How to Get to Rio (12 page)

I put my hands over my face, suddenly unable to make a choice. With Rio right beside me, I felt like I was making the biggest decision of my life. Which one should I go for – truth or dare?

I was relieved to be going back to The Lost World without meeting Rio. I’d never quite been able to believe that Rio was into me. He’d seen me make a complete fool of myself in front of everyone, and then what? He’d been impressed by a dumb drawing? It wasn’t that I thought Persephone had lied when she told me all that – it just didn’t really make any sense.

Besides, turning up to meet Rio looking like Robinson Crusoe was hardly going to create the right impression. Then there was the whole luxury-retreat story I’d told Persephone. I knew Izzy and Mia wouldn’t go along with that for more than about five seconds.

Yes, heading back to The Lost World was saving me a lot of embarrassment. Meeting Rio and Persephone at Paradise Point could have only ended one way: badly.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Mia as we scrambled back over the rocks towards The Lost World. ‘You can see Rio another time.’

‘Sure,’ I said. But I wasn’t sure at all. I had the feeling I wouldn’t see him until school went back.

I had no way to contact Rio or Persephone. I couldn’t explain anything until I finally got back to civilisation next week and could charge my phone again. But I tried to push that to the back of my mind. Deep down, I knew Persephone was too cool for me anyway. Probably better that I didn’t get excited about a friendship that wasn’t ever going to work out and a non-existent boyfriend.

‘I say we forget guys and have some fun,’ I told Mia and Izzy, ‘just the three of us.’

‘But what about the cute campers?’ Izzy asked.

Mia frowned. ‘I think they’re probably with those girls.’

Izzy shrugged, then smiled. ‘Yeah, whatevs. We don’t need guys to have a good time anyway.’

‘Yeah!’ Mia and I both called back.

Linking arms, we balanced on a big boulder and faced the ocean. ‘All for one, and one for all!’ Izzy shouted.

Mia laughed. ‘Like the Three Musketeers?’

‘The Three Musketeers!’ Izzy screamed into the wind in a squeaky voice that sounded like Mickey Mouse.

Mia and I joined in with our own silly voices. Izzy did Mickey so well that it sounded like she’d been practising it for a while.

‘The Three Musketeers,’ we shouted. ‘All for one and one for all!’

It would have been massively embarrassing if someone had appeared out of nowhere just then, but there was no-one around. We had the whole headland to ourselves. We were out of sight of all the perfect people of Paradise Point and all the campers at The Lost World.

We were free from annoying little brothers, free from boyfriend worries and the pressure to be cool. We could be as silly as we wanted.

‘Blackmore wears pointy bras!’ I shouted at the horizon.

That got everyone laughing.

‘Mr Contra smells like cabbage soup!’ Izzy shouted.

‘Pickled eggs give me wind!’ That was what Mia came up with.

‘Then don’t eat them!’ I shouted back.

‘I hate lentil stew!’ Izzy screamed.

Before long we were having a random shouting competition. It kept getting crazier, until we were doubled over laughing with tears streaming down our faces.

I couldn’t help a thought creeping into my head:
This is the best way ever to get over Rio
. But with that one thought I was thinking of him again. His big brown eyes, his scruffy hair. The way he’d be waiting at the milkshake shop for me to turn up. Was he still there?

As Izzy and Mia stood chatting, I jumped from rock to rock. I poked around and found a soft, yellowish stone in a crevice and used it to draw on a nice flat rock. Before I knew it, I’d drawn Rio with his scruffy hair, sucking on a straw. Then I drew a girl (a lot like me) sharing the milkshake – her big eyes wide with surprise at how yummy it was. I added a fire-breathing dragon, not for any particular reason, but just because I liked to draw them. Underneath, I wrote the word
LOVE.

Izzy and Mia both stared at the rock picture when it was finished.

‘So cool!’ Mia said. ‘You’re so good at drawing. You should be an artist.’

I shrugged. ‘I’m not that good.’

‘Yeah, you really are,’ Izzy added. ‘It’s, like, totally your thing.’

‘Maybe.’ I’d never thought about it like that before.

‘When I think of you, Kitty,’ Mia said, ‘I always picture you with a pencil in your hand. You’re always drawing something.’ She looked at my picture on the rocks again. ‘And you really love drawing dragons, don’t you?’

I laughed. ‘You noticed, did you?’

‘Shame the tide will come and wash it off,’ Izzy said. ‘You should have drawn it up there on the rocks at the top of the headland.’

‘I can always draw another one tomorrow,’ I told her. Then I turned to the ocean and shouted,‘Rio, I think you’re the cutest guy that ever rode the 377 bus!’

‘You’re such a dork, Kit,’ Izzy said with a chuckle. Then she turned to face the ocean and drew a deep breath. ‘I love you, cute camper, even though I don’t know if your name is Dan or Sam!’ Izzy screamed so loudly Dan or Sam probably heard.

Then Mia put her face into the wind. ‘Tom Cuthbert is a god!’

I was surprised. ‘Who’s Tom Cuthbert?’

‘He’s a swimmer,’ Izzy answered. ‘A really good swimmer. He trains at the pool where we play water polo.’ She turned to Mia. ‘Since when have you had a thing for him?’

‘I just decided,’ Mia said, shyly.

‘Well, c’mon, Mia,’ I said, rubbing my hands together. ‘Tell us everything.’

As we walked back to the camping ground, Mia filled us in on her romantic interest in the hot swimming star, Tom Cuthbert. He’d had a girlfriend basically forever, but the word on the poolside was that she’d dumped him because he was too serious about training. Mia and Tom saw each other at the pool pretty much every afternoon, but Mia didn’t really rate her chances with him.

‘Just ask him out,’ I said. ‘What’ve you got to lose?’

‘Can you even hear yourself?’ Mia asked, raising her eyebrows.

I shrugged.

But Mia wasn’t going to let me off that easy. ‘Kitty,’ she said. ‘You just ran away from a guy you’re totally mad about because you’re wearing dirty shorts. Now you’re telling me to ask out a guy I have to train beside every week. How awkward will it be if he says no?’

‘Okay. I get it,’ I said. ‘I’m great at giving advice, but not so good taking it.’

We finally left the rocks and made our way onto the beach. The cute campers and their girlfriends had a volleyball net set up and were tossing a ball to each other. I wondered if we’d ever be like those girls – having fun hanging out with a group of guys like that. I was kind of jealous, but I smiled as we walked past.

‘Wanna play?’ one of the girls called out to us. It was the tall one, in a white bikini. She was like an older version of Izzy – all arms and legs that went on forever.

Mia and Izzy were already nodding. They never said no to sport. The tall girl allocated us to teams. Mia and Izzy were on one side. I was on the other. The tall girl then ran through the basics of Lost World volleyball. It was a cross between proper indoor volleyball and the beach variety, with a few allowances for newbies like Mia, Izzy and me. She interrupted her instructions regularly with ‘Are you cool with that?’ which was actually a pretty cool thing to say in itself. I felt like I was already hooked on the game and we hadn’t even started yet.

Then the tall girl introduced everyone. ‘I’m Hot Dog and this is Red Star, Snoopy, Popeye, Blade …’ She reeled off a bunch of other names that just got wackier as she went along. Izzy, Mia and I just nodded, smiling.

‘And what do we call you?’ Hot Dog asked.

‘That’s Mickey Mouse,’ I said, pointing at Izzy. ‘And she’s Donald Duck.’ I motioned to Mia. ‘And I’m Goofy.’

Mia and Izzy rolled their eyes at me, looking really embarrassed. I was keeping expectations low with nicknames like that. But the others cheered.

‘Way to go!’ Popeye (formerly known as Sam, Dan or Calvin) called out. Hot Dog gave me a low five.

‘Right back at you, girlfriend,’ I said, getting into the team vibe.

As we took our places on either side of the net, I eyed off Mia and Izzy. I’d been given the job of ‘spiker babe’, which basically meant standing close to the net and blocking the ball if it came near me. There was something else about getting up high and aiming it straight into the ground on the other side, but I was hoping just to get the ball back over the net to start with.

I took a few deep breaths to ready myself. If I’d been doing this at school I would have been nervous, but for some reason I wasn’t. I fully expected to be hopeless at volleyball, but it didn’t worry me because only Mia and Izzy would know if I played terribly. Well, them and a bunch of hot, but weird volleyball nerds.
Bring it on!
was what I thought.

Hot Dog got the game underway with a colossal serve. She yelled, ‘Keep it real, people.’

The ball bounced around between players on the other side of the net before it came back our way and then went over. I danced from one foot to the other, waiting for the ball to come to me. And then it did.

It was a high shot from Popeye that was about to go straight over my head. I leaped in the air, got my hand over the top of the ball and spiked it. It went down like a bullet on the other side of the net. Red Dog dived to save it, but the ball slammed into the sand, just past his fingertips.

Red Dog rolled over in the sand, stretching his arms out in defeat. ‘Oh, man!’ he moaned as my team erupted in cheers.

My team jumped on me – high-fiving, low-fiving and doing funny handshakes. They were so excited you’d think I’d just won a gold medal at the Olympics.

‘Goofy the spiker babe is keepin’ it real!’ Hot Dog shouted. ‘Are they legs or steel springs you’re bouncing around on?’

Hot Dog collected the ball and returned to the back of the court to serve again. I watched her compose herself and tried to do the same, but my head was exploding with energy. I knew I’d only done one lucky spike, but I felt like I could fly. I’d found a sport I was really good at. Who would have thought it would be beach volleyball!