When we washed off the mud and the face gunk the conversation changed from being all about me to being all about people I’d never heard of. I focused on listening hard, trying to get used to everything and learning a whole lot of new names.
“Remember that girl Cecelia who was in Year Five with us?” said Isabella. “The one whose brother was school captain? Well my mum said that they’ve moved out of Sydney.”
“Where to?” said Tiger Lily. “Melbourne? Please don’t say Paris or New York or something amazing like that.”
“No, no,” said Isabella. “Nothing cool. Nothing cool at all. It was like out in the back of beyond or something. They moved to somewhere like Tamworth or Wagga or something. Out there—you know.” And she waved a hand behind her.
“Country?” said Lise. She stared dreamily in front of her. “Cows! Cute!”
Tiger Lily looked at her and rolled her eyes. “Cows stink and they do very big poos,” she said. She turned to Isabella. “Why did they go there? There’s nothing out there. How is she going to have a social life? Some parents are just stupid.”
“I know, right?” said Isabella. “But what’s even worse is that she’s going to some local public high school. So sad. She was quite nice.”
“Loserville,” said Tiger Lily. “You can’t come back from that, no matter how pretty you are or whatever. She’s stuck in Loserville.” She shook her head. “I would kill my mum if she ever moved out of the city. Actually, I just wouldn’t go. And I’d like to see anyone try and make me.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” said Saffron, getting impatient. “We’re breaking our own rules—even talking about losers. Let’s talk about someone heaps more interesting.” She gave me a secretive smile and winked.
“Oh yes, yes, yes!” giggled Lise, just about jumping up and down. “Tell her!”
I must’ve looked worried again because Saffron immediately tried to calm me down.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s just that we’ve got someone who we really want you to meet.” Lise gave a chortle of joy and even Tiger looked animated.
“Who is it?” I said. Was it another friend of theirs? A hairdresser? A manicurist? I was confused.
“Well, he’s 16, he’s a friend of my brother, he goes to St Vincent’s School and he’s really good looking,” said Saffron, smiling.
I blushed. “A boy?” I said. “Cool.”
“Oh, believe me, he is,” said Tiger. “Cool, that is.” She looked at me. “If I wasn’t already going out with Toby, I’d consider him.”
“Do you already have a boyfriend?” I asked. I guess I should have expected it.
Tiger looked at me like I was stupid. “Of course,” she said. “We all do.”
“Well kind of anyway,” said Isabella. “Saffron goes out with Ed. He’s in Year 10 and he does rowing.”
“Muscles!” said Lise, grinning.
Isabella swatted her on the head. “Tiger goes out with Toby—they’ve been together for ages. I have a boyfriend in Brisbane—kind of—but I still flirt with a guy called Danny, and Lise won’t decide between Soapy and Foggo.” She looked at my surprised face. “Nicknames. Soapy is Sam and Foggo is Zac Fogarty. Get it? Oh, and they’re all pretty much friends of each other.”
“Are they all, like, older?” I asked.
“Of course,” said Saffron. “I mean, have you seen any Year Eight boys recently?” She made a face and rolled her eyes.
“Ick!” agreed Lise.
“We only talk to guys in Year 10 and up,” said Tiger. “We don’t bother with babies.”
“But anyway,” said Saffron. “The point is that we’re glad you’re here because Ed and Toby have a new friend called Darcy. We met him in the holidays and he is really good looking.”
“Mmm. Dark hair, nice shoulders,” said Isabella, nodding. “He’s a rower, isn’t he? Doesn’t he row with the guys? Isn’t he in the same boat?”
“Anyway,” said Saffron, ignoring Isabella, “he told us to find him someone—just like you really. He likes long hair and a cute face.”
“He said that he trusts Saffron to find him the perfect girl!” said Isabella. “How romantic is that?”
I could feel my face going pink and prickly all over. This was completely awesome as well as being utterly embarrassing. But his name was a good start. I’ve been in love with Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice ever since Mum first showed me the TV series. And if Saffron liked him, he must be extremely cool.
“So, what’s he like?” I asked.
“What?” said Tiger, looking at me oddly. “We just told you. Dark hair, good looking, rower, goes to school at St Vincent’s. What else do you need?”
“His dad is really rich—does that help?” said Isabella. “And his family goes skiing every year in the US.” She looked confused, like she didn’t really understand the question. I didn’t know how to tell her that I was talking about whether he had a sense of humour and if he was quiet or loud. Things like that. But Saffron came to the rescue.
“Here, this is what he’s like,” she said and she pulled out her phone. “I’ve got a photo of him and Ed. You can have a look.”
She passed the phone over to me and I nearly died on the spot. There on the screen was a photograph of the most beautiful boy I had ever seen in my life. He had dark curly hair, olive skin, black eyes and a smile that I couldn’t take my eyes off.
Before that minute I’d never understood books or poems that talked about things like hearts melting or people going weak at the knees, but as soon as I saw that photograph I felt both of those things at once. If I hadn’t been sitting down, I might have fallen over. As it was I had to catch my breath and control my voice.
“Wow,” I said, my eyes opening wide. And that was all I could say.
“She likes him!” said Isabella. “Look at her face. She’s in love! Woo hoo!”
“Crush!” said Lise.
Even Tiger Lily lifted her eyes in amusement to Saffron who gave me a great big smile. “See, I knew you’d like him.”
It was true. I liked Darcy, just from one photograph. And having seen how he looked, suddenly I didn’t even care about if he had a sense of humour or what his personality or his character was like or anything. I just wanted to go out with him. Besides, if someone was so good looking, surely they’d just have to be nice as well, right? My heart was gone and I hadn’t even met him yet.
“The best part is that he’s looking for someone just like you,” said Saffron. “I know. Let’s take your picture right now and send it to him.”
Before I had time to say anything, the four of them were fussing around me, wiping off stray bits of mud, fixing my hair and even putting on some make-up that they had whipped out of their bags. In two minutes flat I was photo ready and Saffron was standing in front of me with her phone saying, “Come on Coco, give me a good pose.”
I smiled as nicely as I could but she just laughed. “No, a real pose. Look at Lise.” I turned to see Lise with her shoulders lowered, her head to one side and her lips all pouty. “Like that.”
I felt awkward but I tried and when Saffron had taken the picture she showed it to me. “Not bad,” she said, “but you have to practice in the mirror when you get home. Are you ready? I’m going to send it to him.”
My stomach jumped a little bit and I felt embarrassed but everyone was crowded around the phone so they didn’t notice. It only took about 20 seconds before Saffron’s phone buzzed with an answer. The girls squealed.
“It’s him, it’s him!” bounced Isabella, jumping up and down. “What did he say? What did he say?”
Saffron shook them off and cleared a space. She looked at me with a knowing smile. “Do you want to hear it?” she asked me.
I nodded, trying to smile over my nervous tummy.
“Ahem. So, I texted ‘this is Coco. What do you think? Want to meet?’ And he wrote back—get ready for this— ‘Hot. Keep her for me.’” She gave me a great big smile. “He likes you!”
“Wow. Can I see?” I said. Her phone felt smooth in my hand. I read the message again, just to be sure. Maybe, just maybe, I’d have an actual boyfriend soon, just like Saffron and Tiger.
“I know, she should send him a message,” said Tiger.
“No, I don’t think so… not yet,” I said, handing back the phone quickly. “I haven’t even met him.”
Tiger smiled wickedly. “No, no, you should,” she said. And she grabbed the phone from Saffron and started to text. “Here, I’ll do it for you.” She started pressing buttons while I stood there, unable to move.
“How’s this? ‘Hi Darcy. It’s Coco. How RU?’” She pressed the send button and looked at me, an amused expression on her face. The phone buzzed in her hand about a second later.
“Oops,” said Tiger. “It’s for you!” She handed me the phone back and as I read the message my face went completely red.
‘Hey. Nice smile. I like blue eyes.’
“You have to answer him now,” she said happily. “What are you going to say?”
I took the phone awkwardly and texted the only thing I could think of which was, ‘thanks’. Tiger Lily made a face when she saw it. “Is that all you’ve got? Seriously?”
“Give her a break, Tiger,” said Saffron. “She’s probably never texted a boy before in her life. Oh, there it goes again,” she said. “He’s replying.”
The phone buzzed and there was another message from Darcy. ‘We shd meet up some time.’
Before Tiger had a chance to read the message, I replied with ‘okay’ and handed the phone back to Saffron. “Sorry,” I said, jumping up and down a little and pretending to be desperate. “I just really need to go to the loo.”
I had to escape and a toilet break is sometimes a girl’s best friend. I sat in the cubicle for longer than I needed and took a few deep breaths before heading back in. Clearly, things moved quickly around here. If that had been Samantha and me, we would have giggled about Darcy for months and looked at his picture a hundred times before we even thought about getting up the courage to actually talk to him. I felt breathless, not just because he was gorgeous and I had a crush on him, but because everything was moving so fast.
When I finally came back in, Saffron and Tiger were still texting Darcy, giggling every so often.
“He says he wants to meet you, but he’s going overseas for six weeks the day after tomorrow, so he can’t do it before that. But when he gets back, it’s for sure.” Saffron smiled at me. “He really thinks you’re cute.”
I breathed a secret sigh of relief. There would be time to get used to the whole idea.
Of course, I didn’t realise then that I wouldn’t be around in six weeks. How could I have even guessed that the very next day, everything was going to go completely and utterly crazy?
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