Gracie Faltrain Takes Control by Cath Crowley Page B

doesn’t have to rhyme,’ Mrs Wilson says. ‘The best poems are the ones that surprise the reader.’ That’s her story now. My poems are always surprising; she never says she likes them.
    â€˜So,’ I whisper to Alyce when Flemming’s at the front getting our topic. ‘I heard he’s failing school.’
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜Flemming. Martin says Yoosta wants to kick him out unless he starts getting better marks, so I thought you could offer to tutor him.’
    â€˜What? No.’
    â€˜It’d be the perfect chance for you to spend some time together.’
    â€˜I said, no. Leave things alone. Please.’
    Flemming walks back to our desks. ‘We got jibbed. Wilson gave us nature. Why couldn’t we get something like soccer or surfing? Who writes poetry about frigging nature?’
    â€˜A lot of people, actually. Wordsworth and Keats,’ Alyce says.
    Oh no. Don’t let him know you like poetry. What, are you running for nerd of the year?
    â€˜There are some really beautiful lines in them,’ she says.
    â€˜Can we copy them?’
    â€˜That’s cheating,’ she answers.
    I kick her under the table. He’s joking, Alyce. Laugh. But she doesn’t. She picks up her pen and looks as serious as if she were a doctor about to operate. ‘Okay, first line?’
    Flemming and I start flicking through our books, looking everywhere but at her pen.
    â€˜We could do one about the soccer field – that’s nature,’ Alyce says. ‘What’s the ground like before you run on it?’
    â€˜I dunno. It’s sort of flat and new. And. . .green,’ he answers.
    â€˜You idiot,’ I say.
    But Alyce writes it down. ‘It’s good.’
    â€˜I’m a poet and I know it,’ Flemming says with this look on his face like he’s just won the smartest guy in the school award and Alyce is the one who’s given it to him.
    â€˜You’re a loser,’ I tell him.
    But he keeps on going, giving Alyce lines about soccer and she keeps writing them down. She changes a few, but mainly it’s exactly as Flemming tells it to her. He loves it. He loves it so much he volunteers to read it out to the class.
    He changes colour about five times when the teacher raves about how good it is. ‘I wrote it,’ he says. I could not have scripted the whole thing better. Who could have known it would be this easy? I’m so excited I forget the first rule of life: nothing is ever easy.
    Annabelle Orion is the last to read her poem. She walks past and gives us that smile that I know all too well. I saw it on her face when she told our kindergarten teacher that I pushed her off the swings. I didn’t. Annabelle Orion fell all on her own, but she wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to landsomeone in trouble and steal a bit of attention. She framed me with the skill of an expert criminal at the age of four. That smile means one of two things: we’re dead. Or we’re about to wish we were.
    She stands at the front of the class and waits a minute to make absolutely sure everyone is listening. ‘Our topic is love,’ she says, and I have a flashback to period one. I’m using my big, fat, stupid mouth to tease Alyce about Flemming. And Annabelle is sitting behind us.
    I have to hand it to her. Annabelle covers herself beautifully. There is no mention of Alyce Fuller. There is no mention of Andrew Flemming. But when she finishes reading her poem there’s not one kid in the room who does not know who Annabelle is talking about. The school nerd is in love with the school soccer star. Either Alyce is hot for me or Flemming, and either way it’s not good for her.
    I watch Flemming watch Alyce raise her hand. ‘May I please be excused?’ she whispers. ‘I don’t feel well.’ Her cheeks are two circles of tomato soup, hot enough to burn. Mrs Wilson lets her go. The whole class sniggers