Sugar Girls

The school that I go to is the only boarding school where I live, as far as I know. But there's an Anglican school up north a bit which has a very bad reputation (bad boys who've been expelled, alcohol and drugs - it's coed, some of the girls have allegedly been sexually assaulted and stuff). There's also a public school that's got a gifted program and is really well-known in that area. The only other school around the north is a college which the public school feeds into. Anyway, I was out before curfew in the center of town yesterday, and there were three girls walking around as aimlessly as I was, chatting to each other really casually. They sat down, and I sat close to them, listening to what they were saying and looking them over. The one who caught my eye first was wearing a uniform top from the public school with a white layering top beneath. She was pretty - and I mean really pretty. Beautiful, even. She had wild brown hair which was kept off her face by an Alice band, and a long blue pleated skirt which was quite becoming to her figure. Her eyes were sea-blue, and her face was round and pudgy. She wasn't tall, but she was slim and very nicely proportioned, though you couldn't tell it because she was wearing baggy clothes. She had a British accent, but it sounded like academic English to me. She definitely wasn't Australian by birth. I could see when she smiled that she had italic second incisors and dimples(!), and she was wearing champagne-colored lip gloss, which looked surprisingly good on her. The girl sitting on her left-hand side was really tall, and her hair was done in Princess Leia style, but the ends poked out in springy curls. It was almost chocolate-brown. Her face was a little thinner than her friend's, and she had thin lips. Her nose was well-defined. She wasn't uniformed. She had on a tight blue top which revealed a small amount of her chest to be as pale as her face. It had little pleats on the sleeves. She also had on a pair of purple jeans, which were a lot tighter than her friend's. I guessed that she probably wasn't very self-conscious. Her arms and fingers were long, and she was also very slim. When she turned towards me, I saw that she had eyes that were almost the same color as her hair. They were very small and elegant. The other girl with them was wearing the uniform of the Anglican school. She had long blonde hair tied loosely into two plaits, one on each side of her head. Her face was heart-shaped and she had a cleft chin. Her nose was tiny and very cute, and her eys were deep green. The thing that interested me the most about her was all of the jewellery that she wore. She wore about 10 necklaces, all of different length and weight. Her ears were pierced three times each, and she had gold studs in all of the holes except for the top ones, which were adorned with tiny Wiccan stars. She had a bunch of pins on her lapel, most of which were from American tourist destinations. Sure enough, when she opened her mouth and began to speak, I detected an American accent with a slight Southern drawl. Then, the eyes of the public school girl turned to me. She looked me over, and then stood up. 'Hey, you're all alone!' she said. 'Want to come and join us?'

I did as she suggested, and sat down opposite them on another seat. The public school girl introduced herself as Kallie, a year 10 from the gifted program at her public school. The tall girl was called Jade, and went to the college across the road from the public school. She'd been at the public school the year before and was now in year 11. The blonde girl went by the name of Emmy, in year 9 at the Anglican school. She told me that she was born and bred in Albany on a plantation. Well, that explained the Southernspeak. Emmy and I talked for a while about America, and Kallie and Jade talked about teachers and ex-teachers at the public school. Then I asked about Kallie's accent, and she told me that her father was a Brit. We talked for a while about Brits and the Midlands while Jade and Emmy talked about their siblings. Jade had a sister, a stepbrother and a stepsister, and Emmy had an older half-brother and a younger half-brother. Then we all talked about high school and college and teenage stuff. Then Jade started to talk about 'Emmy's baby'. Turns out that Emmy is no longer living at home and is pregnant. Her parents pay the school fees but they don't see her any more. She's only just found out that she's pregnant, and suddenly everyone's against her for it.

I left feeling kinda sad for Emmy, but I'm really pleased that I've made my first three real friends in Australia. All of them are awesome - Kallie with her quick wit and wordy ways, Jade with her endless supply of jokes and her ability to pull a laugh out of anything, and Emmy with her serious demeanor and her contagious laugh. Now all that I have to do is talk to my housemaster and arrange to see them regularly, and I'll be a happy Anna.