The Best Thing Read Online Free PDF Page A

place and I’d make you over. I’ve got a friend who can cut hair. She’s excellent. You’d look
so
good.’
    ‘It gets in my eyes.’
    ‘So? Is that the end of the
world?
Scared you won’t be able to see the
whiteboard?’
    ‘I guess not.’
    ‘You should think about it.’
    And she was looking at me,
assessing my potential,
and I was seeing her close up for the first time. It’s true, she has got perfect skin (not even a freckle) and eyes like Michelle Pfeiffer’s set wide apart, and hair so bright it makes marks on your retinas when you look away.
    Lisa’s very beautiful. That’s why everyone does what she says, girl or boy. You can’t believe this
vision,
this girl who should be a model, is actually focusing on you, is speaking to you. I remember my astonishment, even if I don’t feel it now. Or I felt,
Gee,why’s she bothering with all this? How can somebody who looks so good not just rise above us all? Why hasn’t she been talent-scouted away from us?
Why, oh why? The sound of her giggles up the back of the room makes me feel sick, and just the sight of her hair, clipped or tied or wound up differently every time you see her, turns me wooden and stupid even when she’s on the other side of the playground, even if she’s walking away from me.
    You never see her on her own, always in a huddle with Donna and those other girls. They get a look on their faces, the whole group, and they swagger around spattering fear generally until Donna decides who to pick on next; then they come in for the kill. They’re terrifying, and whoever hangs out with them becomes terrifying.
I
used to be terrifying! Little invisible Mel!
    Being part of Lisa’s group gives you power. You see it the way kids look at you, move out of your way, think about what they say to you. When you stop being in the group it’s different: they all close in and push at you again, and their voices are contemptuous, glad you’re on the outer, a victim, like them.
    I smell Oriana before I see her—some strong, headachey, sweet perfume. It’s like a wind rolling down Pug’s stairs; it almost flattens my hair.
    She’s sitting on Pug’s bed fiddling with her fingernails, claws applied at a salon. She’s wearing a red suit, short and very tight, and she’s got so much hair, like hundreds of black corkscrews bursting out of her head; she crowds the room with her hair and her perfume.
    She looks up at me from under viciously plucked brows. ‘Hi, I’m Dino’s sister. Oriana. You’ve gotta be Mel.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘He’s just takin’ a leak. Won’t be a minute. How ya doin’?’ She shifts on the bed to indicate I should sit down.
    ‘Oh, not bad.’ The scent ripples as I push into it.
    She looks me over again. ‘You’re doin’ Year 12, Dino says.’ I nod. ‘What ya hangin’ out with him for, then? Nah, just joking.He’s about the smartest one in our family.’ She snorts. ‘Not that
that’s
saying much.’ Pug comes in. ‘Your girlfriend’s here,’ Oriana says flatly, watching his face light up as he sees me.
    ‘Thought you weren’t gunna get here ‘til four o’clock!’ He kisses my cheek like a husband.
    ‘I took the last lesson off.’
    ‘Good on you. I mean, it wasn’t anything important, was it?’
    ‘Sport.’
    Oriana chuckles. ‘He’s like that with you too, huh? Used to always be on at me about jigging school. Does ‘e check your homework, too?’ She dodges his swinging foot. ‘Hey, don’t mess me up!’
    ‘Mess you up? You do a good enough job of that yourself,’ he says kindly. ‘You don’t need me.’
    ‘Yes I do.’ She picks up a tiny black patent handbag hardly big enough to hold a tampon, and stands up decisively, pulling her red skirt down all round. ‘Don’t forget to talk to Dad about what I told you, okay Dino?’
    ‘Yeah, okay.’
    She blows him a kiss and waves at me.
’Ciao.’
    ‘Ciao,’
answers Pug.
    ‘See you.’ When she’s gone I blink and flap a hand in front of my