The Call of the Wild (8 page)

I put my phone away and my head in my hands. What was I going to do? Should I stay to help Liam and Jack, or should I go to the party to meet up with Saia?

That afternoon, we stood beside the water feature in the shopping mall, where we’d arranged to meet the guys. I still hadn’t told my friends what I’d decided to do. I looked at my feet. I didn’t want to disappoint them, but the Wild Club was really important to me.

‘Listen, I’ve been thinking,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to go to the movie night.’

Annabel’s face dropped, like I’d just told her I had an incurable disease. ‘That is
literally
the worst decision ever.’

‘You’ve gotta come to the party,’ Kimmi begged, pulling on my arm.

I took a deep breath. ‘How about we
all
go to the movie night? It’ll be fun if we do it together,’ I tried.

Annabel frowned. ‘That’s why we should go to
Ryan’s party
together.’

‘Annabel’s right, it won’t be the same without you,’ Kimmi added. ‘And Marco did make the effort to get us invited. It might seem a bit rude if you don’t show up.’

I groaned to myself. ‘I have to help out,’ I explained. ‘I’ve been in the club all year, and I feel bad enough that I didn’t go to the last few meetings. I can’t just abandon it because I’ve got a party to go to.’

Kimmi looked at me carefully. ‘Are you sure this isn’t about you having a thing for Liam?’

‘No!’ I insisted. ‘I told you, we’ll never be more than just friends.’

‘Really?’ asked Annabel. ‘But he’s such a hottie. Are you sure you don’t like him?’

‘Yes!’ We’d been in the Wild Club together all year and
nothing
had happened. ‘I know he’s cute, but I’m pretty sure he’s not interested.’

‘Seriously?’ Annabel smiled. ‘So he’s free? I mean, you don’t mind if I hang out with him a bit?’

‘Annabel!’ Kimmi and I chorused.

‘What about Ryan Baker?’ Kimmi asked.

‘I still think Ryan’s cute. But it’s not like he’s my boyfriend. I don’t even know him, really. Why can’t I like two guys?’ said Annabel, folding her arms.

‘I don’t have a problem with you hanging out with Liam,’ I said to Annabel. ‘Go right ahead.’

‘Shh! They’re coming!’ Kimmi hissed, her eyes darting down the mall.

Liam and Jack were walking towards us. Liam looked his usual relaxed self, probably even
more
chilled, now that he was out of uniform. He’d changed into a blue T-shirt that went really well with his eyes. My stomach did a weird little flip.

‘Hey there!’ I said, a little too brightly. ‘All ready for work?’

Liam nodded. ‘Ready as we’ll ever be.’

Annabel flicked her hair over her shoulder and edged closer to Liam. ‘We should probably split up if we’re going to get everything done. What do you think, Liam?’

‘Sure,’ he shrugged.

Annabel clapped her hands together. ‘Okay. Kimmi and Phoebs, you can hunt down some paints for the banner. I’ll go with the guys to get the slushie machine. Meet you back here in an hour?’

Before I had a chance to work out what was happening, Annabel was leading Liam and Jack up the escalator.

‘Wow, that was quick work,’ I muttered to Kimmi, slightly stunned.

‘You know what Annabel’s like once she’s got her heart set on something,’ said Kimmi. ‘But you know, I don’t think he’s interested in her anyway.’

‘Oh well, if anyone can talk the slushie shop owners into handing over one of their machines, it’ll be Annabel,’ I laughed.

Kimmi hesitated. ‘Are you sure you’re not feeling jealous that Annabel is hanging out with Liam and you’re not?’

I sighed and shook my head. ‘No. I don’t think so. It’s not like that. It’s just …’ It was hard to explain. My feelings were all jumbled up. ‘She wasn’t interested in the Wild Club all year, and now she is, but only because of Liam.’ I took a deep breath and tried to push my feelings aside. ‘Anyway,’ I said, grabbing Kimmi’s arm. ‘Come on. Let’s go to the art shop.’

We wandered off towards the art shop, where Kimmi thought she might be able to get paints for the banner, but I was distracted. My eyes kept darting to the top floor of the mall, hoping to catch sight of the others. I felt a knot forming in my stomach at the thought of Annabel with Liam. He was
my
friend. It didn’t seem quite right that she was with him.

‘Look there!’ Kimmi said, suddenly.

My eyes flashed around the top floor, searching for Liam.

‘No, there!’ Kimmi said, pointing into a jewellery shop. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the middle of the glittering store. Her face lit up with excitement.

Kimmi reached for a bright pink necklace that was hanging on the wall and held it up. ‘What do you think? Would this go with the top I’m wearing to the party?’

Before I had a chance to answer, her eyes had darted to another necklace. ‘Or what about this one?’

I shook my head. ‘We’re really meant to be getting things done for the movie night,’ I said.

‘Oh, yeah,’ Kimmi sighed, putting the necklace back. Then her face brightened. ‘Why don’t we do both? Let’s see if we can get them to donate something for the raffle prize.’

It seemed like a good idea. While Kimmi bought a necklace, I told the shop owner all about the movie night and asked if she’d consider donating a raffle prize. She happily handed over a pair of earrings.

Success! Kimmi and I both walked out smiling.

An hour later, back at the water feature, we had a bag full of prizes for the raffle, as well as paints for the Slushies in Paradise banner. We’d put up all of our posters and I was feeling pumped about the movie night again. I couldn’t wait to share our success with the others. But as I watched Annabel coming down the escalator with Liam and Jack, that weird, jumbled feeling came back to me.

Annabel bounced towards us with a grin on her face, like she’d just won first prize in some big competition.

‘How’d you go?’ I asked.

‘Amazing!’ Annabel said. ‘Sloppy Slushie has a mobile trailer that they’re going to let us use for the movie night. It’s so cute. It’s a caravan full of slushie machines, with a big window at the front where you serve customers.’

‘Annabel even convinced them to let us have it for free,’ said Liam.

Annabel flashed him a bright smile.

‘Cool,’ I said flatly. ‘That’s really great.’

I should have been excited about the slushie trailer. It was great news. But I couldn’t shake the bad feeling I had. And to make things worse, Annabel kept touching Liam on the arm as she talked. What was that about?

‘We scored a cool raffle prize,’ said Kimmi. She took the earrings out of the bag and showed the others.

Annabel screwed up her nose as she inspected them. ‘Shame they look kind of tacky.’

I could feel my skin prickle. I knew Annabel was right – the earrings were a bit cheap, but she didn’t need to say it. ‘They’re actually very expensive,’ I lied. ‘And look what else we got.’

I pulled out the rest of our donations, doing my best to show the others how hard we’d worked on the fundraiser. I knew I was a being silly, but I just couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to impress the guys.

‘Good work,’ Liam said. ‘Annabel said you’d just be off shopping.’

I glared at Annabel.

‘Jokes!’ She laughed, but I didn’t see anything funny about it.
She
was the one who loved shopping. And then it hit me. I knew why I was so annoyed with Annabel. She was being fake. She was pretending to be interested in the Wild Club and the movie night, but all she really cared about was getting Liam to like her.

‘So, should we meet up again next week, to work out our plans for the slushie stall?’ Annabel suggested.

Liam nodded. ‘How ’bout Monday lunchtime?’

‘Sure,’ said Annabel. ‘Let’s swap numbers, just in case we need to contact each other about anything. What’s your number, Liam?’

It annoyed me that Annabel seemed to be taking over the group, and even though we all swapped numbers, I felt weird that Annabel had Liam’s number in her phone. Suddenly everything about her was starting to bug me.

‘Liam and Jack are really fun,’ Annabel said as we left the guys and wandered off towards the car park, where Mum was meeting us.

‘Shame you’re not going to the movie night,’ I said. ‘You’d have even more time to hang out with them. I bet the guys are pretty annoyed that you’re bailing on the big night.’

‘Oh, well, about that …’ Annabel gave me a sly grin.

I frowned. ‘What?’

‘Today didn’t seem like the right time to tell them,’ said Annabel. ‘I didn’t want to look like an animal hater.’

‘You didn’t tell them about the party?’

Annabel shrugged.

‘But we’re still going, right?’ Kimmi said, staring at Annabel.

Annabel nodded. ‘Of course! It’s going to be amazing. But we should definitely do what we can to help out with the movie night. I mean, we care about animals as well as parties, right?’

‘Yeah,’ said Kimmi. ‘We’re party animals!’

Kimmi and Annabel laughed, and went on about how cute Liam and Jack were. I guess I was being quiet, because Annabel asked, ‘You okay, Phoebs?’

I just nodded and smiled, and pretended everything was okay. I’d wanted my friends to be interested in the Wild Club all year. But now that they’d finally joined, all they could talk about were guys.