Chapter
Nine
Votes
On
Friday, the captaincy was to be decided. Darcy pretended he didn’t care about
beating Paige.
As he entered the classroom, he noticed
Paige Bennet reviewing her notes, her hair scrunched on top of her head,
reading intently. He realized Mackenzie was right. Although he wouldn’t know or
care about one designer brand from another, it was clear to him that this girl
was a hot mess. Emphasis on the hot, she’d make a great fake girlfriend apart
from her outspoken personality.
Darcy tried to clear his mind of those
inappropriate thoughts. How could he even entertain the idea? All the stress of
dealing with his sister’s drama had made him delusional. Besides, her siblings
were low rent even if she and her sister were passably hot. She was totally
unsuitable. He felt quite alarmed that he was even thinking about her again.
This meant he’d been thinking about her before. Darcy sat down, confused. Then
he remembered this was the day of the captaincy vote and they each had to
prepare a speech. Darcy hadn’t prepared.
He’d been debate champion in Sydney.
At
his all boys’ school, it had never really occurred to him to think of girls as
people – apart from his sister who was obviously a person, albeit an
emotionally damaged one. He just considered girls another species, really. Even
Mackenzie, though she’d always sucked up to him, was not a person he
particularly liked, he merely felt safe around her, familiar. He knew she had a
different value system and that aspect of Mackenzie’s personality, bothered him.
Darcy
sat up straight and watched as Paige took control of the ballots and the
handing out of the pencils. Even Darcy wasn’t sure why they were going through
with this charade. As the new boy, he didn’t expect to be made captain. The
teacher began:
“Now, it appears Paige does not go
unopposed this semester,” Mrs Tartt noted loudly after the students were
seated. At this point Paige had reached Darcy’s desk. Paige thought his smile
arrogant as he chewed the end of his pencil. Paige, on the other hand, gave him
a half-smile and said under her breath, “no need to look so smug.”
This astounded Darcy, who’d never really
thought of himself that way. He shuffled in his seat and felt quite unsettled
by Paige’s assertion. He never really spoke to women who challenged him. His
own mother had ignored him since he was a little baby. Instead of backing out,
as he’d wanted to do, being as disinterested in joining school clubs as he
previously was, his interest was heightened by her challenge. Darcy raised his hand. Someone (me) was scribbling it all down and
Darcy looked over suspiciously. I smiled to myself. Although Darcy was likely to
lose, he would never let Paige think she’d walked all over him without a fight.
The ballot was called and the students
folded their pieces of paper, one by one and placed them in the large piggy
bank on Mrs Tartt’s desk.
“Now, two hundred words each please, while
I count the votes. The topic of the day is:
Should we ban all junk food in
middle school? This half of the class please take the affirmative, the
other half take the negative…”
Darcy rolled his eyes and
started scratching away on his paper. He’d been given topics just like this at
his previous school and they were just as lame. Still, he wouldn’t give Paige
Bennet the thrill of seeing him look at her so he kept his head down.
As the students wrote, Miss Tartt counted
the ballots.
Bored, Darcy finished his draft before
everyone else. Even Paige was still writing. He decided to flick the eraser
onto the end of his pencil and use Paige’s back for target practice. Mrs Tartt
was paying no attention to the back row but Paige swung round the moment the
eraser hit her back.
“That’s harassment… and could you be any
more juvenile and attention seeking Darcy Donovan? That’s your name, right?”
she whispered, “I heard Miss Tartt reading it out.”
“Um… yes,” Darcy said, his face turning
red. He’d wanted her attention but not like this. Paige was a real viper, like
one of those venomous snakes he grew up hearing about. Hadn’t one crawled all
over his grandfather when he’d first travelled to the outback? And hadn’t his
grandfather lay there in his tent, frozen so the snake could crawl over him
without biting?
Before they could whisper again, Mrs Tartt
stood up.
“Pens down, class, I’d like to announce a
tie. There are two things we could do. I could decide the winner myself, but
that would be undemocratic, or we could vote again on Monday – after our
candidates have had a chance to do a two minute speech on a topic of my
approval.’
The students started to talk amongst
themselves. They voted on a new topic.
“Okay, so, Paige and Darcy, unless either
of you want to withdraw from the candidacy, I’m going to give you the topic.”
Paige shook her head defiantly and Darcy
just nodded looking very surprised.
Great, well, we now have Thursday’s lesson
to look forward to.
The topic is: Peer Pressure is more Beneficial than Harmful.
Rys
Wickam groaned. He’d heard it all before. I smiled to myself. Debate club was
getting interesting. I was only sorry I couldn’t throw my hat into the ring but
freshman weren’t allowed. Besides, between being Mackenzie’s pretend slave,
learning my lines and dance class, I was way too busy.
Paige thought about the topic as she read
over it, barely glancing over at Darcy as he walked out of the room.
Rys hung by the door to catch her as she
left. “Wait up,” he said walking with her. Paige smiled, open to the
possibility of a new friend but her mind was on Darcy. She was not used to being
challenged in this way and she wondered how a new boy had already become so popular
– then she realized, it wasn’t that Darcy was popular – it’s just that maybe
she wasn’t.
Perhaps it was time to get social.
