Well, if you're not busy, we have something we'd like to bring up with you. That is your job, right? To help fellow students with important information?' asked a year ten girl, Cadence, from the Blonde Brigade. Her hair, too, was bleached so blonde it made my eyes hurt to look at it.

I glanced at Rachael for support but she was too amused to be involved.

‘Yeah, sure, what is it?' I said, trying to act like I wasn't nervous about what they were about to suggest.

‘We know you've seen the new hotty at school. If someone is going to make a regular appearance on campus, we need to know more about them. For safety reasons, you understand,' breathed Bree's husky voice. The others giggled with excitement.

Before I could reply, the leader of the Blonde Brigade, ironically the most skanky girl in the school, barged into our discussion. Her name was Skye, and she was a total cow. Skye made trouble for everyone she possibly could. She broke up relationships and stopped at nothing to get her claws into everyone else's business. Worst of all, she was unapologetic about her conquests. Words can't express how much I loathe her, so, to have her standing right in front of me with that smug, conniving look on her face made me want to rip her blonde hair out of her head. And scratch.

‘Girls, girls, why are you asking her to do a job instead of a pro? Clearly this girl can't hold down a boyfriend, let alone read English on a packet of hair dye.' She laughed like a high-pitched chipmunk.

‘At least I think about what I'm doing before I get with a boyfriend, not anyone who'll have me,' I spat back.

Her eyes flashed at me not so much with anger; but more with pleasure that her reputation had preceded her.

‘A little jealous, are we?' she purred. ‘Feeling deprived?'

I bit my tongue while anger rose inside me.

She continued, ‘If you think you can do the job properly, prove it.'

I felt my face go hot under her challenge, but I wasn't about to let her win.

‘Fine,' I snapped, setting my jaw into a stubborn line.

The whole group of us left the canteen like a pack of hyenas in search of unsuspecting prey. Students cleared a path for us and joined the end of our group in curiosity. As we rounded the corner towards the front gates of the school, we saw the same scene as yesterday. The soldier's uniform, the gorgeous hair and smile, the pat on the shoulder and the wave goodbye.

Still no PDA.

Skye pointed at his retreating back.

‘Well? Do I have to do it for you, sweetheart?' she mocked.

Rach nudged me gently.

I quickly trotted after the gorgeous figure and coughed a few times so I didn't look like I was stalking him across the front oval. He didn't hear me. He'd put in his iPod earphones already.

So, I'd have to touch him on first meeting. How embarrassing. I poked him a little too hard in the back. The boy stumbled forward and spun around. With a quizzical look, he raised his eyebrows.

‘Yo,' he said, and folded his arms.

‘Uh, hi,' I said, checking behind me as a damsel in distress would for my cavalry. No one came.

He flicked a look at his shiny watch and oozed impatience. I nearly faltered.

‘Uh, my name is Daisy and I'm the captain of this school.' I pointed to my badge at the same time and immediately wanted to kick myself for it.

‘Cool.' He put his earphones back in and turned to go.

‘No wait,' I said, not knowing at all how to continue this awkward conversation.

‘Look, I'm going to be late for school. Can you hurry this up? Get to the point?' He pulled one earphone out long enough to finish his sentence.

‘Well.' I rubbed my hands together nervously. ‘On behalf of the senior girls at St Dominic's college, I would like to welcome you as a visitor to our campus,' I said officially, spreading my hands wide in welcome. And it still didn't come out right.

He smiled arrogantly and walked away. Skye was already shaking her head and smiling with glee when I returned.

‘Useless,' she waved her hand at me. ‘Now he'll think all of us are as deathly boring as you. Thanks a lot, loser.' Her entire posse turned on cue to follow her, leaving only Rach and me.

Rach smiled. ‘Don't worry about it,' she said. ‘He looks like a tosser, anyway.' She put her right arm through my left and we walked to the locker bay.

The aftershock hit me hard. I kept playing the scene over and over in my head like a skipping record. It's like, fine, I don't know the guy, so the first meeting would always be strange, but he didn't have to be so arrogant. Does he get girls coming up to him so often introducing themselves that he can afford to fob them off?

Rach bore the brunt of my exasperation at lunchtime until she got sick of hearing about it. ‘Daisy, either try again tomorrow, or ignore him. Don't let him get to you, or the other girls for that matter. Why not step back and let them embarrass themselves next time and we can laugh at them, mm? Would that cheer you up?'

But my sense of determination surprised me. I had to fix this. I needed to show him that I was his equal and could get anyone as good looking as him. Whether it was true or not was irrelevant. I would show him. I wasn't sure how, mind you, but I'd figure it out.

I used the rest of the day wisely. I plotted revenge and death in as many ways I could think of, without getting caught. I was on a mission to bring this guy down, and it would be tomorrow.

As Roman walked me home I couldn't help but be distracted. I had thought about ‘rude boy' so much that I changed his name from ‘mysterious hotty'. I couldn't wait for tomorrow to come so I could display my brazen fury. I figured I needed a second opinion, so I asked Roman's advice, indirectly.

‘Hey Roman, you know when a girl tries to talk to you and you don't technically know her but you don't want to be rude but you end up being rude anyway because you don't know her?' I tried to act like I was asking for a friend instead of myself.