Mr Blacklock strode in, throwing his books down on the desk with a heavy crash, making it clear that his ever-constant black mood had become even blacker.
‘Today we’ll be continuing our studies on bacteria,’ he said, and opened up our textbook. ‘Pathogenic bacteria; “pathos” being a Greek word meaning sadness or pain —’
I guessed I could say this was a pathogenic class then?
Mr Blacklock went into detail about the incredibly fast reproduction cycle of the bacteria, and how it produced toxins that seriously affected its host. His face was alight with interest. Very odd. I mean, how did he know that the bacteria weren’t aiming to come after him? Personally, I intended to maintain a healthy disinterest in disease-causing organisms. All this talk of disease and suffering made me think about mortality. Life was perilous. Who knew when some rogue group of single-celled organisms might take me out? I’d die without ever becoming an award-winning author. Without ever being kissed. That was just about the scariest thing I’d ever heard.
I tried to think of something else. The Much Ado About Nothing auditions were straight after school, which was only about three hours away now. Last night I’d studied several of the opening scenes, making sure I was familiar with Hero’s lines. But I still felt nervous. Did Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep feel this way before an audition?
‘Now, I would like everyone to make a table showing different types of bacterial diseases,’ Mr Blacklock said, cutting across my audition jitters.
I took out my sparkly ruler to draw up a table.
‘I want sketches of the bacteria as well,’ Mr Blacklock said with a glower, before burying his head in a thick book.
Would bacteria really be that particular about getting their portraits done? I mean, with all that single-cell multiplying, each one was exactly the same, right?
I let out a sigh. At the sound, Hayden lifted his head from his work and turned to face me.
‘The bacteria, right? I’ve taken it upon myself to make them a little more cheery.’ He grabbed his exercise book and pointed to his bacteria, which he’d given top hats and canes. ‘What do you reckon? I was thinking Fred Astaire.’
I giggled. Hayden let out a laugh. Suddenly a sense of foreboding came over me and I slowly looked up into the unamused eyes of Mr Blacklock.
‘Paris, Skye, you’re both coming back here after school. Year Seven never fails to make a shocking mess of the lab, and today you can have the pleasure of cleaning it.’
‘But, Mr Blacklock, the auditions for Much Ado About Nothing are this afternoon!’ I cried.
‘Be here or I’m suspending both of you.’ His voice was icy.
‘Sir, it was my fault,’ Hayden said quickly. ‘It’s not fair if Aurora misses the audition.’
‘Life isn’t fair, Mr Paris. Now get back to work.’ Mr Blacklock walked back to his desk.
I felt like killing both him and Hayden. Now, after all the work I’d done to get my friends wanting to audition, I was going to miss out myself! I glared at the back of Hayden’s head. I glared at my biology textbook. By the time I’d glared through the rest of my classes and the end-of-school bell rang, I felt like the Grinch. As I walked to the biology lab, ready to do slave labour for the tyrannous Mr Blacklock, I realised that I couldn’t let the girls know about my fate. If I said I couldn’t be at the audition, then one by one they’d all decide not to go themselves. Then there’d be no distraction for Lindsay from the loss of Tyler, no great role for Sara, and no way for Cassie and Jelena to spend time with their crushes. No, I would suffer silently until they’d finished the auditions.
I strode into the biology lab. Hayden was already there, standing by a mountain of cleaning products.
‘Aurora —’
‘Don’t talk to me,’ I said furiously. ‘My audition is completely ruined.’
My phone started ringing.
‘Hello, darling.’ My mother’s calm voice came down the line. ‘Just checking in. Isn’t the audition this afternoon?’
I gripped one of the desks. How was I going to explain to my mother that there wasn’t going to be any role for me now?
‘It’s this afternoon,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think I’m going to get the role because —’
‘Don’t be silly. Of course you’ll get it,’ Mum interrupted.
‘Listen, Mum —’
I had no chance to explain the situation before she cut in again. ‘No excuses, Aurora. Good luck.’
She hung up.
‘Your mum’s back?’ Hayden asked, looking at me with a cautious expression in his eyes. ‘How do you feel about that?’
‘I said, don’t talk to me.’ I put my cherry-red mobile back in my pink handbag. ‘My mum is going to kill me for missing the audition. And I’m missing out on Shakespeare. So if you value your life, I repeat, do not talk to me.’
‘Look, I’m sorry.’ Hayden ran a hand through his hair, a miserable look on his face. ‘You have no idea how hard I’ve been working towards this audition. But if we hurry through cleaning —’
‘Hurry?’ I said, looking at the floor, where a river of black lapped at my feet. ‘It looks like there’s been an oil spill in here!’
‘Year Seven was doing some sort of experiment with ink,’ Hayden explained. ‘But if we rush through it, we’ll still make the audition. Mr Peterman’s auditions are epic. If he could, he’d do callbacks.’
‘Okay, let’s go for it,’ I said, grabbing a sponge. No-one can say I’m not an optimist.
Hayden started frenetically mopping.
‘I guess you have a lot of experience with cleaning now,’ I said, a smile forming on my face as my sponge soaked up spots of black ink. ‘You know, after the job you had to do on my desk the other day.’
Hayden squeezed out the mop. ‘I hope you’ve learnt your lesson about graffiti. It’s sad to think that the person you wrote that message of love to bore the consequences of it.’
‘I’m not even going to deign to reply,’ I said, rinsing down the beakers.
Hayden finished the floor and joined me by the work stations. He began putting away the Bunsen burners. ‘You seemed to enjoy my presentation today. That smile you gave me, the one where your apple-green eyes sparkled with enthusiasm and your lips —’
‘Are you delirious?’ I splashed water in his direction.
‘Why don’t you take my temperature right now?’ Hayden said, transferring the bottles of ink to the cupboard below the bench. ‘Here’s the excuse you’ve been waiting for to get up close and personal.’
I just rolled my eyes in response.
‘Or perhaps you’re the one with the temperature,’ Hayden said, tapping a finger against his lips thoughtfully. ‘Burning up with love. I think we should check it right now.’ He pulled out a lab thermometer and leapt towards me.
‘We are not checking anything, Paris!’ I yelled as he tried to put the thermometer under my arm.
I pushed him away, and in the struggle Mr Blacklock’s plastic model of the human heart fell off the bench. Arteries and valves scattered across the floor.
‘We’re meant to be cleaning up, not making more mess!’ I cried. ‘We’re never going to get to the audition at this rate.’
Hayden put the thermometer away with a reluctant look on his face. I chased a runaway ventricle.
‘So, a thought crossed my mind,’ he began.
‘Must have been a long and lonely journey,’ I quipped, surveying the room for anything else that needed doing.
‘Very funny.’ Hayden put the cleaning equipment back into the cupboard. I guessed he’d come to the same conclusion as I had that the room was finished. ‘If you have nothing to occupy your time other than coming up with anti-Hayden comments, then I feel sympathy for you.’
‘Sympathy?’ I cried with a laugh, slamming the cupboard shut. ‘That’s an unknown concept for you, Paris. Believe me, I have plenty of things to occupy my time.’
Hayden grabbed his jacket and we headed out the door. ‘Oh yeah? Go on then. I’m dying to hear about them.’
He strode away down the hall. With my long legs, I was just able to match his pace.
‘Okay then,’ I said. ‘I’m writing what’s going to become a bestselling non-fiction book: He’s So Into You.’
‘He’s So Into You?’ Hayden repeated with a naughty look in his eyes. ‘So you think you’re an expert?’
‘Are you daring to question my appeal to the male sex?’ I said, feeling my blood heat up.
‘No. Believe me, from the guys’ comments about your group’s “aesthetic appeal” there’s no question of that,’ Hayden replied.
‘What’s “So you think you’re an expert?” supposed to mean then?’ I asked, hurriedly applying pink lip gloss as we raced towards the audition room.
‘Just that you’re blind to what’s going on half the time.’
‘I see perfectly!’ I cried, almost stumbling on my pink heels as we dashed across the courtyard’s uneven paving. The drama room was in sight now!
‘So am I right to assume you’ll be doing a lot of field research for this book?’ Hayden asked.
‘Yes. In fact, you can help with that. What signs would you say your friend Scott displays when he’s into a girl?’
‘Aurora, I know what you’re doing.’
‘Research,’ I replied innocently.
‘You’re trying to suss out Scott’s feelings for a certain blonde friend of yours.’
‘All research is for purely scientific purposes.’
We dashed up the steps of the drama room. I felt jittery from head to toe. Why couldn’t I have got here early, prepared myself, and soothed my nerves with positive affirmations as I waited for Mr Peterman? Oh, that’s right. Hayden had ruined that plan.
Hayden twisted the handle of the door, to no avail. ‘It’s locked.’
‘Locked!’ All hope was gone.
‘We’ll have to go round the back, through the backstage area.’
Hayden started jogging again. I let out a sigh and dashed after him.
‘Seriously, though, don’t you think our friends are able to look after their own love lives?’ he asked.
‘In my opinion, Cupid is understaffed,’ I puffed. ‘Therefore, I’m offering a helping hand to high-school couples — giving them a little nudge —’
‘A shove, you mean.’
Hayden turned his hazel eyes on me. I met them unwaveringly.
‘How do you think any goal is achieved?’ I said. ‘You’ve got to have energy and drive. So, are you going to have some input into this bestselling book and tell me about Scott’s romantic habits?’
‘The thing I will tell you is that when Scott falls for someone, he falls hard, crediting them with incredible quality after incredible quality,’ Hayden replied.
I grinned. Cassie was fully deserving of such praise.
‘Which is why I’m advising him to proceed cautiously,’ Hayden continued. ‘He’s had his heart broken too often.’
‘What? You know Cassie would never do anything of the sort!’
‘Yes, but slow and steady wins the race. What’s it matter if he takes a while to ask her out?’ Hayden said as we reached the backstage door.
‘You’re trying to sabotage this budding romance!’ I cried. ‘I knew it! Just to annoy me.’
‘Aurora, not everything’s about you,’ Hayden said with a maddening grin. He opened the door and gestured to me. ‘You first. Beauty before brains.’
I stormed through the door before I realised what he’d said. My mouth opened in outrage. ‘Wait!’ I yelled. ‘I’m going back out this door and you’re going first.’
I stepped back outside and pushed at Hayden’s shoulders. He smiled, and blocked the door with his body.
‘You sure about that? Isn’t this a real conundrum for you? After all, if I go first, then I’m the beautiful one.’ He swept his free hand through his hair in an arrogant gesture. ‘Even though you were just stressing your good looks. And if you go first, well, then I’m the intelligent one.’ He lifted his hands in a no-win gesture.
I took the opportunity to elbow him in the ribs. If he was going to play dirty, I was too.
‘Ooof!’ he cried, and we both fought for the door. ‘Time’s ticking by. What’s it going to be?’
‘Mrrrarrara!’
I had meant to say, ‘Move out of my way’, but my lips were smushed up against his shirt. This was so undignified.
I moved my head to the side so I could speak. ‘I’ve had it with your immaturity! We’re both going through the door!’
I gave him a shove and we stumbled through the door and into the backstage area. We crashed into a rail holding the drama department’s costumes and sent several Russian uniforms from last year’s senior production of Anna Karenina to the floor. Hayden threw an arm up to catch them, and the button of his cuff caught my ponytail.
‘Ow!’ I struggled to free myself, and knocked the umbrellas from Singin’ in the Rain from their hooks.
‘I guess you have an equally high opinion of my beauty and my brains then?’ Hayden said.
‘All I will say is that your looks would be greatly improved if you removed that darn smirk!’
We’d reached the backstage curtains. I tugged at my ponytail, trying to release it from his cuff. I was determined to make an elegant entrance no matter what. Hayden tried to help free my hair but I pushed his hands away. He’d probably claim that it was all a ruse of mine to get ‘up close and personal’ with him. My push sent him stumbling through the stage curtain and onto the hardwood stage. My hair still caught in his cuff, I was pulled with him. My hair came free, finally, but my fedora fell over my eyes. There went any hope of an elegant entrance. I pushed myself up from the floor into a sitting position, my hat still blocking my sight.
‘Are you sure you don’t want my help on your love project?’
Hayden’s voice came from just near my ear. I could feel his hands on my hat’s brim, trying to shift it from its current position of trying to eat my face.
Strangely, the drama room was silent, except for his voice. Why hadn’t our entrance been met with a chorus of laughs, or a yell of anger about our immaturity from Mr Peterman?
‘So you consider yourself an expert then?’ I asked, echoing his earlier taunt.
‘I’ll have you know that I’m an authority on love,’ Hayden said.
His hands brushed mine as I tugged at the brim of my hat. Inexplicably, a tiny shiver ran through me. Was I going crazy? Was this what it was like to be blind — everything all muddled up and your senses going into overdrive?
‘In fact, maybe I should be writing He’s So Into You,’ Hayden continued. ‘After all, I’m a guy. I know what they do when they’re in love with someone.’
His voice was soft and very close to my left ear. Even though I couldn’t see him, I was willing to bet my most expensive perfume that he had a superior smile on his face. He was so trying to steal my Dr Phil cameo.
‘Hayden, if you ever loved anyone as much as you love yourself, it would be the world’s greatest romance!’ I yelled.
‘Do you mind if I use that sentence for our English assignment?’
Hayden gave the hat a big tug and it finally relinquished its grip. The stage lights blinded me momentarily. I blinked and peered around Hayden, who was sitting in front of me, blocking my view of the auditorium. It was strangely dark. The only lights in the whole room were the brilliant beams lighting up the stage Hayden and I sat on. Slowly, my vision cleared and I could make out movement.
‘What on earth?’ I whispered, not believing my eyes.
Hayden, following my gaze, turned around. We both stared out at the auditorium. There was a silence, then the room filled with applause. The main lights flickered on and I saw fifty faces staring at us from below the stage.
‘Incredible!’ a voice boomed. Mr Peterman appeared on the right-hand side of the stage with a triumphant smile on his face. ‘Such feeling! Such authenticity! Ladies and gentlemen, I think we’ve found our Beatrice and Benedick!’
