Just Friends
Skye receives more text messages than anybody else I know. I’d only been at her house for half an hour and her mobile had beeped three times. Breaking off our group science assignment where we were supposed to be examining the differences between concave and convex lenses, she scrambled to read the messages.
‘Hey, it’s Lucy, she wants to know how we’re going with the assignment,’ Skye said after we’d been interrupted for the third time.
‘Slowly, if at all,’ I said.
Skye expertly punched the keypad of her phone with her thumb. ‘I’m just telling her we’re finishing question three,’ she said, repeating the message aloud she was inputting: ‘OMG Q3 2Hrd S.’ ‘Skye, is it possible for you to concentrate for just ten minutes so we can get this finished?’ I sighed.
Skye beamed back at me, ‘Sure. Let’s go! Now, what was the question again?’
I laughed, shaking my head. Her short bob and impish ears and liquid blue eyes made her impossible to stay mad at. ‘Like I said about five hundred times, we’re trying to think up an experiment we can use to show how convex lenses are thicker in the middle than the ends.’
‘With spoons?’
‘What?’ I said, throwing the pen down.
‘Does the experiment have something to do with spoons?’
‘We already did that in class. To show how light bends. A spoon is not a convex shape, anyway. God Skye, you’re such a bimbo sometimes.’ Skye, as she often did when I got angry at her, changed the subject by picking up her MP3 player.
‘You know, this is two gigs but I can only fit, like, 400 songs on it. That’s not much, is it?’ she asked, concerned. ‘It’s, like, full already and I’ve only had it two months.’
I didn’t say anything. I just gave Skye the stare.
‘Oh c’mon Stace,’ she said when she realised I wouldn’t bite. ‘We’ve been at this for ages. I’m stuffed. I need a few biscuits or a bowl of popcorn…something to eat.’
‘Oh yeah,’ I said with mock-horror, ‘it’s been over twenty minutes! I forgot, you suffer cerebral brain haemorrhages if you study for over half an hour straight.’
Skye looked hurt. ‘You shouldn’t make fun like that Stacey. You know my uncle died of a brain haemorrhage,’ she said quietly. ‘He was in terrible pain.’
I didn’t know what to say. ‘Oh, I…I didn’t know,’ I mumbled.
Suddenly her face lit up. ‘Got ya!’ she laughed. ‘I don’t even HAVE an uncle!’
I grabbed a pillow from her bed and gave her a whack over the head with it and she went into hysterics. ‘You should have seen your face!’ she said as I kept hitting her. ‘It was all, like, “My God, what did I just say? I’ve just totally devastated my best friend!”’
In the end Skye got her way, as usual, and we ended up sitting at her kitchen counter eating Extra Creamy ice-cream with chocolate topping and magic sprinkles.
‘How much money would it take for you to go out with Eric Marshall?’ Skye asked as we licked the spoons clean.
Skye often asked silly questions like this: “what if?” or “how much?” or “would you?” questions. We’d be sitting eating lunch and she ask us, ‘If you could have cosmetic surgery on any one part of your body, where would it be?’ or ‘What if Huffy asked you to sing the national anthem by yourself in front of assembly in return, for like, top marks in science. Would you do it?’ When I first met her I thought she asked stupid questions because she was, in fact, pretty stupid, but I’ve since discovered it’s her way of dragging personal information out of shut up people like myself. She is sometimes vague and silly, but she’s a good friend to have. She talks more than she listens and possibly has Attention Deficiency Disorder but she takes in a lot. I predict she’ll be a counsellor or psychologist when she’s older.
‘How much have you got?’ I said, chasing a puddle of syrup around the bowl. ‘Cause I would NEVER go out with Eric.’
‘I’d do it for three hundred dollars,’ Skye said. ‘As long as I didn’t have to, you know, go the grope or anything.’
‘Come off it Skye! That’s completely wrong. He’s gross! I wouldn’t even hold hands with Eric, even for a thousand dollars!’
‘Gee, I thought you were, like, short of cash. You’re fussy! How about Peter then?’
‘Who, Topps?’ I said, knowing exactly who she was talking about. I knew where this was leading – one of Skye’s regular incursions into the very unromantic life of Stacey Fallon. She was always trying to get me to describe just what my feelings were like for Topps. I think it was a constant source of amusement for her that a 15-year-old girl could have a boy as a such a good friend.
‘I’d ask for a four figure sum, at least,’ I said, hoping she’d change the subject.
‘No way, you two would make a great couple!’ Skye said. ‘Yeah, he’s no Zac Efron, but he’s funny, he’s friendly…and he’s rich.’
‘I’ve told you about a hundred times Skye, I just don’t like him that way.’
‘But you’re practically best friends! How many girls are best friends with a guy!’
‘Skye, I don’t know how many times I’ve told you this but Peter…Topps…he’s a nice guy, but you know, when I get interested in a guy I want him to be more, I dunno, exciting. Topps is into computers and electronics and geeky stuff. He’s going to turn out just like his dad, you know, he’ll probably work in an office his whole life and live in Rosedale and never move…’
‘And what’s wrong with Rosedale?’ cut in Skye.
‘Yeah Skye, I know you think this place is like Disneyland, but I when I get a guy I want him to get me out of here! I want someone who’s gonna take me places, on an adventure.’
‘You don’t need to travel to have an adventure,’ said Skye, licking her spoon. ‘Yeah, I don’t want a boring guy either, but Topps isn’t like that. I like him.’
‘Then perhaps you should go out with him,’ I said.
‘Maybe I will,’ said Skye, arching her eyebrows at me.
‘Good. You can send me an invite to the wedding, now can we get on with our assignment please? I’m tired and I’ve got to go home and cook soon.’
At that moment I felt like a total mum, babysitting and telling off Skye, cooking for my dad, hassles with money…wasn’t this what a mother was supposed to do? One thing for sure, I was going to have an adventure when I reached eighteen, with or without a guy. Right now the most exciting thing to ever happen to me was handing out pirated discs in a dumpy video store. In a way, perhaps it was something I was looking for, something to break the monotony of life at home with Dad. Who knows, that’s perhaps why girls fall for guys like Crass. Sure, deep down we know they’re really just losers and nothing we can do will change that, but they offer a thrill that guys like Topps never can. They offer a life beyond cooking spaghetti pasta and group assignments and working dead end jobs in weekends. They give you something to look forward too, they offer an escape. Not that I liked Crass, like, at all, but I can understand why other girls might.
Skye plonked herself on her bed as I opened the text book for the twentieth time that evening.
‘Why do we have to learn the difference between a convex and concave anyway? Skye asked as she smothered herself with a pink, frilly pillow.
‘I dunno,’ I said, truthfully. ‘We just have to.’
‘That’s a stupid reason,’ said Skye.
‘Sometimes there isn’t a reason why we have to do things,’ I said. ‘They just have to be done.’