Love-shy by Lili Wilkinson Read Free Book Online Page A

nerve-racking even for me to be standing in the doorway, and I was an extremely well adjusted, socially able person.
    â€˜Penny!’
    It was amazing that someone with such a tiny voice could make herself heard over the hormone-induced roar.
    Rin was sitting near the vending machines with a bunch of other Asian girls and guys. She grinned and beckoned me over.
    â€˜Hi,’ I said.
    â€˜Sit with us,’ said Rin. The other girls looked surprised, but generally amenable to the idea. I pulled up a chair that had been kicked over at the next table, and sat down. I felt sort of luminous, among all that black hair and olive skin. I also felt the size of a house.
    Rin introduced me to everyone around the table. Cherry, Rebecca, Pieng, Stephanie . . . I did my best to remember each one by mentally applying mnemonics. Cherry was eating an apple, which was helpful. Rebecca, who had a sassy black bob and pink-framed glasses, was carefully poking holes in her rice with a pair of chopsticks. Rebecca-the-wrecker , I thought. Pieng-never-eats-a-thing. Stephanie-to-the-left-of- me . The boys were Lee ( taller-than-a-tree ), Charlie (he wore a brown shirt – so Charlie Brown ) and Jie ( Jie-Whiz ).
    The girls each had a cute plastic lunchbox with compartments and a neat little groove for holding chopsticks, each decorated with Japanese cartoon characters. What remained of their lunches looked about a million times tastier than every cheese and vegemite sandwich I’d ever eaten. Rin offered me a red box of something called Pocky, which turned out to be a long, skinny pretzel dipped in chocolate. It was awesome.
    I eyed the three boys, and made a mental note to cross them off my list, due to the fact that they were engaged in various stages of foreplay with their respective girlfriends. The way this was going, I was going to need a new pink highlighter.
    â€˜So what are you doing this weekend?’ Rin asked me.
    I shrugged and said something about homework. My mind was in another place altogether, thinking about Shaun Davies and PEZZ imist and wondering if he was here, right now, in this room. Perhaps I should comment on his blog, instead of trapping him in French? But I didn’t want him to think I was stalking him. Our meeting had to seem more casual than that.
    The bell rang for fifth period, and the canteen erupted into a storm of pushed-back chairs and groans and more rubbish. I stood up, feeling a little tingly. This was it. I was about to meet PEZZ imist.
    â€˜See you in the lift,’ said Rin, smiling.
    â€˜Yeah,’ I said, not really listening. ‘See you.’
    I let myself into Ms Leroy’s French class about five minutes after the bell. I was supposed to be in Maths, but I could just lie and say that SRC had gone overtime.
    â€˜It’s Penny, right?’ Ms Leroy gazed at me from the whiteboard. ‘What can I do for you?’
    â€˜ Bonjour, madame ,’ I said, using my entire French vocabulary all at once, and glanced at the class.
    Shaun Davies was there . Front row.
    My heart sank. PEZZ imist was Shaun Davies.
    â€˜Penny?’
    â€˜Um,’ I turned back to Ms Leroy. ‘I was wondering if I could do a quick survey of your class, for the Gazett e.’ Maybe there was another potential love-shy in the class. I looked around. There was Youssef Saad. And Bradley Wu. And Zach Hausen.
    â€˜What kind of survey?’ asked Ms Leroy.
    â€˜Er,’ I said. ‘About . . . ’ I scanned the walls for inspiration and saw a poster of the Eiffel Tower. Such a ridiculously phallic piece of architecture. ‘Condoms,’ I said. ‘Condom vending machines in the school toilets.’
    Ms Leroy frowned. ‘I’m sorry, Penny,’ she said. ‘But this is French class, not Human Biology.’
    â€˜What if they gave their answers in French?’
    â€˜I’m afraid not,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘We have important vocab to learn