Love-shy (11 page)

The thing was, I knew Amy Butler. We'd spoken a few times at swimming, and last year she'd been in the SRC, so I'd had plenty of meetings with her. And Nick had it all wrong.

Amy wasn't the gentle, romantic girl he was looking for. She was quiet, sure. But that wasn't because she was shy and sensitive. It was because she was kind of
boring
. She wasn't smart, or funny, or rude, or irritating. She had excellent backstroke technique, but that was all I could think of in her favour, apart from the fact that she was pretty. She was sort of . . . nothing.

The only time I'd ever seen her do anything out of the ordinary was at Aylee Kim's birthday party in January, where she drank too much Tia Maria and was sick in the pool. Nick wouldn't be too keen to hear
that
. Hardly the proper behaviour for the ideal nymph-like fairy creature that he thought she was.

I wanted to help Nick, I really did. But I wasn't sure helping him hook up with his dream girl was going to work. He was too smart for her, too sensitive, too romantic. She'd break his heart in five minutes, and he was so fragile he'd never be able to put all the pieces together again.

I looked back at him. The expression on his face nearly broke my heart. Such yearning and longing and loneliness, painted there for all to see. Then he started and looked straight at me, and his usual mask of detached cool resumed its position.

This was going to be trickier than I'd thought.

Nick's shoulders tensed slightly, and I looked around. A blonde girl was approaching him, blushing furiously. It was like watching a nature documentary. She glanced back at her friends, who shot her encouraging grins, then turned to Nick, gazing at him longingly.

Nick had seen her, I knew he had. How would he respond? Would he talk to her?
Could
he? I saw him start in a casual sort of way, and reach into his back pocket. He pulled out a mobile phone and pressed it to his ear. I couldn't hear him, as he was too far away, but it looked as if he'd just answered a call.

I thought he didn't like talking on the phone?

Actually, I thought he didn't even
have
a phone?

Nick laughed into the phone and stood up, jumping off the bench in one easy movement. The blonde girl froze, unsure how to proceed. Was she going to wait until he finished his call? Or was she planning on interrupting him and hoping her orange skin and perky breasts would convince him to hang up?

Totally absorbed in his phone conversation, Nick walked straight past the girl, seemingly without noticing her.

Smooth, very smooth. I wondered if that was what he did every time, or whether he had different subterfuge tactics. I'd find out.

22:00
There's this girl who's watching me. That's not new, girls are always watching me. They watch and they smile and they toss their hair. But they don't actually
want
me. But this girl, this new girl. She's different. She's
sneaky
. She's not watching me like I'm a new dress she wants to try on. Or a piece of meat she wants to sink her teeth into. When this girl watches me it's like she's looking right into me. I don't like it. It's as if she
knows
. She doesn't want
me
, she wants to unpick me. Take me apart and see how I work, like an alarm clock. She wants to know what makes me tick. And I don't want her to know. She
can't
know.
But it kind of feels like she already does.
Why is she watching me?
What does she want?
WHY?

I wasn't at all sure how to approach Nick. I didn't want to scare him off – so no Dictaphone app – but I also needed to be firm and direct from the outset. Maybe just doing it would be the best tactic. Like ripping off a bandaid. I decided to wait until lunch on Tuesday, so we'd have time to talk. I popped into my Debating meeting to let everyone know I'd have to skip this week, then headed into the courtyard to where Nick sat on his bench, watching Amy Butler.

He was there, looking bored, as if we were all far, far beneath him and not worthy of his interest or attention. I snuck up from behind so he couldn't bolt.

‘Nick.'

The muscles in his shoulders tensed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

‘Hello?' he said. I'd never heard his voice before. It was higher than I'd expected, but quite melodic. There was a faint tremor behind his carefully affected drawl.

‘Wow,' I said. ‘I guess I'd better wait until you're off the phone. Luckily I've got all day.'

Nick slid off the bench and started to walk away. ‘Yeah, mate,' he said into the phone. ‘Uh-huh. Yeah.'

I followed him. ‘Unless you're not actually
talking
on that phone, of course.'

Nick veered off in a different direction and picked up his pace. I walked faster so I drew up alongside him. I could see a clump of girls nearby watching with interest. I let us pull away from them so nobody could hear us talking, and then I reached out and grabbed Nick's phone.

Nick froze, his hand clasped to his ear where the phone had been.

I pretended to talk into the phone. ‘Hi,' I said. ‘Do you think I could talk to Nick for a minute? It's kind of important. You can call him back later.' I mimed listening, and then turned to Nick.

‘He says that's fine, he'll call you back this afternoon,' I said, and examined the phone. ‘This thing isn't even
on
. You're not trying very hard.'

Nick didn't move. His hands trembled, and he stared at the ground.

‘Look,' I said. ‘I don't want to make you uncomfortable. But my name's Penny and I
really
want to write a story on you. An article. About your condition.'

At the word
condition
, a shudder seemed to go through Nick. It was as though it unfroze him, because he clenched his fists and started to walk away, very fast.

‘Hey!' I said. ‘Your phone.'

Nick didn't slow his pace or turn around. I hurried after him, the phone in my hand.

He headed for the science labs and I noticed the blonde girls giggling at me, another spurned groupie. How ridiculous. I wasn't one of them, pathetically chasing after the cute boy. I was on a
mission
.

I tailed Nick through a maze of portables, and round the corner of the soccer oval towards the Drama Centre.

‘Stop,' I said. ‘I just want to talk to you.'

He ignored me and I followed him around a corner.

‘Penny!' It was Rin. She was alone, sitting at the bottom of the concrete stairwell that led up to the Drama Centre. She sprang to her feet, looking very pleased to see me.

‘Um, hi,' I said, pausing awkwardly, craning my neck to see which way Nick had gone.

‘What are you doing?' she said. ‘Do you want to sit with me?'

This was the problem with having friends. It was all very well for us to hang out and do jigsaws and eat Pocky, but I was
busy
now. I didn't want us to be friends
right now
. But how was I supposed to explain that to Rin?

‘Actually,' I said, ‘there's somewhere I need to be. I'm really sorry.'

‘Where?'

Nick had totally disappeared from view. I'd lost him. ‘Huh?'

‘Where do you need to be?'

‘Oh, um . . . ' I looked wildly around for an excuse.

‘It's Nick Rammage, isn't it?'

I stared at her. ‘What?'

Rin nodded. ‘You looked like you were following him.'

‘No,' I said. ‘I wasn't—'

‘It's okay. Everyone loves Nick Rammage. He's hot. I totally understand.'

I wasn't sure what to say. I couldn't exactly deny that I'd been chasing him. There was only one thing for it. I swallowed and told myself it was all in the name of journalism. It was like when Nellie Bly pretended to be crazy so she could report on a mental asylum from within. I was going to have to pretend to be crazy too.

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘I do like him. He's a . . . ' I took a deep breath and tried to sell it, ‘ . . . hottie.'

‘You'd be good together,' Rin said to her shoes. ‘Have you spoken to him?'

‘I tried to,' I said. ‘But he didn't want to talk to me.'

She shook her head. ‘I hear he's totally uninterested in high-school girls. Emma Lee told me he's got a girlfriend who's twenty-one and goes to university.'

I found this difficult to believe, so I didn't reply.

‘Oh!' said Rin. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.'

‘It's okay,' I said. ‘I know I don't have a chance with him anyway.'

Not that I wanted him. And even if I did, my short hair and big boobs meant I was hardly the love-shy ideal.

‘Well.' I shifted from one foot to the other. ‘I'd better go.'

Rin seemed to grow smaller. ‘Okay,' she said, in a tiny voice. She looked as though she was going to cry.

This was ridiculous. I just wanted to leave and find Nick. But he was long gone now. He'd have gone underground, like a rabbit. Probably hiding in the boys' toilets, and nothing short of a Hazchem suit and oxygen tank could make me follow him in there. And Rin seemed sad, and I didn't like the thought that
I
had made her sad. Why was she sitting here alone anyway? Where were her friends?

My watch told me there were only ten minutes until the end of lunch.

‘Actually, I might stay for a bit,' I said. ‘If that's okay.'

Rin brightened. ‘Of course!'

I sat down on the concrete step next to her. ‘So how come you're not at the canteen?'

‘Cherry's got glandular fever,' she said. ‘And Rebecca is at her Economics Society meeting. And Pieng and Stephanie are . . . a bit hard to talk to at the moment.'

‘Why?' I asked absently, running over my confrontation with Nick in my head. What had I done wrong? How could I do it differently next time? More direct? Less direct? Maybe I could write him a letter?

Rin sighed. ‘They're kind of
attached
to their boyfriends,' she said. ‘At the lips.'

I rolled my eyes. ‘Right,' I said. ‘Annoying, huh?'

‘Yep. It just makes lunchtime awkward and boring.'

‘Because you don't want a boyfriend.'

Rin looked at me. ‘What?' she said. ‘No, I
totally
want a boyfriend. I just don't think I'll ever
have
one.'

‘Why not?'

‘You know,' said Rin, shrugging. ‘I'm not very pretty. And I'm shy. And . . . well, I like boys with freckles and blue eyes, but I'm Asian.'

‘Nonsense,' I said. ‘You're
totally
pretty, and there are plenty of non-Asian guys at this school dating Asian girls. What about Heidi Lim and Steven Pappas?'

‘Yeah,' said Rin, ‘but Heidi acts like a slut.' She giggled and covered her mouth, as if the word had slipped out without her permission.

I frowned. ‘So does Steven Pappas,' I said. ‘But he never gets judged for it. And anyway, I don't think that makes a difference.'

‘At least people notice Heidi. And my parents are strict, so I wouldn't be able to hang out with a boyfriend much outside of school. It's hopeless. Who would ever want to date a mousy timid Asian girl like me?'

I could think of a couple of candidates. One in particular. A twinkling of an idea flared in my brain.