Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta

Author:Melina Marchetta
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307433534
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2009-04-08T16:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

AFTER A FEW hiccups at MacMichael and Sons I’ve managed to settle in and things are beginning to run smoothly. I take the bus from school to the chambers three times a week. It is such a relief not to have to put on the McDonald’s uniform and put up with all those psychos. The barristers at MacMichael’s are really nice, although not at all on my level. The things they find funny are so unfunny.

I’ve seen Jacob Coote a couple of times. Once was when he was on the school bus and another time he was at Harley’s, a café at Darling Harbour. This girl with a uniform as short as a T-shirt was sitting on his lap.

But at the moment, John Barton is my biggest worry. I was on my way to the Sydney University library on Monday afternoon and bumped into him. He seemed vague and subdued and I wondered if he had decided we couldn’t be friends. We took a detour to a coffee shop, where he embarked on depressing me out of my head. It was one hundred times worse than debating night. He looked as if he had lost lots of weight, which he really couldn’t afford to do in the first place. His eyes couldn’t settle in one place, and if I didn’t know him better I could have sworn he was on drugs. I don’t know whether it was because of Jacob, but I wasn’t as attracted to him as I used to be.

“I hate this shit life,” he said to me out of the blue as we sat there.

I looked up, not knowing exactly what to say. I mean life isn’t a buzz, but I wouldn’t exactly call it shit.

“What happened?”

He shook his head, clamping his mouth together into a thin line.

“My father was home when I got there this afternoon. Went through my mail. He owns my life, so of course he’s entitled to open my mail,” he spat out bitterly. “I didn’t win the math competition. I didn’t even get in the top five percent. Bloody Sydney Grammar dominated again.”

“Big deal, John. It’s not the end of the world.”

He covered his eyes with his hand and then rubbed his forehead.

“It’s not the words that come out of his mouth. It’s the looks, Josie. The disappointment.”

“I’m sure your father loves you, John.”

“Oh, he does,” he said, nodding. “When I shit all over everyone in academic competitions. When I win a debate. When I win a football game. When I get elected school captain. When I win, win, win,” he gritted. “And when I lose he hates me. So I have to keep on winning. I have to keep on being the best in the world. Josie, I don’t want to do law. It’s going to be two billion times worse than this year and it’ll go on for five years.”

“Don’t get yourself so worked up,” I said, watching him closely.

His face looked blotchy and pale.

“My father will kill me,” he muttered.

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