Love-shy by Lili Wilkinson Read Free Book Online

.
    SHAUN DAVIES
Eye contact: Little.
Overt signs of shyness: Fidgety,
non-communicative.
    ME: What’s your name?
    SHAUN: (QUIETLY) Shaun. Davies.
    ME: So, Shaun. Do you think neonatal circumcision is a breach of children’s rights – namely the right to be free from physical intrusion and the right to choose in the future – therefore amounting to child abuse?
    SHAUN: (MUMBLES)
    ME: I can’t hear you.
    SHAUN: We’re supposed to be talking about medical futility.
    ME: I don’t care. Have you ever kissed a girl?
    SHAUN: (AGITATED) What? That’s none of your business. Jesus.
    ME: Does it make you feel uncomfortable to talk about girls?
    SHAUN: (TRIES TO IGNORE INTERVIEWER)
    ME: Does talking to me make you uncomfortable?
    SHAUN: Yes. Are you even a member of this club?
    ME: Are you uncomfortable because I’m a girl?
    SHAUN: Because you’re nosy. My love-life is none of your business.
    ME: I’m just trying to help you, Shaun. I can bring your condition to the attention of the world.
    SHAUN: I don’t want your help. I don’t need your help. Leave me alone.
    Verdict: Possibly love-shy.
    My first yellow-highlighter candidate! As I left the Medical Ethics Society meeting, I considered the possibility that Shaun Davies might be PEZZ imist. He was certainly cagey. And he clearly didn’t want to talk to me. He could be PEZZ imist. Maybe. But there were two girls in the Medical Ethics Society, and it wasn’t exactly a big group. So he must have to interact with them sometimes. Maybe I could talk to one of them. Ooh! Maybe one of them was the girl he liked, and that’s why he joined the Medical Ethics Society (because really, why else would you? What was the point of sitting around for an hour once a week discussing the pros and cons of euthanasia? It’s not as if any of those people were smart enough to ever become a real doctor, let alone sit on a real medical ethics committee, so it was all totally hypothetical). But neither of the girls had long hair, or were what I would call pretty, so that ruled out that theory.
    But still, Shaun Davies was my only lead so far. Until I went to check out PEZZ imist’s French class, of course. I suppose that was the thing really. I had read PEZZ imist’s blog posts. I knew he was smart. I knew he was . . . I don’t know . . . poetic (or melodramatic). And Shaun Davies just seemed too . . . ordinary. I mean, I knew PEZZ imist was going to be a bit weird, but Shaun Davies didn’t seem weird enough . He was just a dork. He was my only lead, but I kind of hoped it wasn’t him.
    I found myself with fifteen minutes to kill before the bell rang for the end of lunch. I considered heading back to the library to stake out the love-shy computer again, but decided against it. Whoever PEZZ imist was, he was pretty good at keeping his identity a secret. I’d nearly busted him the other day, and he was way too smart to return to the scene of his almost-outing. Instead I headed to the canteen to knock off another couple of interviews.
    Our school canteen smelled like tomato sauce, hot dogs, deodorant and Teenage Boy. The floor was sticky underfoot from spilled cans of soft drink, and that late into the lunch hour, I had to wade through piles of chip packets, sandwich crusts and empty bottles in order to find my way to a table. Not that there were any free tables today. They were all crammed with teenagers eating, talking, making out, fighting and throwing processed meat at the ceiling.
    I scanned the room. Trendy people, beautiful people, scary pierced people, stoned people, music geeks, theatre geeks, maths geeks and chess geeks. Cricket jocks, soccer jocks, basketball jocks, volleyball jocks and rowing jocks. White kids, Asian kids, Aboriginal kids, Indian kids and African kids.
    But no one looked love-shy. I didn’t even know where to start. If I were love-shy, I’d stay away from the canteen altogether. It was