The Life and Times of Gracie Faltrain by Cath Crowley Page B

just ask to come back?
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GRACIE
    There’s another reason I go to that shed. To be alone without anyone seeing me. There are people I can hang out with, but I feel like I’m on the edge of them. Like looking out at the ocean and knowing it’s too rough and cold to swim. After all the talk about my underwear and kissing technique, I’m just not sure what they really think of me. I miss Jane. She’s always on my side.
    I watch Alyce in the library today. She’s laughing at a book she’s reading. I haven’t done that since before Jane left. I want more than anything to laugh with Alyce right now.
    It’s weird. Up until a few weeks ago, if you’d told me I’d be standing in the library, watching Alyce and thinking, she looks like she’s having fun, I would have said you were crazy. ‘Life’s unexpected, Faltrain,’ I can hear Jane saying, and just as I’m nodding in agreement, Alyce catches me staring at her. And she smiles.
    I’ve decided there’s another category of kids. We’re like those guys who go to jail but are really innocent: the wrongly accused loner group. I’m not sure where we belong, but we don’t belong here.
    As the bell goes for the end of lunch I raise my hand, and give Alyce a little wave.
    Annabelle is sitting at my bus stop after school this afternoon. Life would be so much easier if people who hated each other got together and compared diaries. You wouldn’t run into them outside of class. You’d never have to sit next to them.
    I mean, what do you say when you’re faced with a person who’s made the colour of your undies the hot topic of school conversation for weeks? Talking about your undies says moreabout her than you, Faltrain, Jane wrote to me last week. She’s right, but what does right and wrong matter when you’ve developed a nervous habit of walking with your hands gripped to the back of your skirt?
    I lean against the side of the glass shelter, cracked and covered with graffiti. If I move forward a little I can see Annabelle’s face in line with mine, reflected in the glass. Part of me expects her to speak, to fill the space around us with all of the things that she has been saying behind my back. Part of me is dying to say something too.
    She doesn’t. I don’t. We’ve seen the enemy out of uniform. Up close. What’s there to say?
    She folds her arms. Bends forward to see if the bus is coming. A woman sits in between us and blocks Annabelle’s face. I listen to her feet shuffling, her hands rubbing together to fight off the cold.
    I think of Alyce and her shaking hand, of making her cry in class and not caring. And then I go over all the things that Annabelle has said about me. And how they cut. Deep. Jagged.
    I squash myself further into the corner of the shelter. There’s only a seat length’s difference between Annabelle Orion and me. And I hate that.

25
    heart noun : the most important part
of anything
GRACIE
    Susan takes a huge pile of envelopes out of her bag before class starts today and hands them around.
    She gives out the last one and then notices me. Empty handed. I don’t think she left me out on purpose. She just didn’t think to invite me. That’s the worst part.
    Even Alyce has an invitation. She’s doing something unexpected, though, and for the first time in weeks I exist. She gives her invitation back.
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ALYCE
    â€˜I don’t think I can make it,’ I tell Susan and hand back the envelope.
    â€˜Um, another thing,’ I say quietly. ‘My name’s spelt with a “y”.’
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GRACIE
    â€˜Right class,’ the teacher says in science, ‘listen in. Today we’re dissecting rats. I want you in pairs.’ My stomach clenches – not at the thought of the scalpel slicing through fur and skin, but because there is no one in the class who will want to work with me. I ask to work