Stagefright Read Free

eye.
    “Sofia,” he called out.
    A girl with short black hair and a dagger tattooed on her neck came over. She had a mean look in her eye.
    “This is Sofia Ritano,” he said, “our state judo champion.”
    “Show Velvet a few simple movements, Sofia.”
    Mr Kislinski was distracted by a pommel horse routine that was getting loud applause.
    “Hi, my name’s Velvet.” Velvet smiled at the girl. She didn’t smile back. “Look I don’t know the first thing about ju –”
    Before Velvet knew what had happened, Sofia had tripped her, thrown her on her back and wedged her knee against Velvet’s windpipe.
    Mr Kislinski came back. Velvet was still gasping for breath.
    “Perhaps athletics might be more your thing,” he said.
    Running last in a race was easy, flattening the hurdles as she attempted to jump over them wasn’t hard either, but snapping the low jump bar took a certain amount of skill. Mr Kislinski was not one to give up on a potential sportsperson, but Velvet was a match for him. When he suggested she try out in the pool, Velvet told him about the congenital disease that made her allergic to chlorine and had been responsible for the tragic deaths of three family members.
    Mr Kislinski was undaunted. “I’m sure we’ll hit on your special skill, Velvet.”

    By the end of her third week at Yarrabank, Velvet had tried out for every team sport and failed at each one. Mr Kislinski was still working his way through the track and field disciplines. He had a pile of what looked like weapons at his feet.
    “How about shot-put, Velvet?”
    He called over a small Year 7 boy to demonstrate. The boy tucked the shot-put under his chin like a professional and hurled it a surprising distance.
    Mr Kislinski applauded. “Well done, lad. Now you have a try, Velvet.”
    Velvet picked up one of the metal balls. It was heavy. She summoned all her strength and threw the shot-put and it flew quite well, but in the wrong direction. It landed on the Year 7’s toe. After he had been helped off to sick bay, Velvet concentrated on the other track and field sports. Her discus scattered the students at the long jump, her javelin caused a flurry in the garden of the retirement village next door and her hammer broke a window in the gym.
    Mr Kislinski sighed and surrendered. “I’m afraid you’ll have to join the cultural studies class.”
    Velvet put on an award-winning display of disappointment, while mentally high-fiving herself.
    “It’s over in T6.”
    Velvet turned and hobbled across the oval, a smile creeping over her face. It’d taken three weeks of hard work, but she’d won. No more sport.

C H A P TE R 3
    Two-thirds of the classrooms at Yarrabank High were wooden temporaries. Parents had raised funds for exciting projects like the gym and an indoor basketball court, even new goalposts. There was currently a lamington drive and a skip-a-thon in progress to raise money for bigger change rooms. Local businesses had sponsored the swimming pool and the grandstand and covered them with logos, but it seemed no one was interested in having ordinary classrooms named after them.
    T6 was squeezed between the far side of the football oval and the fence. Even for a temporary building it was remote. If it had been any further away from the main building it would have been outside the school grounds.
    Velvet’s mood of triumph faded as she opened the door. T6 wasn’t so much a classroom as a storeroom. The cultural studies class consisted of only six or seven pupils, but it seemed crowded. The students shared the room with excess sports equipment – piles of baseball mitts, boxes of beanbags and stacks of gym mats. At the other end of the room were paint-splattered easels, a broken potter’s wheel and various containers of dried-up paint and clay. It was actually the art room, but no one had enrolled in art that year.
    The students all looked up for a moment as Velvet walked in, and then went back to their computer games, MP3