Stagefright Read Free Page B

Australia. There were ghosts. They rearranged things on the shelves, hid keys and made the tzatziki go off.”
    “Sure, Roula,” Peter said.
    “Seriously. You ask my mum.”
    “I’m just going to the toilet,” Hailie announced, rubbing her stomach. “You know, just in case.”
    Velvet blushed again and glanced at the boys, who were pretending they hadn’t heard. Everyone knew that Hailie was the only Year 9 girl who hadn’t started menstruating. She went to the toilet about twenty times a day because she imagined she was getting cramps.
    Velvet gave up trying to communicate to the cultural studies class.

C H A P TE R 4
    The next Monday there was a lunchtime concert in the amphitheatre. This was where weightlifting competitions took place and where the school gathered when sports prizes were awarded each term. The school band was playing, or that’s what Velvet thought Hailie had said. Velvet decided to go, in the hope that there were one or two Yarrabank students who were not total philistines, and she’d just been unable to find them among all the jocks.
    There were only a couple of dozen kids in the audience. Peter was surrounded by a group of young female admirers. Hailie and Roula were there too, and some of the deviants with bald heads and tattoos. There was no sign of any classical music lovers.
    The band members came on and boys in the front row threw polystyrene cups at them. It wasn’t the sort of band Velvet had had in mind, with trumpets and flutes. Their name was painted on the drum kit – Toxic Shock. One of the band members was the sullen guitarist from cultural studies. He strapped on his guitar and launched into a crashing intro. The lead singer started shouting into the microphone. The other guitarist and the drummer joined in and the various sounds fused into a deafening roar. Velvet covered her ears. It was awful. The singer stopped making his contribution and the guitarist stepped forward to do a solo, hair flying, right arm swinging. She didn’t stay for the next song.
    That was the only attempt Velvet made to be involved at Yarrabank. Why had she imagined there would be anyone who she could relate to at such a grungy school? There wasn’t a single person she wanted to be friends with.

    The following week, the cultural studies class was quiet, even though Mr MacDonald was away. Velvet surveyed her classmates. They were the outcasts of Yarrabank High, the sports-handicapped – those too injured or too inept to play any kind of sport, or clever enough to convince Mr Kislinski they were.
    Peter made one or two attempts to chat with Velvet, but soon returned to inscribing his desk with tags. Drago was working on his latest sculpture – a very realistic dog turd. The Toxic Shock guitarist, whose name was Taleb, was playing his guitar. This time it was plugged into a small amplifier and he was listening through headphones. Roula told them about the time she’d been swept out to sea while swimming and was saved by a dolphin. Jesus was improving his pectorals with a pair of enormous dumbbells. Velvet settled down with her latest book. She had decided that cultural studies was her chance to read her way through the classics.
    When Miss Ryan popped in to check on them, they were all quietly getting on with their own business.
    “Everything okay?” she said.
    No one responded.
    “Peter, I wonder if you could help me arrange the furniture in the hall after school? For the Trivia Night.”
    “Sure.”
    Peter didn’t look at her. Miss Ryan hovered in the doorway, as if hoping for a chat, and then left.
    “Miss Ryan’s got a crush on Peter,” Roula whispered to Velvet.
    Velvet tried to avoid conversation with Roula, because it usually involved some unbelievable story, but she was quite interested to learn more about Peter.
    “Really?”
    Roula nodded. “Mothers and female teachers always fall for his charm.”
    “He is very good looking, isn’t he?” Velvet said.
    There was a constant