Pride & Princesses (9 page)

   
‘Don’t be so sure, Mouche, I’m totally going to give you a run for your money.’

    
Mouche flicked some water at me.

    
‘That’s it,’ I said, ‘you’re going under,’ and instead of feet sloshing around a pond the pair of us were engulfed in a tidal wave, our clothes soaked through.

    
‘Hey, you pushed me first, I just pulled you under!’ Mouche said.

   
 
We splashed about for a few minutes then stayed awake, texting plans, long after everyone thought we were sleeping.
  

    
The following day, Friday, was audition day.

    
As we filed into the auditorium and looked up at the proscenium arch, Miss Tartt and Mr Sparks waved to us then pointed in the direction of our seats.

   
‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say we almost look like the Princesses,’ I mused aloud...

   
‘Except there are less of us and we have more taste.’ Mouche added. ‘I am so going to win this bet,’ she said, as if she’d solely invented the boy dating and rating competition in the first place.

    
So you’re going to win, huh? Not so quickly Mouche,
I’d thought laughingly. The truth is we were
both
looking sharp; our clothes were new, our hair extra shiny and our lip gloss sparkled. Boys were noticing us, especially Mark and Jet. We’d made a big effort as prescribed in our dating guides
ad nauseum.

   
‘
It is such a shame we had to entice them with teen glam,’ Mouche conceded.

    
‘It might be time to put away the old games of cards and tea leaves. We should rely on common sense and instinct,’ I said.

    
‘Of course,’ Mouche agreed.
      

   
The entire student body endured the welcome speech. Due to scheduling difficulties, it was delivered by our Principal a week later than usual.

   
Mr Sparks, our drama teacher, appeared slightly dazed by the length and monotony of the address and could be seen dozing off during the speech. If Mr Sparks had been talking to the entire student body, he’d at least have added a light show, ‘
and maybe some disco...
’ Freya sniggered in a sarcastic horse whisper.

    
Teegan, the Barbie, was the next person we bumped into that day and she said, ‘hi,’ in a newly mature way. We said ‘hi’ in return because it doesn’t pay to let the enemy know exactly how the land lies. Mouche and I still resented her and her friends for taunting us when we were children and invading our new school to boot. She almost tripped over her own shoes running down the hallway barking, ‘Mark! Ma-ark!’ as if she owned him already.

    
I hadn’t seen Teegan this anxious to get someone’s attention since she chased an assistant casting agent through our school car park to try to snare the lead in a teen angst afternoon special.

    
‘Now observe her undignified display,’ Mouche noted, ‘desperate to try to get Mark’s attention. Doesn’t she realize, ‘
if she has to work that hard in the beginning she’ll have to work like an Olympic athlete towards the end
?’

   
‘Who told you that?’

   
‘Oh, this great dating tome is called,
‘How to Treat ‘em Mean to Keep Them Keen...’

   
‘The only problem is ‘they’ have to be keen in the first place...’

   
‘So true.’

    
Mark seemed pretty busy ignoring Teegan as he walked on by but when she finally fell at his feet and her notes scattered around him, instead of stepping over them like some sort of android, he stopped, picked Teegan up and gave her a sincere smile. What a gentleman.

  
‘Clearly, her decorative exterior has won him over...’

  
‘I just knew she’d be busy chasing Mark Knightly,’ Mouche said.

  
‘You are so psychic, I can almost hear her thoughts, ’ I replied.

  
‘True. You are so telepathic,’ Mouche added.

  
‘She’s just pretending to be nice. Why can’t he see through her?’ I mused.

  
‘Absolutely,’ Mouche replied. ‘If only they’d learnt what we have...men have zero radar for feminine wiles...’

  
‘I’ve noticed...’ I stated succinctly.

   
‘High school is an anthropological exercise at the best of times,’ Mouche replied.
   

    
The faces of Joel, Teegan, Mark, Peter and Ethan merged into the crowd as she spoke. Ethan was a pianist, the others have been introduced. Two Princesses and one listed male (Jet) were missing, but we knew they’d make an appearance sooner rather than later.

  
With morning classes over, I was sitting alone at lunch with the unfilled diary, wearing my Sunrise High oversized sweatshirt and my black cut off ballet tights (the black pair layered over the pink). I was busy plotting a course of action for the remainder of the day and waiting for Mouche to get out of class. Sitting at a lunch table, sipping fizzy water through a bendy straw with the sun peeping in through the long bay windows of the room was conducive to dreaming. I kept imagining the boys on my list and what they’d look like given a style make-over and some re-programming, when Mouche arrived early.

    
‘I already have the order of dating in mind...but there are quite a lot of them and only one or two I can actually see potential chemistry with...’

    
‘Good,’ I said, ‘me too, that will make things less complicated.’

    
‘It says here
men hate over-achievers
...’ Mouche said as she carefully applied some lip balm from a tiny container.

   
‘Mmm...we’ll just have to re-educate the boys on that one.’

    
‘Here, I signed the contract in lipstick pencil. Want some?’

    
‘I don’t think that’s legal.’

    
‘I added my signature in pen just in case...’

    
‘Listen, I’ve been thinking,’ Mouche said. ‘Why don’t we just...help each other in the beginning, see what we come up with, pool our dating resources in the so called ‘dating guide’ then go for it for the last few dates. See how much useful treasure we can get from the
 
first ‘dates’ without them knowing they’re just being used for information and teach the boys a thing or two in the process.’

    
As we ate, we made notes. A few boys from the opposite table actually looked up. Like I said, Mouche had re-vamped her look (and so had I) but hers was obviously working particularly well in relation to Jet Campbell. Jet has a fabulously inoffensive smile. He is about the same height as Mark and as fair as Mark is dark-haired and seemingly a hundred times more amiable, completely unaware of the annoying idiosyncrasies of those around him. Freya is messing up Jet’s hair and I can see him staring at her fake diamond necklace, sparkling in the lunch room light.

    
‘It’s sad that men are so attracted to artifice, but also very true according to the
Young Ladies Guide
and my own limited experience,’ I told Mouche.

   
‘Agreed,’ Mouche replied, highlighting a chapter titled,
‘How to please your potential husband,
’ written in 1963.

   
Have you ever felt like someone else has stolen your life? I was daydreaming after writing notes on Mark Knightly (
tall, British-like, uptight
) and I was imagining how divine it would be to star in a hipper, teen remake of
Pride and Prejudice
, we could just call it
Pride
...when Mouche interrupted my train of thought.

    
‘Oh, by the way...I have to tell you about...’

    
‘Planning time, don’t interrupt.’ I waved my paper in her face.

     
Mouche ignored my request.

    
‘Jet Campbell left me this cute little post-it note on my locker and... he
spoke
to me again and...I think he might be
the one
.’

    
‘Are you joking? You can’t just settle for one. You’re starting to sound really unimaginative...like a Princess.’

    
‘I guess...I’m getting some lunch.’
     

     
Tapping my pen on the table, lost in thought, I’m inadvertently drawing attention to myself. As I look away, I notice the very emo/gothic looking Jack Adams who actually smiles back at me. I happen to know he is working on another teenage horror film script because he sent me a group email over summer, asking me to write comments about the stupid plot he’d written. I didn’t want to lie to him so I still haven’t replied. I look away even though he definitely has potential. I don’t want to encourage him just yet.
   

  
A few minutes later Mouche is on her way back to our table with today’s least offensive lunch fare – macaroni cheese and a peanut butter sandwich, fries and two sodas.

 
‘Okay, I also got us two apples...for our health.’

 
‘Thanks.’

  
So we sat there, munching the apples, reading each other’s diagrammatic plans.

  
‘It says here,’ Mouche read,
‘... the surest way to mess up a date is to be too focused on getting a boy to like you, so take the focus off the boy and create other objectives...’

  
This is what Mouche wrote:

Items to be gathered for our New York Adventure:

A pen

A lucky feather

A beret

Jeans - vintage (
Mouche
and I both wear the same size)

A black sweater (every girl should have one)