THE walk to school takes about 45 minutes if we’re going along at my walking pace, and 35 minutes if Rainey is setting the speed with her scooter. It’s a long straight walk down the main drag of Station Street which runs along with the railway line to one side, and suburbia to the the other. It’s runs north/south so it’s a shaded walk in the morning, but the intense sun can really fry you on the way home.
We set a breakneck pace and must’ve made it in nearly 30 minutes, but we didn’t catch him. He was waiting for me at the gate, looking as relaxed as can be. How did he do that? Teleporting?
Oh, I kinda hated how he makes me feel. I loved it and hated it. I loved it because I feel so alive, but I hated it because I didn’t have any idea what I looked like. That’s a funny thing, isn’t it? But that’s the best words I can use to describe it. It scared the pants offa me. I like to at least having some idea of what I look like while I am speaking to someone. But with Michael, all of that fell away.
His eyes creased into a smile as I approached. Good golly almighty. Something pulsed deep within me. I wobbled visibly. It was all I could do not to throw myself at his feet. I took him in, the slightly jaunty lean of his body, the disheveled shirt half tucked in, his feet leaning in together slightly giving him that shoe-gazing look. Some of the younger girls were actually whispering and giggling and trying not to look like they were staring. I allowed myself a sweet moment of disdain. At least I wasn’t giggling...
I could feel Raine tense up as we got closer. Poor Rainey. She was doing her best to be supportive of me, but I could feel her terror. Not only was she having to front up to a boy-ew-yuck, but she was worried she was going to lose me. She didn’t say it, she didn’t have to say it. It was something about how her eyes flashed with fear a little whenever I said his name. And yeah, okay, I said his name a fair bit.
But, God love her, she was with me all the way, even though it scared the life out of her. She grabbed my hand unconsciously and I gave it a squeeze. It’s okay Rainey, I thought in my mind. He’s just a boy. We got this.
His smile grew larger as we came to a stop.
‘Hey,’ I said, as casual as all that. Pretty pleased with that, actually. Hey. That came out super-smooth. I sound almost human.
‘Hey beautiful,’ he said and smiled again, this time holding my eye contact, and my stomach dropped through the floor, along with my newly-found composure. Hey beautiful? I could just die. I could just die right now. I could just die right now and it would be fine. In fact, I would like that. I would like to die now thanks God! No moment could be more perfect. Might as well end it here!
‘Hey Rainey,’ he said, turning to a rather drained-looking Raine who had lost all the color from her cheeks. ‘Love the scooter!’
Rainey looked down at her scooter, covered in Indian bells and anime stickers. She was usually at-the-ready to defend her eccentric transportation device, but there was such a sincerity to his voice, I could see she was disarmed. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.
‘So Jo, you wanna hang out a bit, before class?’ he said turning back to me, and I nodded mechanically. Rainey shot me a look that said ‘tell me everything - EVERYTHING!’ before she dropped my hand and turned to go. I will, I thought. I will if I can make my brain do things! Things like remember stuff and junk and stuff. Brain had already passed out under the couch somewhere, and I kinda knew it would be useless to try and revive him now.
I turned back to Michael and bit down on my lip hard, while I gave him a nervous smile. Well, here we go then. Talking to Michael. There were so many questions I had compiled in my mind while absently bouncing around on my ragged trampoline in the backyard, but none of them were surfacing. I had rehearsed whole conversations from ‘hi’ to ‘bye’, with a few allowances for variations in response from him, but as I peered into my mind, all I could see was my little brain guy putting up his hands and shrugging his shoulders as if to say - we got nothin’!
He swiftly relieved me of my bag off me again, which sent me into another spasm of delight. The dancer girls saw that. Shelley Martin was giving me daggers. I couldn’t help it but I felt myself flick my hair her way. ‘Mwahahahaa!’ I thought. ‘Take that, Angelina Ballerina!’
We paraded down to the trees at the back of the oval. I say paraded because we were highly conspicuous. The whole school watched. And I didn’t even have to turn around to look, I could just feel their collective eyes boring into my back.
We were approaching the big daddy gum tree, the one that stood alone from the rest. I took deep breath of the fresh fall air. You could smell the sea today. This tree was my favorite of them all because it had a view of the creek that wound round the school. He threw down my bag and took off his blazer and spread it out on the ground like a picnic blanket.
Who was this boy man? I thought. Who, why, what kind of sixteen year old boy in this day and age spreads his jacket out for a girl to sit on? I mean, I didn’t have much experience with guys, this was true, but I was pretty sure this was kind of unusual. From what I could tell, modern day chivalry was something like letting your girlfriend have first turn at the X-box. Michael was like some kind of white knight or something.
I half expected him to leap up and slay a dragon.
