How to Get to Rio Read online

  ‘I like your attitude, missy,’ Izzy said, putting on a coach’s voice and giving me a hard pat on the back. ‘I know you hate leeches. But you won’t let them beat you.’

  Then it occurred to me. Maybe I could get out of the trip. ‘I hope Mum lets me go,’ I said, sounding unsure.

  ‘Of course you’re coming,’ Mia said. ‘Mum said that she was calling your mum today.’

  ‘Great,’ I said feebly. I knew Mum would probably say yes. I was doomed.

  ‘It’s gonna be so cool,’ Mia said. ‘Eating marshmallows around a campfire, staying up all night telling ghost stories. You’ll see.’

  The bell rang for the end of lunch.

  ‘Kitty, don’t forget we’ve got a water-polo meeting later. It’s tryouts, remember?’ Izzy said.

  I shook my head. ‘There’s no way I’ll make the team.’

  ‘You’re great. C’mon, give it a try,’ Mia said.

  ‘Nah, I have to do my assignment.’ I sighed. ‘And, anyway, water polo’s not really my thing.’

  I still wasn’t sure what ‘my thing’ was. I guess I was still looking.

  I was actually okay at sport. But Izzy and Mia were so freakishly good they made everyone else look useless. They were super committed, too. Both of them had made the elite water-polo squad at the beginning of the year. Ever since then they hardly ever had any free time. They were always training.

  That’s probably why I liked the idea of spending time with Persephone. Even though she was one of the cool girls, she was quite normal compared to Izzy and Mia. Persephone and I probably had quite a bit in common. It seemed she liked shopping, doing her nails, and going to the beach. Izzy and Mia, on the other hand, thought camping was cool. They basically only had one week a term off training, and they wanted to spend it with snakes and leeches. Who did that?

  I headed off to class, wondering how I was going to survive the camping trip. Why did it have to be camping?

  I gulped. This trip was going to be hell.

  Peering into my underwear drawer on Thursday morning, I asked myself the big question: Knickers with no elastic, or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?

  Ever since Mum started her new job, the chance of finding clean underwear any day of the week was slim. All I had were a couple of pairs of knickers that should have been thrown out at least three years ago.

  Snow White knickers would have to do. Somehow I managed to wriggle into them. Then I threw on my uniform, grabbed my bag, stuffed in my finished geo assignment and raced out the front door.

  After handing my assignment in to Miss Blackmore, I saw Persephone at the lockers.

  ‘Looking forward to bridge building?’ she asked.

  Bridge building? I’d been so busy finishing my assignment that I’d totally forgotten about it. We were going to spend the whole morning working with guys from our brother school, literally building bridges out of craft sticks, in the hope that we’d build ‘healthy and harmonious relations’ with them. That was our teacher’s idea, anyway. Really, we’d be spending the morning checking out potential boyfriend material.

  As Persephone turned to a mirror inside her locker to apply some strawberry-scented lip gloss, I took the opportunity to rearrange my knickers. They were threatening to cut off the blood supply to my legs.

  ‘Coming?’ she asked. She looked perfect as usual.

  ‘Ah, no,’ I said, running my hand through my hair. I could feel my ponytail was lumpy. ‘I’ll catch you up.’

  ‘All right, I’ll save you a seat.’

  I ran to the toilets to fix my hair and rearrange my Snow White knickers again. After I raced back to my locker for breath mints, I was really late for the bridge-building session.

  I peeked in from the doorway. I saw Persephone at the back of the room with an empty seat beside her. Two boys were at the bench with her. I guessed they were our partners. They looked all right from the back, but then most people looked okay from that angle.

  Miss Blackmore was out the front explaining the exercise. Quietly, I slipped into the classroom and took my seat. I smiled at Persephone and tossed my sketch pad on the bench. It was only then that I looked up to acknowledge the two guys that we’d be working with.

  I froze.

  One of them was Rio.

  It was one thing to watch Rio on the bus from a safe distance, but it was a totally different thing to sit opposite him for two hours. What was I going to say?

  ‘Jordan and Rio, meet Kitty,’ said Persephone.

  Rio was looking right at me. My heart started thumping like I’d just run two laps of the oval. When he leant in towards me, I could feel my cheeks getting hot. I put my head down and stared at the desk, finding a black ‘Real Madrid’ sticker on Rio’s folder to study. I guessed it was his favourite team.

  ‘I know you from the bus, right?’ he said.

  Oh, no! I thought, suddenly looking up from Rio’s folder. He might have remembered saving me from the rogue ball, but it was more likely he’d noticed me staring at him practically every afternoon on the bus. He probably thought I was a stalker!

  I was choking on the lump in my throat, but I had to play it cool. ‘You do look kind of familiar,’ I said, casually. ‘We catch the same bus, do we?’

  Rio gave me a knowing little smile. I wasn’t fooling anyone. How embarrassing.

  I turned my attention to the front to avoid any more questions. Miss Blackmore was still talking about bridges. I wasn’t sure exactly what she’d just said, but the whole class was sniggering.

  Miss Blackmore waited until everyone was quiet before she continued. ‘Do we have an artist who could sketch a bridge design on the whiteboard for us?’

  I slid down in my chair to try to make myself invisible. But I could feel her looking straight at me.

  ‘Kitty MacLean, would you grace us with your drawing skills?’ she said, holding up the whiteboard marker.

  It didn’t sound like I had a choice, so I reluctantly scraped my chair out.

  Giggling started before I reached the front of the room. By the time I was at the board drawing, everyone was in hysterics.

  What exactly is so funny? I wondered as I sketched a bridge on the board. My bridge was a bit wonky. I tried to block out the laughter, and grabbed the board eraser to rub out the wonky lines.

  Behind me, I could still hear the class sniggering and giggling and I could feel my cheeks getting red. I quickly drew the lines back in neatly. As I took a couple of steps back to check my picture, there was a huge snorting laugh. I just had to find out what was so funny. I spun around to face the class, and saw that every single person was staring at my bottom.

  I reached around, and that’s when I realised: the back of my skirt was tucked into my knickers! Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were waving at the class!

  Two guys in the front row were waving back and another one, who looked a lot like Dopey, was whistling ‘Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go’.

  Oh. My. God. It was definitely the worst moment of my life. Full stop. I wished I could disappear into the floor then and there. But I didn’t, of course.

  Instead, I flicked my skirt free and turned back to the board. I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the world. But there was nowhere to hide. All I could do was take a deep breath and just finish drawing the bridge that the teacher had asked me to draw.

  ‘Very well done, Kitty,’ Miss Blackmore said kindly. ‘You can return to your group now.’

  I slunk back to my seat, with my eyes glued to the floor. I couldn’t look at anyone, least of all Rio. I was sure Persephone would never be friendly to me again.

  I put my head in my hands, silently cursing Mum for being too busy to do the washing.

  Someone touched my hand and then I heard Persephone whisper, ‘It’s okay.’ I opened my eyes and glanced at her sideways.

  ‘That was a great bridge you drew. And you’ve got a cute butt.’ She looked to Rio and Jordan for support.

  I groaned. She might be trying to hel
p, but she was making things worse. Now Rio and Jordan were staring at me.

  ‘Great bridge,’ Jordan said, grinning.

  Rio nodded. ‘You’re really good at drawing.’

  ‘Mmm,’ I mumbled, putting my head back into my hands.

  I noted the time and the date. This was it. The end of the world as I knew it.

  For the next two hours my Snow White knickers haunted me. I tried to do my bit. Somehow I managed to design a bridge for our group, but after that it just felt too hard and I left the others to it.

  I went back to my sketch pad. I drew a mythical forest filled with owls, wolves and a fire-breathing dragon. I drew myself on a wobbly old bridge, right in the middle of it all, because that’s how I felt. I was lost in the middle of a hostile place – high school.

  I had to admit Persephone was trying really hard. She asked me at least twenty times if I was all right. And she kept trying to get me back into the group, making up jobs to involve me.

  ‘Kitty, can you put a stick in that tiny gap? It needs your magic touch,’ she said at one point. Another time there was something that needed gluing with my ‘magic touch’.

  It was sweet of her, but I knew she was just doing it because she felt sorry for me. I didn’t have a magic touch – a cursed touch was more like it!

  ‘I wish I could draw like that,’ Rio said, leaning in to look at my picture.

  Jordan nodded. ‘Yeah, bro. Dragons would make a good change from footballs. That’s all you ever draw, isn’t it?’

  Rio elbowed his friend. ‘You’re joking, right? You can’t even draw a straight line. Maybe Kitty could help you advance to a stick man.’

  For a second, it felt like I was floating. I loved hearing Rio say my name and I couldn’t help smiling at his compliment. But when I looked at my picture I crashed back to earth. The picture was rubbish. That’s when I realised Rio was saying nice things because he felt sorry for me. ‘It’s just a doodle,’ I mumbled.

  I sank down in my seat, brooding. Of all the days I could have had my skirt stuck into my knickers, why did it have to be today? Why couldn’t it have happened yesterday, when there were no boys at school? Why not this afternoon? Why did it have to happen during the bridge-building session? Why did it have to be in front of Rio? And why, oh, why did I have to be wearing Snow White knickers?

  At last, the bell sounded, signalling the end of my torture.

  I tore my dumb picture out of my sketch pad, scrunched it into a ball and tossed it into the bin.

  Persephone gasped. ‘But that was really good. Better than the stick bridge.’

  I glanced at my group’s bridge. What a wobbly jumble of sticks and glue! That bridge wouldn’t support an ant, I thought.

  ‘Nice work,’ I lied, checking the back of my skirt. Then I rushed off without saying goodbye to anyone. Peals of laughter followed me. I assumed everyone was laughing at me again. I didn’t stop to check.

  I had to find Izzy and Mia. At times like these only best friends can help.

  ‘Here she is,’ shouted Izzy as I ran up. ‘So, how were the boys? Any cute ones? I can’t wait till our session this afternoon. It’s –’ She stopped when she saw my face.

  I could feel the tears welling in my eyes. I grabbed Izzy and Mia and dragged them to the back of the Science block. It was the only place where we could talk without the whole school watching.

  ‘I – have just had –’ I gulped back my tears, ‘the worst morning – of – my – life.’

  Mia put her arm around me. ‘What happened? It’s Blackmore, isn’t it? She gave you a detention? What a total cow!’

  As I shook my head, a tear escaped. ‘Worse.’

  ‘Suspended?’ Izzy gasped.

  I shook my head again. ‘Worse.’

  ‘Expelled?’ Mia said, her eyes widening. ‘Er-ma-gawd, Kitty. Your mum’s gonna freak!’

  ‘No, no,’ I said, sniffing.

  ‘Well, you can’t get arrested for handing in a bad assignment, so getting expelled is about as bad as it can be,’ Izzy said, looking confused.

  ‘It’s not about my assignment!’ I blurted out.

  I took a few deep breaths. ‘It’s my knickers,’ I groaned. ‘I flashed them at the whole class when Blackmore asked me to draw a bridge on the whiteboard!’

  For a moment Izzy and Mia just stared at me, saying nothing.

  ‘Not in your bridge-building session?’ said Izzy frowning. ‘Not in front of boys?’

  I nodded.

  ‘In front of boys!’ Mia’s eyes went really wide. ‘Oh, Kitty!’ She gave me a huge cuddle.

  ‘C’mon, Kitty. Maybe it’s not the worst thing ever,’ Izzy said, grabbing my hand. ‘It can’t be as bad as that time you dressed up as a cave girl.’

  ‘No,’ I said firmly, ‘it’s worse than that. And I haven’t even told you the most embarrassing bit.’

  Mia and Izzy leant in.

  ‘They were Snow White knickers!’

  Izzy yanked her hand away and covered her mouth. I thought it was because she was shocked. But then she started snorting. She always did that when she was trying not to laugh.

  ‘Izzy!’ I cried. ‘I have just been publicly humiliated. I nearly died of embarrassment. I deserve sympathy, not pig noises.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, stifling another snort. ‘At least you weren’t wearing super-lacy knickers.’

  Mia giggled. ‘Or saggy old granny undies.’

  I guessed they were right. Maybe it could have been worse. It didn’t stop me from feeling humiliated, though.

  But Izzy wasn’t going to let me feel sorry for myself for long. She was just getting warmed up. ‘Yeah!’ she said. ‘Imagine Tori flashing her knickers and they were actually saggy granny undies. Imagine she’s talking to a bunch of guys at the bus stop and the wind catches her dress. It blows it right over her head, and there she is in her old-lady undies.’

  ‘That would be funny.’ I had to agree.

  It was amazing how something embarrassing seemed funny when you pictured it happening to someone else. But even as I giggled I was pretty sure I was destined to be uncool all through high school now.

  At high school, everyone was rushing around trying to prove themselves, trying to be the coolest, trying to be someone they weren’t. I could remember a time when it wasn’t all so hard.

  ‘Remember at primary school everyone hung out together,’ I said. ‘It seemed like everyone was popular.’

  Maybe I was only remembering the good times, but it really seemed like we were all just one big happy gang back then. There was no cool group, no nerds, or hipsters, or emos, or water-polo girls, or whatever.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  Izzy shrugged. ‘We swam into a big pond, I guess.’

  ‘Well, it’s okay for you and Mia. You’re fast fish. You’ll be fine no matter how big the pond is,’ I said, staring into the distance. ‘I’m just a small lost fish, with silly knickers.’

  Mia gave me another hug and Izzy joined in.

  ‘Hey, Little Fish,’ Mia said softly, ‘we’ve got your back.’

  I hugged them back. I knew I wasn’t as fearless or as fast as Mia and Izzy. I wasn’t in the water-polo team. And sometimes I felt like they were from a different planet completely, but it was good to know Mia and Izzy would always be there for me – no matter what.

  ‘Camping with you guys is going to be so cool,’ I told them. And this time I really meant it.

  ‘Except when the boys throw slime at you!’ Izzy laughed.

  Of course, I thought. Just when I was getting all warm and fuzzy about the idea of camping, Izzy had to spoil the moment.

  ‘Just kidding,’ Izzy said. ‘Like you said before, it will be beyond amazing. So have your bags ready early. We’re leaving at 7 a.m. on Saturday.’

  That afternoon, I caught up with Persephone. Actually, she caught up with me. I’d been avoiding her since the Snow White incident. But at the end of the day, she cornered me at the lockers.

&n
bsp; ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I’ve been worried about you. This morning must have been awful.’

  I nodded, surprised how worried she looked and sounded. ‘Thanks. It really was awful.’

  Persephone gave me a hug and then grinned. ‘So, do you want to know what happened after you left?’

  ‘I think I already know,’ I said with a sigh. ‘I could hear everyone laughing at me.’

  ‘No, no. I mean with that picture you drew.’

  I frowned. The only picture I drew went in the bin.

  ‘Well, Rio’s got it,’ Persephone continued. ‘That picture? The girl on the bridge with the big eyes? Rio pulled it out of the bin, flattened it out and took it with him.’

  ‘What?’ It didn’t make any sense to me. ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘He didn’t say. But I’m guessing he really liked it …’ Persephone gave me a sly smile. ‘Or maybe he likes the artist who created it.’

  ‘You’re joking, right?’

  Persephone leant towards me. ‘Kitty, he was checking you out the whole time!’ she whispered. ‘He was watching you draw. I think you really made an impression.’

  ‘Yeah, a bad one!’ I groaned.

  But Persephone shook her head. ‘You handled that knickers thing so well. If that were me, I would have been out of there. Actually, I’d still be blubbering in the toilets right now.’

  Persephone was so cool and confident. I found it hard to believe what I was hearing.

  ‘Seriously. You were amazing. No wonder Rio likes you,’ she said. ‘You’re brave. Definitely braver than me.’

  ‘I’m not really,’ I said quietly.

  I could feel myself blushing, so I looked away. That’s when I spotted Tori watching us, her hand on her hip. Persephone waved at her, but Tori didn’t wave back. She just waited a few seconds and then stalked off with some girls from her group.