Puberty Blues Read Free Page A

Gang were on their usual seats in the sun.
    â€˜Debbie! Sue!’ Cheryl called out to us. ‘Come here! What’d Bishop say? Did he go off?’ she asked us.
    â€˜Oh, yeah.’ I shrugged coolly.
    â€˜Is he gunna send a letter home to ya olds?’
    â€˜S’pose.’
    â€˜So he craked ’eh? Didja dob?’
    â€˜On you? … No way.’
    Cheryl smiled and nodded to the others and even Tracey Little looked approving. Dobbing was the weakest act anyone could pull. The gang girls gathered around to put us to the final test. We may have failed our history exam, but this exam was far more important.
    â€˜What’s a sixty-niner?’ Cheryl interrogated.
    â€˜Oh … you know,’ Sue said, glancing nervously at the listening boys.
    â€˜What then?’
    â€˜Head to tail.’
    â€˜What does buckin’ mean?’ asked Kim Cox.
    I demonstrated, jerking my pelvis backwards and forwards. Susan followed suit. The boys guffawed crudely.
    Tracey looked us up and down. ‘Comin’ down the dunnies for a fag?’
    She led the way. Kim kept guard at the door of the girls’ toilets. The rest of us disappeared into separate cubicles. We closed the toilet lids and stood up on them. Our heads emerged over the top of the adjoining walls and, as usual, the first formers pulled up their pants and rushed out of the toilet block, screaming.
    â€˜Here yar.’ Cheryl dealt out the cigarettes. We lit up. I dragged back and swallowed a huge gulp of smoke, held on to it for a few seconds and then blew two professional looking ribbons of smoke from my nostrils. Feeling confident, I manoeuvred my mouth into my smoke-ring position, but they hatched in furry, fluffy blots.
    â€˜Oh, handle it, Debbie,’ Cheryl sneered, blowing three perfect rings from large to small, with the smallest sailing elegantly through the larger ones.
    â€˜Deadset!’ said Sue.
    â€˜Perf!’
    Kim’s head shot round the toilet door. ‘It’s Yelland! Quick!’ Our heads bobbed down and the toilets flushed simultaneously. The other girls sauntered out.
    â€˜Meetcha up the back of the bus this arvo,’ Traceyhissed to Sue. I pulled the chain again and again, but the cigarette butt floated obstinately in the toilet pool. I stuffed my mouth with peppermint Lifesavers and walked out as casually as I could. The girls’ counsellor was standing there.
    â€˜Eating in the toilets, Deborah?’ Mrs Yelland eyed me suspiciously. ‘You’re cultivating bad habits.’
    Â 
    That afternoon we’d made it. We were sitting up the back of the bus—sucking oranges, doing the drawback and knocking the kids who sat up the front. We were tough. We were accepted. We were part of the sacred set.
    â€˜K’niver drag Darren?’
    Â 
    Once we were admitted into the gang by Tracey and Cheryl and the rest of the girls, they arranged a match for us with two of the boys.
    â€˜He’ll roolly suit ya.’
    â€˜Yeah, you’ll look roolly good together.’
    The best thing about being in the gang, was that all the spunkiest guys on Cronulla Beach were in it. It didn’t matter what boy picked you, ’cause in the looks department, you never got a bummer.

3
a roolly good couple
    â€˜BRUCE Board likes you.’
    â€˜I’ve never seen ’im but.’
    â€˜He’s seen you.’ Kim had cornered me in the canteen.
    â€˜You’ll like ’im. You really will Debbie.’
    â€˜What does he look like?’
    â€˜He’s got long blonde hair,’ said Kim, sinking her teeth into a cream doughnut and spraying icing sugar all over both of us.
    â€˜But does he like me?’
    â€˜Yeah. You’ll make a roolly good couple.’
    â€˜Who told you but?’
    â€˜I can’t tell ya … but believe me.’
    â€˜Yeah, but what if he doesn’t like me?’
    â€˜He does. Ask Tracey. Trace! ’
    Tracey sauntered