Up Over Down Under by Micol Ostow Read Free Book Online Page B

Day-Glo colors. That mere detail made these new girls seem the tiniest bit dangerous.
    Which, for Eliza, sounded just about perfect.
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    For the next four hours Eliza played perpetual catch-up. It was strange joining things in the middle of a year. Back home, she was friends with nearly everyone in her class. Here, nobody was rude to her or anything, but most were too consumed with finding out what each other had done over vacation to pay much mind to the new girl.
    Despite some aggressive-looking piercings (one nose, three in her right ear), the blue streak in her hair, and a tiny scar above her eyebrow, Nomes turned out to be really nice, and she took Eliza under her wing for the morning. The teachers each made a point of welcoming her, and Eliza got no end of amusement from hearing all of their Australian accents. It was hard not to like someone who spoke in that singsong. Her classes seemed pretty similar to her classes back home, and she didn’t see that she would have a lot of trouble getting up to speed on the work. Eliza was a good student and always had been, much to her parents’ delight.
    At lunchtime, Nomes guided her through the halls to the cafeteria. They spotted Jess sitting with a couple others at a table and made their way over.
    â€œSo, how you going?” Jess smiled.
    â€œJust here. Can we join you?”
    â€œNo,” Jess said, startling Eliza. “I mean, yeah, sit down, but when someone says ‘How you going?’ they’re not asking, ‘Where are you going?’—it means ‘What’s up?’”
    â€œOh…that makes more sense.” Eliza paused for a moment as all of the conversations she’d had so far that day came rushing back to her. She felt her cheeks flood with color. “I was wondering why everyone was asking me that. I told one person I was going by foot….” She rolled her eyes at her own lameness.
    Jess laughed and turned to Nomes. “And you let her just humiliate herself?”
    Nomes shrugged. “It was dead priceless.”
    Jess laughed again. “No worries,” she chirped, clapping Eliza on the back, “you’ll catch on.”
    â€œSo you’re trading with Billie Echols, right?”
    â€œYeah, I’m staying with her family here.”
    â€œThey’re in Toorak, right?” Nomes asked.
    â€œNah, South Yarra, I think,” Jess replied.
    Eliza honestly couldn’t remember, and just shrugged her shoulders as she ate a slice of apple.
    â€œI don’t know for sure, but they’re nice enough, and Billie and I traded a couple e-mails as well,” she said.
    â€œYeah, they’re good people.” Jess nodded. “We all went to middle school together, but Billie’s kind of into the whole eco-warrior thing—she’s always off at rallies or getting people to sign petitions for the ‘Save the Wombat’ or whatever. It’s good stuff, just gets to be a bit much sometimes, I guess. That’s her best mate Val over there.” Jess pointed to a girl sitting a couple tables away who was wearing her uniform with Crocs. With socks underneath.
    Dad’s going to love Billie, Eliza realized. They’ll be able to talk “Save the Whales” for hours. While Billie definitely wasn’t part of Jess’s group, Eliza also realized that St. Catherine’s was a pretty small school, and everyone seemed to know everyone else pretty well.
    â€œBillie’s dad is a riot, isn’t he?” asked Nomes. “He’s a bit of a bogan turned city boy.”
    â€œWhat’s a bogan?” asked Eliza.
    â€œSomeone from the country.”
    Eliza nodded, trying to commit the new slang term to memory.
    The rest of lunch was spent talking about boys and shopping—two subjects Eliza felt very at home with, even if she didn’t know the boys in question. It seemed that there were several boys’ schools in Melbourne and that