CHAPTER SEVEN
The whole classroom was comatose with boredom. The combination of Mrs Murphy's monotone and the stifling heat had sucked the energy out of us.
I slumped back in my chair, too drained from my late-night sleuthing to even bother writing notes to Lara (my usual method of killing time during maths). It was a real shame. From my angle I could just see a boogie starting to form on Mrs Murphy's left nostril. Lara, I'm sure, would have been most interested to hear about this, but I just didn't have the energy.
The classroom fan creaked rhythmically. Mrs Murphy finished filling up the board and was about to start wiping off some of her scrawl to make room for the next section. Unfortunately, I'd copied down only the first couple of lines. It was a race between Mrs Murphy and me. Could I copy down her notes faster than she could erase them?
I started writing frantically. Lara, a much more conscientious student, had already finished copying down the contents of the whiteboard. She looked at me and shook her head, amused. I'm not the quietest of writers. I'm not one of those kids you have to avoid during exams because their tap-tap pen scratching is so distracting. I am a medium-volume distracter, slapping the desk at the beginning of each page, scratching quietly but frantically until the bottom of the page then loudly whipping the page over to start again.
I was just getting slightly ahead of Mrs Murphy's wiping when my vision was suddenly blocked by none other than my darling sister.
Instead of materialising sedately and quietly, like any normal ghost, Ella had chosen to materialise in a 'Statue of Liberty' pose right in front of the whiteboard. Attention seeker. She froze in the pose, her nose pointing grandly towards the sky, but she couldn't help letting her eyes roll towards me to watch my reaction. Against my better judgement, I smothered a smile. Ella broke from her position, laughing at her own joke as soon as she saw my smile.
'Pretty funny, hey?'
Of course, there was no way I could answer her. The classroom was in total silence. Even my subtle cough-talk would be noticed. Not to mention the fact that I didn't have time to talk. Mrs Murphy was already starting to get ahead of me. I tried to resume my frantic note-taking, but it was a little difficult as Ella was blocking my view.
Furiously I waved my hands at her in a 'MOVE!' gesture. It must have looked pretty weird, but I hoped it could be passed off as some sort of seizure reaction to maths class.
'Oh, sorry, you want me to move? How about over here?' Ella walked over to the whiteboard and tried to cover as much of it as she could with her arms. 'That better?' Even in her more opaque form, Ella was still mostly see-through. However, her glistening made it difficult to read the whiteboard writing behind her.
Frustrated, I silently waved my hands at her again. Unfortunately, Ella was no longer looking at me. I glanced over to see what she was staring at. Someone was peering through the glass panel on the door of the classroom.
I couldn't believe it. It was Shane. And he was looking right at me. Worse still, he'd obviously seen my frantic arm waving and thought it was directed at him!
Instead of waving back, Shane blew a kiss. Shaking my head, my eyes wide with shock, I vainly tried to indicate to Shane that he had the wrong idea about my waving. It's probably fair to say that my shaking did nothing to impart the message, 'I was waving to my ghost sister not you.' Especially since Shane was still staring directly at me. A self-satisfied smile was plastered on his arrogant face.
Ugh. I had to look away. It was sickening. I tried to ignore him. I glared determinedly in front of me, at the back of Carly's head. That was when I noticed that Carly was also staring at Shane in the doorway, along with the rest of the females in the class. Carly flicked her blonde hair (which was loose today) over the back of her shoulders. Then she leaned forward and blew Shane a provocative kiss. Someone needed to throw a bucket of cold water on her. She was really giving him the treatment.
To my surprise, unlike most guys, who throw themselves at Carly over just the slightest glance, Shane did not even seem to notice. His eyes focussed over Carly's head.
Directly at me.
Carly, assuming that Shane had missed her first kiss, gave a wave to attract his attention. As his eyes turned to look at her, she gave him the look again. This time, she slowed down the blowing part of the kiss to enhance the seductiveness. Surely he would be powerless to resist this move. Half the guys in the room were now either staring at Carly, drooling, or glaring at Shane. At least now I wasn't the only one who was getting behind on Mrs Murphy's notes. Mrs Murphy was still facing the whiteboard, writing furiously, oblivious to the tension that had suddenly taken over the room.
Then one of the most golden moments in the history of my high school life occurred. Shane, with the simple raising of his eyebrows, rejected Carly with a condescending, 'You're a freak, what are you doing?' glance, then looked straight back at me. He made a telephone sign with his hand and mouthed the words, 'Call me.'
Reaction in the classroom was mixed. The more cynical of the classroom (including Lara) enjoyed a few sniggers at Carly's expense. Ella was looking from me to Shane with her mouth wide open in shocked disbelief. She obviously hadn't been watching last night's antics from the spirit world. Most surprised of all were the faces now turned towards me in looks of awe and newfound respect. Somehow, the hottest boy to ever pass through the grounds of Canberra High had just rejected Carly in favour of me.
The awe did not last long, though. Next thing I knew, Carly had turned around to glare at me, her eyes narrowed in fury. Her face was red with anger and disbelief. I was going to pay for breaking the golden rule of surviving high school.
I had just unwittingly humiliated Carly Taylor.