Popped Read online

  “Do you think you’ll see Eddie again this weekend?” Georgie asked Mia.

  “I don’t–”

  Just as I was about to pull into the free car park, that ratty old little black Mazda with its stupid pop-up headlights swooped in and stole it. I slammed on my breaks to avoid crashing into its even stupider driver.

  “Oh, that Bash Baker!” I yelled, smashing my palm into my horn.

  “Who does he think he is!” Georgie cried, her hand still bracing on my dashboard.

  We all glared at him as we rolled behind his car.

  “He’s the guy who beat up Coach Dunhill for suggesting he was gonna make him run laps round the oval,” Mia answered knowingly.

  “He didn’t beat up–” I started.

  “He so did!” Mia insisted. “Everyone’s saying he did.”

  “I wish we could put him in his place,” Georgie sighed as we kept cruising the carpark, looking for an empty spot.

  I looked to her with a rueful smile. “And what would that get us?”

  “Justice,” Georgie replied. If she was anything, she was fierce and she was brave.

  “Or it’d get us broken noses,” Mia argued.

  I nodded to Georgie as I pulled into a park left free for us by Cody. “She’s got a point. Remember what they did to Mia’s nerdy cousin?”

  “And all Arthur did was look at Bash in the hallway,” Mia reminded us.

  “Bash Baker is positively feral,” I remarked.

  “Auntie Cath had to wait a week to get Arthur into Mummy’s plastic surgeon.”

  I pointed back to Mia as I looked at Georgie. “See? Do you want to walk around for a week with a crooked nose?” I asked.

  “Someone still ought to put him in his place,” Georgie said matter-of-fact as we climbed out of my car.

  I pulled my seat forward for Mia to get out as I replied, “If it was possible, Mrs Hogan would’ve managed it by now.”

  Georgie paused in plaiting her jet-black hair, tilting her head in agreement. “This is true.”

  “He’s untouchable,” Mia whispered reverently, swinging her bag onto her back. She flicked her long ponytail of light blonde hair out from under her bag.

  Georgie scoffed. “We’re untouchable. He’s…criminal.”

  I had to agree with her. He was an egotistical, arrogant wanker who thought he could get away with anything. And he was always proved right unfortunately.

  “Are we going to meet James now?” Mia asked and I hid my smile as Georgie tried to shush her.

  “We broke up with James, remember?” she hissed.

  “Oh yeah…” Mia said slowly. Her bright blue eyes narrowed in confusion. “Why did we break up with James?”

  I sighed. “He only wanted to get in my pants. And we all know how that turns out.” I shrugged. “So, I had to let him go.”

  “Hurt him before he hurt you,” Mia said wistfully.

  “Exactly.” I led them towards our lockers. “You know? I am so sick of guys. They go on about how much they want you, they woo you, then you either give it up to them and they disappear or you’re a frigid cow.”

  “And they swap you out for the ease,” Georgie added.

  “Exactly–!”

  “Hi Paige!” someone called and I waved in their general direction.

  “–It’s so stupid. Guys all just want one thing and when they get it, they break your heart.” My shoulder clipped someone else as I walked past and I vaguely heard them apologising. “I’m sick of it. The way they think they can treat us is disgusting.”

  “Ugh. Who did he cheat with?” Georgie asked as we stopped at our lockers and pulled them open.

  “Oh, I didn’t give him time. But I know he was thinking about it.”

  Georgie and Mia both made noises of agreement from either side of me.

  James and I had dated for almost two months. But James didn’t want the real Paige. What he wanted was the Queen Bee, perfect Paige, as well as the title of my gallant deflowerer. Teenage boys were all the same. Just one look around Mitcham College’s corridors and you could see it.

  That guy who’d had his nose in one girl’s neck last week had it in another girl’s this week.

  The guy who’d been kissing his girlfriend at his locker on Friday afternoon had been seen kissing another girl on Saturday night.

  The guys who thought it was okay to spend their days objectifying girls.

  The stupid ‘jokes’.

  The unrealistic expectations.

  The inability to express emotions.

  “I’m done with the lot of them,” I said as I closed my locker.

  “With the lot of what?” Mia asked.

  “Boys.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if Dean Longford finally found the balls to ask you out,” Georgie laughed.

  I smiled at her as we made for Maths. “He did ask me out.”

  “Seriously?” Georgie asked. “When?”

  “While I was with James.”

  “Should have known,” Georgie sighed wryly.

  “No way!” Mia gasped.

  I nodded. “Way.”

  “This is Paige we’re talking about,” Georgie said, rolling her dark brown eyes. “Of course, way. She can get any guy in this school she wants.”

  “I cannot,” I said.

  “Can. And yet you’re still a virgin,” she teased.

  I shrugged. “I haven’t met the right guy yet.”

  Georgie scoffed. “By your definition, the right guy doesn’t exist. You use it for power.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked aghast.

  Georgie nodded. “Admit it. You use sex as power over guys.”

  “Or lack of,” Mia added.

  I thought about that as we walked to class and wondered how true it was.

  Did I use sex – or as Mia said, lack of sex – to get power? I guessed I did. I knew they wanted it. I knew they wanted it from me. So maybe I did use that to my advantage sometimes?

  “Okay. Maybe. But I don’t do it on purpose.”

  “Bullshit,” Georgie laughed. “You enjoy making every guy in the school beg for it.”

  “Every guy in the school doesn’t…beg for it.”

  Georgie scoffed. “They so do.”

  I laughed. “Okay. They kinda do.”

  “And in this sea of guys, not one of them is man enough to be ‘the one’,” Georgie sighed dramatically.

  “He doesn’t have to be ‘the one’. He just needs to not turn around and break my heart right afterwards.”

  “Oh, you don’t want ‘twue wuv’?” Georgie joked.

  I chuckled. “No. I don’t want ‘twue wuv’. I just want it to be more than meaningless.”

  “Are you talking about me now?” Mia asked innocently and Georgie and I laughed.

  “No,” I told her. “Just because you have sex with any guy who’s interested doesn’t make it meaningless.”

  “Doesn’t it, though?” Georgie asked and we all laughed now.

  “What?” Mia said with an unapologetic shrug. “I like sex.”

  “More power to the vag, I say.”

  “Own it,” Georgie agreed.

  “Don’t let anyone tell you what you can and can’t do with your body, Mia.”

  “Excellent advice,” Georgie said.

  “Isn’t it?” I laughed with a smile, clapping Mia on the shoulder.

  We walked into the classroom and I saw stupid Bash Baker intimidating Mitch out of his seat.

  “See? Feral,” I told the girls and they agreed.

  Bash sat down and my eyes slid down and back up his body. Sure, he had a decent face, all chiselled jaw and smooth skin. But the rest of him was nothing special.

  He was six foot one, filled out his uniform pleasantly enough, had messy black hair and light blue eyes. He walked around the school with a cocky swagger and a half-smirk that could make Satan blush. If any guy at our school was going t
o be the epitome of heartbreaker it was the guy everyone called ‘Casanova’ – totally original. And no matter what he and his Neanderthal friends got up to, they got a free pass. He wasn’t a total delinquent, but he’d mastered the arts of laziness, talking back, and riling up any staff member he came across.

  And his friends were no better.

  Jendo was a little taller than me with light brown hair and green eyes. He kept a watchful eye on his surrounds at all times, and I could count the times I’d seen him smile on one hand. He was a total sour puss and it amazed me how many girls batted their eyes at him.

  Rufio on the other hand was a whole lot of exuberance bursting to escape a lanky six-foot three body. Compared to Jendo, I could count the times I’d seen Rufio frown on one hand. He was like a puppy. A puppy at that ‘all bark and no bite’ stage that kept peeing in your favourite shoes.

  I sat in my seat and our substitute teacher wasn’t far behind.

  “Good morning, class,” she said, as she came in with a warm smile. “My name’s Miss Marino and I’ll be your substitute while Mr Burby’s leg is recovering. I understand we take the roll first?”

  I gave her my widest smile and nodded. “Yes. Just first lesson and after lunch though.”

  Miss Marino beamed back at me. “Thank you…?”

  I clasped my hands in front of me on the desk. “Paige. Paige Nicholls, miss.”

  There was a noise at the back of the room and I don’t need to award points for guessing who could have been responsible.

  “Thank you, Paige.” Miss Marino looked at what people loosely monikered the Baker Boys before looking at her laptop and beginning the roll. “Okay. Mitch Adair?”

  “Here.”

  “Sebastian Baker?”

  Unsurprisingly, he didn’t deign to actually answer her with words.

  “Great,” Miss Marino said, looking back down at the laptop quickly and I fought the urge to turn around and look at him – knowing Bash, he was already hitting on her. “Lucy Brenner?”

  “Here.”

  “Daniel Carvalho?”

  The traditional “Rufio, Rufio” was heard around the room to some laughter. I shared an exasperated look with Georgie and Mia. No one knew who’d started it but it had apparently become a thing during every roll.

  Miss Marino read out the next couple of names easily and, even if I wasn’t used to the order of the roll, I’d know whose name she’d come to by the way she paused.

  The poor guy, you had to wonder what his parents had been thinking when they named him. I thought I’d heard him say one year that he’d been named after his grandfather or something, but I didn’t really think that made it any better.

  “Jean Des… Desjardins?” Miss Marino completely butchered the proper glamourous pronunciation and the room filled with barely stifled laughs.

  “Jendo’ll do, miss,” he said from up the back.

  Miss Marino looked up at him. “Jendo?”

  “It’s French. Jean. Everyone just calls me Jendo though.”

  “Shame, really,” I whispered to the girls and they nodded.

  Miss Marino seemed to be thinking about it for a moment. “Okay…” she said finally. “Jendo.” Then it was on with the roll. A few more names and finally, “Mia Godfrey?”

  Mia’s arm shot up so fast I thought she was going to knock me out of my seat.

  “Here, miss!” she cried enthusiastically.

  Miss Marino looked at her and smiled. “Great. Lovely to meet you, Mia.”

  “You too, miss.”

  Miss Marino paused, then continued on with the roll. Through the rest of the alphabet, past me with a warm, “And Paige Nicholls is here,” and finally, “Georgina Zhang?”

  Georgie nodded beside me and raised her arm a little. “Here.”

  Miss Marino looked around the room with a smile. “Great. Well, you’re stuck with me for the next couple of weeks at least. So, before we get started, why doesn’t someone fill me in on where you’re up to?”

  As Mitch did the honours, the Baker boys were oddly silent. But I wasn’t going to risk sneaking a look back at them.

  Chapter 3: Bash

  Even with something like only three months left of my entire school career, I was still rethinking my subject choices. After Maths came a free lesson though and I hung about in the Common Room ‘studying’ while the boys were off at class together.

  We were technically supposed to go to the designated study rooms during our frees but, as long as the Common Room was quiet to anyone walking past, we got to stay put. Which was good because it meant I could have my headphones on and that meant I got more sketching done.

  No one bothered me and that was how I liked it. I was by no means the only student in there who was technically flouting the school rules, but none of us paid the other any mind. I was far enough away from the kitchen that I wasn’t bothered by kids coming and going, but I could still people watch if I wanted. The main benefit of the Common Room was that we had everything we needed to basically eat all day. The main downside to this was that PE had stopped being compulsory in Year Ten so a few of us already had one foot out of our prime.

  Every now and then, I’d get messages from the boys, who were in Media Studies and spent the whole time on their laptops. I neglected to reply, which earnt me a few expletives and some colourful nicknames, none of which were terribly original but still made me laugh when I caught them on my notification panel.

  I was jolted out of my fantasyland by a rap on the table. I looked up and saw Willis pointing at the door. Pulling my headphones off, I looked over as I heard Willis say, “…little brother, man?”

  I nodded to Leo, who was hovering in the door. “Yeah. Thanks,” I told Willis.

  “Too easy,” the bigshot full-back said, walking off with his also terribly original ‘Specko’ showing on the back of his jumper. (For those playing internationally, ‘specky’ is short for ‘spectacular mark’ which I’m led to believe is a good thing in football. Interchanging for an ‘o’ on the end is just the Aussie way.)

  I rolled my eyes at the inherently obsessive nature of footballers to relive their finest moments when they did the same brain-bashing thing every week, and got up to see what Leo wanted. As I trundled over to the door, I smoothed my hair.

  “That’s not going to work, you know,” Leo said as I approached him, looking up at my head.

  “What’s not?” I asked.

  “Even Vidal Sassoon couldn’t tame your hair.”

  I huffed a rough laugh as I leant one hand on the door; it was something our mum said a lot. When she was home. “You don’t even know who that is.”

  “Do you?”

  I shrugged. “Some hair dresser.” I looked him over and couldn’t see any immediate injuries. “You good?”

  He nodded and pushed up his glasses frames. “I wanted to ask if you had any cash on you?”

  I frowned. “Why? You nerds playing with real money now?”

  Leo rolled his oh-so-mature fourteen-year-old eyes at me. “No. Mrs Hogen would roast us alive.”

  I nodded. “I don’t doubt she would. What do you want then?”

  He leant sideways very not covertly as he tried to have a look into the Common Room behind me and I snapped my finger in his face.

  “Eyes are up here, buddy. What do you want the money for? And why aren’t you in class?”

  He looked back up at me. “Recess and I’m on a loo break.”

  “Thanks for the bladder update,” I muttered.

  “You asked!”

  I nodded. “True. How much do you want?”

  “Enough for a pie?”

  I dug into my pocket and pulled out my wallet to rummage for cash. “I’ve got…six whole dollars. Will that get you a pie?” I asked him.

  It had been so long since I’d been to Tuck for more than a drink, I didn’t even remember how much anything cost. Mostly it was a cost-cutting measure. But Leo
was going through a growth spurt – at least I hoped – and he was hungry all the time. So, what else was a big brother to do but shout the little man a pie?

  “Yep,” he said, nodding avidly.

  I pulled the coins out, but paused with my hand hovering over his outstretched one. “Is that enough for you to get a pie and to grab me a doughnut?” I asked.

  “Just,” Leo said with another nod.

  I dropped the coins into his hand. “Okay. I’ll send the boys by your spot to pick it up, yeah?”

  Leo grinned up at me and his fist closed around the money. “Yep,” he replied as he started heading off.

  “Chocolate. None of this sprinkle bullshit!” I yelled to his retreating back.

  “Volume, Sebastian,” one of the teachers reprimanded half-heartedly on their way passed.

  “Sorry, sir.” I smirked as I wandered back into the Common Room.

  I dropped back into my chair, sent the boys a message about a doughnut delivery, and went back to ignoring the world at large until said doughnut dropped onto my page. At least I hoped it was my doughnut in the nondescript brown paper bag.

  I pulled my headphones off again and looked up at the boys before I investigated the bag.

  “Courtesy of your brother,” Jendo said, dropping into a chair next to me.

  I pulled it out and found two bite marks out of it. “Wankers, the both of you.”

  “I see it’s not stopping you,” Rufio laughed as I pulled a piece off and ate it.

  I grinned at him, my mouth full of doughnut. “Nope.” I swallowed before I asked, “How was class?”

  “Fine,” Jendo replied. “Same old. Get much done?”

  I shrugged. “Enough.”

  “You colouring this one?”

  “Dunno yet. See if the muse strikes.”

  “Let’s see then.” Jendo reached over but I batted his hand away.

  “Later.”

  “You know…” Rufio started. And let it be known that no conversation Rufio ever started with the words ‘you know’ had ever gone well for any of us.

  “Fuck,” Jendo huffed as he rustled with a packet. “What?”