Not Quite Perfect Boyfriend (16 page)

‘I'm sorry,' I say, sniffing. ‘I didn't know where else to go. My mum just told me she's having an affair.'

‘Oh.' He looks even more uncomfortable. ‘I'm sorry to hear that.'

He must still be angry with me. I can't blame him. I wipe my eyes and nose on a corner of the towel, and try to put on a bright face.

‘Anyway, I just needed to get out of the house, and I thought we could do some work on our project. We have to give our presentation next week.'

‘Right,' says George. ‘Only I don't have time. I kind of . . . have this thing tonight. And I have to get ready.'

I frown. ‘It's not even lunchtime,' I say. ‘What do you have to do that will take so long?'

‘Nothing important.'

George bites his lip and I suddenly remember what Tahni told me. He's going out to do something weird. Something that involves wearing armour. Oh! Is that why he looks like he just got dressed? Because he was trying on his
armour
? Tahni was right. He
is
crazy. He's like a cross between Don Quixote and Saint George. Don George. I giggle, and he raises an eyebrow.

‘Are you okay?' he says.

I nod, swallowing a real laugh. Is this what hysteria feels like?

He looks so uncomfortable. I almost tell him that I know his secret, but he'd be so embarrassed and I don't want to make him feel bad. I'm feeling bad enough for both of us. So I stand, and fold the damp towel.

‘I'd better be getting home,' I say.

‘Okay,' he says. And then, ‘It's better that you know.'

‘What?'

‘About your mum. It's always better to know the truth.'

I think about it. ‘No,' I say. ‘I'd rather she had kept lying to me about it.'

George shakes his head. ‘My dad left when I was three,' he says. ‘He just walked out one day. Didn't say anything to anyone, not even Mum. I never knew why.' He smiles at me. ‘At least your mum had the guts to tell you.'

I put the towel down on the chair and start to walk out of the kitchen. But I stop before I get to the door.

‘Why did you leave your old school?' I ask.

‘I did something stupid,' he says. ‘I'm an easy target. Someone . . . found out something about me, he spread it all over the school, and everyone picked on me. I thought that revenge was the best way to stop it. I did something . . . something stupid, and we both got expelled.'

So that's why he's so cagey about his dressing-up habit. I wonder what he did, but it's clear he's not going to talk about it.

‘We've got lots more secrets,' he says. ‘If you could put them together into the visual presentation, I'll write the text.'

I nod. ‘Say thanks to your mum for the coffee and the biscuits.'

I walk out of the house, thinking about George and Ben and Tahni. I think about the pictures of me and George, all over the school. And my mind is buzzing with one word, over and over again.

The word sticks with me all week, ringing like a bell.

I take Tuesday off, but go back to school on Wednesday. They've fixed the computers, but everyone still giggles and nudges when I walk past. I don't care. All I care about is the word echoing in my mind.

Revenge
.

When the final bell rings on Friday afternoon, I pull out my mobile phone and send Ben a text message:

I'll do your project.

He texts back in seconds, asking to see what I have so far.

At home, I go straight up to my room. I switch on my computer and email Ben my proposal and notes for his project. Then I check the Secret Project website and I read through the new secrets.

I'm scared no one will ever love me.

More than anything, I want to take my best friend to the formal. But I'm
afraid if I ask her, she'll laugh at me.

I really, really like
Star Trek.

I saw Ms Aitken's undies. They were red.

Remember when I let you copy my Chemistry exam, and I got an A+ and
you got a C? Well I gave you the wrong answers. Serves you right for
cheating.

I am always watching you.

I think Mr Moss is a zombie. Yesterday, I was walking past his office and
I heard him say ‘braiiiiiiins'.

I'm in love with my best freind's boyfreind, and it makes me hate her.

My dad says I'm too fat to play football.

On the inside, I'm a hero. But outside, nobody even sees me
.

They make me feel better. Some of them are funny, others are sad, others are a bit scary. Over one hundred secrets have been submitted. So many secrets. I think about the crowded hall at school, full of people who are full of secrets. I imagine all their secrets floating up above them and swirling around together, filling the air with clouds of different coloured secret swirls.

I remember what George said when he first told me about the idea.

Just the act of writing it down and posting it makes people feel better.

So I write my own secret, and upload it onto the site.

Then I select my favourites, and set about turning them into a presentation.

16
di·vul·ge

–verb; to disclose or reveal (something private, secret, or previously unknown).

– The Wordsmith's Dictionary of Hard-to-spell Words

George and I don't speak much over the next week. He's still being strange and distant. I think turning up at his house and blubbering freaked him out even more. He's clearly uncomfortable around me.

Before I realise, it's Friday. The Friday. The one where we have to present our projects to the whole year level.

I meet up with Ben before school and give him a folder of notes and a DVD.

‘Did you make the changes I asked for?' he says.

He has been emailing me all week with suggestions. The amount of time he's spent emailing me, he could have done his own freaking project.

‘I made changes,' I say, carefully.

‘It's a bit dry.' Ben flicks through the notes. ‘I wanted something a bit more . . . you know. Sparky.'

I give him my very best sincere smile. ‘It's all in the visual presentation,' I tell him. ‘There's plenty of sparky on the DVD.'

Ben frowns, and I feel my smile falter. He looks at the DVD in its paper sleeve, and then at the folder of notes.

I stop breathing. He knows. He can see it in my eyes. He's going to snap the DVD in half and throw it on the floor and scream my secret to the whole school. He'll hire a billboard, or one of those blimps that flies around when the football's on. He'll get a sky-writer. He'll rearrange the stars to spell it out so the whole world will know:

MIDGE HAS AN IMAGINARY BOYFRIEND. WHAT A LOOSER.

(I may be a loser, but at least I'm not the one who made an intergalactic spelling mistake.)

Ben doesn't do any of these things. Instead, he shrugs, tucks the folder and the DVD into his bag.

‘See you later,' he says.

Chris Stitz is on stage with Josh Nelson, talking about their project to catalogue the various ways you can kill someone in the Manhunt2 videogame. There are lots of very violent pictures. Everyone cheers when they show one character yanking out the spinal cord of another. The teachers are less than enthusiastic. Chris and Josh finish up, to wild applause.

We're next.

The Secret Project was a runaway success. George has written a great report, and I've made the visual presentation. Hopefully they'll match up, because we haven't been over it together.

‘Are you ready?' George asks.

I nod.

He turns and walks towards the stage.

‘George–' I say.

He stops.

‘I just wanted to say thanks,' I say. ‘You made me think a lot. After what you said last week.'

He frowns. ‘What did I say?'

‘About revenge. About how it's the best way to take action.'

‘What?'

I smile. ‘Don't worry,' I say. ‘It won't affect our presentation.'

‘I didn't say that,' he says. ‘I never said that revenge was a good thing. I said it was stupid.'

Did he? I don't remember that bit.

‘Midge, what won't affect our presentation? What are you going to do?'

‘Never mind,' I say. ‘I'm just releasing another secret.'

George looks worried, and shakes his head. Then he says something in Greek.

‘What's that mean?' I ask.

‘It's a proverb,' he explains. ‘The tree of revenge yields no fruit.'

‘Like you said, it's always better to know the truth,' I say. ‘I'm sick of secrets.'

Our presentation goes without a hitch. It's perfect. The teachers love it, the students love it. When I display the secrets, everyone tries to figure out who wrote which ones. Our applause is maybe not as wild as the cheering for the Manhunt2 presentation, but I have a sneaking feeling that we're going to get a better mark.

George's face is pink with pleasure as we walk off the stage.

‘That was great!' I say.

He nods, smiling. ‘Well done,' he says.

‘Well done you,' I reply. ‘It was your idea.'

I hear Ben's name called, and I stiffen. He saunters past and winks at me. George raises his eyebrows.

‘What did you do?' he asks.

‘Shh,' I say. ‘Just watch.'

Ben loads the DVD into the laptop, and the presentation launches on the big screen behind him. It's called Photo-Manipulation in the Media: A Case Study. It's impressive, and I'm quite proud.

‘I'm presenting a step-by-step analysis of exactly how to create images and animations for movies and magazines,' says Ben, reading from the sheet of paper I gave him. ‘I've compiled some before and after shots, to demonstrate that the images of beauty we see in the media are highly manipulated, creating false expectations of what is considered beautiful by readers, particularly young women.'

There's a titter in the auditorium, and Ben looks a little uncertain. But the image on the screen has clicked over to the next one. I smile, and nod reassuringly.

‘Er,' says Ben. ‘I've created an example of this manipulation, by taking photos of two ordinary people . . .'

Behind him, the screen wipes to reveal two photos. One of me. And one of George.

The auditorium suddenly goes very quiet. George looks at me, horrified. Ben is still reading, he hasn't seen the images on the screen.

‘These images are then disassembled and combined with other images, to create a chimera – an entirely fantastical creature made up of different parts–'

He pronounces
chimera
with a ‘ch' sound instead of the correct ‘k' sound, which only adds to the heady adrenaline of sweet revenge.

Ben finally looks up at the screen. There's an image on there of various body parts of naked people. He stops talking and his mouth falls open.

The auditorium erupts. Ben punches the keys on the keyboard, but it has no effect. I may not be a computer genius like Tahni, but even I know how to lock a presentation. There's nothing he can do. The pictures continue their animation, assembling themselves into strange naked creatures – with my head on one and George's on the other.

I have to admit that my naked hybrids are not nearly as good as the ones plastered all over the school, and my animation skills are not that great.

Ben is still desperately stabbing keys. George turns and walks out.

‘George,' I call, and am about to follow him when Mr Moss climbs the stairs to the stage and quickly removes all the plugs from the back of the computer. The screen goes bright blue and empty.

‘I think we've seen enough,' says Mr Moss. ‘Ben. My office.'

‘But I didn't do it,' Ben says. His face is a strange shade of purple.

The shouting and whistling of the students dies down. No one wants to miss a word.

‘I'm extremely disappointed, Ben,' says Mr Moss. ‘You are a promising student. I had high hopes for you at this school. But I'm afraid a stunt like this can only lead to expulsion.'

A shiver of excitement ripples through the auditorium. It's like a public lynching. Or a witch-burning.

‘But I didn't do it. I didn't.' Ben turns to me. ‘Midge,' he says.

There is a murmur in the crowd as everyone cranes their necks to see me, standing just off-stage.

‘Midge, tell them I didn't do it.'

I walk onto the stage. My knees are trembling. The word is still thumping away in my head. Revenge. Revenge. Revenge. I think of every single cruel, manipulative, careless thing Ben ever said to me. I want him to suffer. I want him to be humiliated.

But there's something else in my head. Something else is repeating over and over again. It's not as loud as the revenge drums, but I can still hear it.

It's George's voice, talking about my mum.
It's always better
to know the truth.