The Great Gatenby Read Free Page B

something like an epileptic ant-nest — would slow down with the dawning of the traditional days of leisure. Needless to say, this was about as realistic as expecting to find fish in your fish fingers. At 6.30 came the appointment at the pool, already getting to be such a regular deal that I was scared it would grow into a habit I’d be unable to break. By the time we’d melted the ice and chased away the penguins it was nearly breakfast. That was fifteen kernels of corn each and a slice of toast so hard I could have taken a bite out of the plate by mistake.
    After breakfast came a major clean-up of the dorm, carried out to the accompaniment of endless complaints and arguments. Then a lot of guys had Sport, a couple had detentions, and I actually had three hours free before school swimming trials after lunch. Despite my exhaustion I fought off the temptation to crawl straight back into bed, and instead went on the Great White Search for the star of the Linley diving squad, Miss Melanie Tozer herself. When we finally made contact, it was with a flitter-flutter of the ole faithful three hundred grams of muscle inside my chest, and a sleazy dampening of the palms of my hand. She was with Georgina Stenning and they were sitting by the tennis courts, looking lovely in their whites, watching the tennis team diligently lobbing and smashing. God, this school was so sports crazy it made me nervous — sometimes I worried that the grounds would be so flooded with sweat we’d all be walking around ankle deep in it.
    â€˜Hi Erle,’ said Georgie, in this sweeter-than-sweet voice, smirking away. You know I really think girls would rather matchmake for their friends than go with a guy themselves. They just love it. She was beaming like she was Tarzan and I was a banana.
    â€˜Hi George,’ I said. ‘Um, hi Mel’.
    â€˜Hi Erle.’
    Don’t you just love this dialogue? It was a hell of a conversation. Made Mr Ed look like Oscar Wilde. And the level didn’t rise for quite some time, as we talked about tennis and Science Prep and diving, and stuff like that.
    But as time went on the mood ’melted bit by bit and a little magic started to happen. We went wandering around the grounds, talking away, all funny and laughing like we were the slickest act going down in this part of town. We agreed that we weren’t exactly in love with Linley; nor were we ever likely to be shouting the school song from the rooftops, or sending our grandchildren there. We found we liked a lot of the same music — though not all — and we’d seen the same movies over Christmas and we’d been at the same Reckless Drummers concert, just two weeks before school started.
    â€˜Where were you sitting?’ I asked.
    â€˜Over to the left — near the guys in wheelchairs, behind the engineers or whatever they are. Where were you sitting?’
    â€˜Wow,’ I said, ‘I must have been just behind you. Wow, that’s amazing. Wait, I remember you! You were the girl who started stripping off and the security took her away and everyone was booing.’
    â€˜Yeah sure, sure, that was me alright, yeah definitely.’
    We got to some old buildings over on the edge of the campus — seemed like they were storerooms or something. ‘This is a good place for a smoke,’ said Georgie, looking around in a manner that could only be described as furtive, before she dived through a hole in the fibro. This was good news and bad news to me, hanging out as I was for a healthy blend of nicotine, tar and tobacco.
    â€˜What happens if we get busted?’ I asked, forgetting to be cool for a moment.
    â€˜If it’s your first offence, you get a det,’ said Georgie, oracle on all things illegal, immoral and downright dangerous. ‘If it’s me, one hundred and twenty-ninth offence, I dunno, probably get kicked out of this dump, at least that’s what Gilligan told me last term.