Head of the River Read Online Free PDF

window, my eyelids heavy. The only other crazies out at this time are truck drivers, loaded up on caffeine and uppers for long hauls, and cyclists getting in some early clicks. I wish we were going on a holiday, driving up north as far as the car would take us. Up to the beaches and the warm, soft waves. I don’t want this car to stop. Because when it does. When Dad pulls into Boathouse Drive, I’ll have to face some very loud music.
    Nobody ever rowed in the seconds and had the school pay their fees. I could kiss my chances of being rowing captain goodbye, too.
    Leni
    When the recess bell goes, I run down to the Year Eleven common room to find Cristian. I saw him crying on the bank and rumour has it he’s out of the firsts after this morning’s racing. As I walk into the room I see Audrey sitting in the far corner next to the windows, beading a necklace. She’s with her friends – my old friends. Marion, Yvette, Lucy. The four of them sitting quietly, working on various crafty projects. I fight the urge to drift over to them and sit down. I miss them.
    It was only supposed to be a one-time thing. I’d have lunch with Adam, realise we weren’t a love match, and return to my well-worn spot in my semicircle of mates. The girls that I loved for their odd quirks and refusal to speak, dress or act like anyone else at Harley. I’d relate my brief crossover to the dark side of popularity and school would go on as it had for the past two years. Handing in our assignments early. Crafting. Laughing. Being spectacularly uncool (and being totally cool with that). Instead, one lunch date with Adam changed the path of my friendships. And I let it.
    When it became clear Adam and I were a couple I tried spending recess with Adam and his friends, going back to my old group for lunch. Gradually, at his insistence, I extended my Adam-time to recess and half of my lunchtime, too. But by the time I made it back to Audrey and the girls, I was lost – missing all the threads of conversation and the things that were important to them.
    I didn’t know Marion’s dog Stevie had died, Yvette had a clarinet solo in the orchestra or Lucy was a runner-up in the state fencing champs. I didn’t know Audrey had decided she was in love with her boyfriend, Kieren. I started to feel like they were talking about me behind my back. Traitor. Turncoat. Two face. Wannabe popular.
    One lunchtime, I can’t remember now which one, I didn’t go back to the girls to sit down. I stayed beside Adam and listened to him talk. I let the minutes slip away. Trying to be in two places at once was too hard. I gave up.
    The next day Audrey gave me a dirty look as I walked past her and Lucy in the front row of the science labs, down to the back where Adam sat.
    â€˜You’re not sitting with us at all anymore? Is that it?’ she asked, jumping out at me as I walked out at the end of class. She was close to tears, her features softening.
    â€˜We’ve been friends since Year Nine, and you dump us for Adam Langley and the beautiful people?’
    Year Nine. Mrs Curtain made us partners in English and Audrey let me sit with her group at lunch. Even though she’d cultivated those friendships since primary school and I was just the new scholarship girl. A ring-in. She’d saved me and I’d betrayed her. Slowly and creepily by moving my body from one side of the common room to the other. I was scum.
    â€˜Can’t we be friends outside school?’ I asked, feeling myself burn with shame for even suggesting it. My parents didn’t raise me to drop my friends the minute a boy paid me attention.
    â€˜Why? Because we’re too daggy to be seen with on school grounds?’ she spat.
    â€˜That’s not it at all. Adam just wants me to sit with him. We are going out.’
    â€˜And what do you want, Leni?’
    She had a good point. What did I want?
    â€˜I don’t know. I want things to go