Frankie and Joely Read Free

it’s calling to her, luring her in, forever. She’s not sure Joely would get that because she’s so sensible, she even carries a sewing kit in case a button falls off.
    Joely sits watching Frankie, but she doesn’t want to be quiet. She wants to talk, laugh, prepare for their big adventure. But she wants Frankie to start it and Frankie won’t. Now she’s reading, deliberately shutting her out. Frankie always has books in her bag, books nobody else has read. Joely would like to read them too. She wants Frankie to offer to lend one, but she never has. There’s no way Joely will ask because she doesn’t want to seem too interested. That’s just what Frankie wants and, sometimes, Joely thinks it’s better for her friend to believe that not everything she does is noticed by the world.
    So Joely opens her bag, takes out her mobile and considers ringing Tess or Lucy. But then she’d have to talk, and she doesn’t want to do that, not here, not on a train with Frankie pretending not to listen. Anyway, Frankie isn’t impressed by any of Joely’s old friends. Frankie’s a loner. She doesn’t act like the other girls Joely’s known since primary school, the ones she used to hang out with, more because they were just there rather than because she actually liked them. Joely was even part of their weekly baking club, where they’d rotate houses and host cook-offs. Frankie lives on canned soup, broken Saladas and pasta with Vegemite.
    That’s why it was so weird when Joely and Frankie became friends. Joely didn’t believe for ages that Frankie actually wanted to hang out with her. She spent months waiting for Frankie to wake up. But she never did. Instead, one day, Frankie started calling her Joel and they turned into those friends everybody assumes are joined. They were no longer two individuals: Frankie and Joely. They were ‘Frankie andJoely’ . But not, Joely quickly realised, ever ‘Joely and Frankie’. At first it irritated her. Especially because she’d been at the high school since the beginning and Frankie was new. But after a while she accepted it. After all, Frankie was the first person to ever choose her . The other girls were a random collection and Joely was just making up their numbers. But Frankie wanted her.
    Joely starts texting one of the unimpressive friends, and notices that Frankie drops her book slightly. Joely keeps texting, but then worries that she won’t get a reply, and Frankie will know. But she can’t put her phone away because she’s already started and Frankie will think she’s sent a message anyway even if she doesn’t.
    So Joely does something she hopes nobody ever learns about; she texts herself.
    Have a great holiday J. I’ll miss you! X
    The beep of the message sounds a second later and she reads the text, laughing aloud. Frankie looks up, but then immediately looks back at her book. Joely feels ridiculous. She slips her phone back into her bag and tries to read the title of Frankie’s book. Before she can stop herself she asks, ‘What are you reading?’
    The cover is flashed and Frankie disappears again behind the old pages.
    Joely’s sure she’s seen this book before. It’s been around for ages. Either Frankie’s a slow reader, or she carries it as a prop and isn’t reading it at all. Joely likes the second idea best.
    Joely gives up and watches out the window, trying to work out where they are. It doesn’t look the same as last year. There’s no thick green grass or brown muddy dams. Just acres and acres of dust. No wonder Jill said they’d had a bad year.
    The first time Joely made this trip without her parents she was twelve. Her mum let her catch the train alone and she’d spent all summer with her cousins. Joely was so amazed that she was allowed to go by herself. It was just before her dad moved out. Joely knew they’d sent