Read Online Wildlife by Fiona Wood - Free Book Online
Authors: Fiona Wood
Tags: General, People & Places, Juvenile Fiction, Social Issues, Australia & Oceania, Young Adult Fiction, Girls & Women, Death & Dying, Friendship, Sports & Recreation, Dating & Sex, Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance, Adolescence, Depression & Mental Illness, Camping & Outdoor Activities, Social Themes, Dating & Relationships
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trouble with her best friend; the nerd; the sulky but affectionate daughter; the girl who wants to kiss the boy? Can it really be like Holly said: now I get to choose…? It can’t possibly be that easy. I must seem like a selective mute by now, which at least forces him to continue.
“Anyway,” he says. “The benefits are obvious, to me…”Is he too smooth to be true, or naturally this charming? “So what do you think?”
“What do
you
think?” Ha—when in doubt: deflect. He just looks at me. “I mean—aren’t you like super boy, everyone’s pick for prefect next year, head boy the year after, captain of rowing, the world is your oyster, et cetera?”
He smiles his big smile.
Oops, I’ve kind of just handed to him on a plate the extent to which I have been keeping track of his school career trajectory. I pull out a businesslike summary to throw a bit of cold water on that impression: “What I mean is—it seems that you’d be the one risking something. So logically, therefore, perhaps you should decide first.”
“Let’s go for it.” His smile shines with the pleasure—the power—of defiance.
“Okay, then.” Okay—so that’s who I am? I’m a pushover.
“Okay,” he says. “You know when you smile, you look like someone else?”
Oh, right: that must be the girl who wants to kiss the boy. “I got my braces off in the holidays.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“I guess I am someone else,” I say, leaning back against a tree. “I haven’t really been me since we got here.”
He leans in and kisses me. I get a little flash of old-time news footage, girls getting hysterical about the Beatles. My mind is screaming
aaaaaaaaagh
as Ben Capaldi’s lips move from my mouth to the intersection of my earlobe, jaw, and neck, making me shudder.
“Cold?” He looks at me as though he really notices, and cares. His eyes are hazel with very white whites. His skin is olive; his hair dark, as long as he can get away with at school, it hangs in loose curls that he tucks behind his ears. He is ridiculously good-looking. Maybe he thinks I can get him modeling work? No, he’s not that superficial. Hey, check me multitasking: I’m kissing, prosecuting, and defending—and truly I’ve had him under covert surveillance for long enough to know he is not self-conscious about the way he looks.
“No, just—no, not too cold.” Just terrified. Because you (Ben Capaldi!) are kissing me, and it feels like I’ve given you the keys to my body before even checking that you have a license. Although on this, our second outing, it’s clear to me that your learner’s permit must be a distant memory, whereas I only just got mine. And for the record, I’m the very opposite of cold: burning, melting.
“Maybe we don’t tell people about this,” he says, now kissing the inside of my wrist. I’m seriously relying on the tree for support now, and hoping there aren’t ants or sap oozes.
Because my mother is Dr. Sexpert, I have seen more than my fair share of material about all manner of things sexual in sometimes grossly graphic textbooks, in dull reports, and in lots of work stuff that hangs around our house. But I have never seen a chart that shows direct links between the neck or the wrist and the clitoris, with a flow-on effect causing a dissolving feeling just above theknees, and severe breathlessness. But I am living proof that these links and flow-on effects exist. I am raw human biology data. I am an experiment in train.
“Except Holly? She already knows,” I remind him, trying to regulate my breathing.
“Yeah, except Holly.”
We’re not telling anyone? Secrecy. He doesn’t want anyone to know? Shame? Denial? I’m not good enough to be the official girlfriend? Halt! Don’t get paranoid. We’ve already canvassed the fact that this will be a covert operation, in light of the school rules about boy/girl activity up here.
Breathe in. Breathe out. And again.
21
tuesday 16 october
In another
“Anyway,” he says. “The benefits are obvious, to me…”Is he too smooth to be true, or naturally this charming? “So what do you think?”
“What do
you
think?” Ha—when in doubt: deflect. He just looks at me. “I mean—aren’t you like super boy, everyone’s pick for prefect next year, head boy the year after, captain of rowing, the world is your oyster, et cetera?”
He smiles his big smile.
Oops, I’ve kind of just handed to him on a plate the extent to which I have been keeping track of his school career trajectory. I pull out a businesslike summary to throw a bit of cold water on that impression: “What I mean is—it seems that you’d be the one risking something. So logically, therefore, perhaps you should decide first.”
“Let’s go for it.” His smile shines with the pleasure—the power—of defiance.
“Okay, then.” Okay—so that’s who I am? I’m a pushover.
“Okay,” he says. “You know when you smile, you look like someone else?”
Oh, right: that must be the girl who wants to kiss the boy. “I got my braces off in the holidays.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“I guess I am someone else,” I say, leaning back against a tree. “I haven’t really been me since we got here.”
He leans in and kisses me. I get a little flash of old-time news footage, girls getting hysterical about the Beatles. My mind is screaming
aaaaaaaaagh
as Ben Capaldi’s lips move from my mouth to the intersection of my earlobe, jaw, and neck, making me shudder.
“Cold?” He looks at me as though he really notices, and cares. His eyes are hazel with very white whites. His skin is olive; his hair dark, as long as he can get away with at school, it hangs in loose curls that he tucks behind his ears. He is ridiculously good-looking. Maybe he thinks I can get him modeling work? No, he’s not that superficial. Hey, check me multitasking: I’m kissing, prosecuting, and defending—and truly I’ve had him under covert surveillance for long enough to know he is not self-conscious about the way he looks.
“No, just—no, not too cold.” Just terrified. Because you (Ben Capaldi!) are kissing me, and it feels like I’ve given you the keys to my body before even checking that you have a license. Although on this, our second outing, it’s clear to me that your learner’s permit must be a distant memory, whereas I only just got mine. And for the record, I’m the very opposite of cold: burning, melting.
“Maybe we don’t tell people about this,” he says, now kissing the inside of my wrist. I’m seriously relying on the tree for support now, and hoping there aren’t ants or sap oozes.
Because my mother is Dr. Sexpert, I have seen more than my fair share of material about all manner of things sexual in sometimes grossly graphic textbooks, in dull reports, and in lots of work stuff that hangs around our house. But I have never seen a chart that shows direct links between the neck or the wrist and the clitoris, with a flow-on effect causing a dissolving feeling just above theknees, and severe breathlessness. But I am living proof that these links and flow-on effects exist. I am raw human biology data. I am an experiment in train.
“Except Holly? She already knows,” I remind him, trying to regulate my breathing.
“Yeah, except Holly.”
We’re not telling anyone? Secrecy. He doesn’t want anyone to know? Shame? Denial? I’m not good enough to be the official girlfriend? Halt! Don’t get paranoid. We’ve already canvassed the fact that this will be a covert operation, in light of the school rules about boy/girl activity up here.
Breathe in. Breathe out. And again.
21
tuesday 16 october
In another
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