Cast
A schoolgirl.

Scene
Do I know her? Sure. We were BFF for years before she went all catatonic. She was my partner in crime, hey.

PAUSE

Ask her therapist. I’ve gone through shit too but I can still say things like “thank you” and “hello mother dearest.”

PAUSE

In school. She was new and she comes into Geography. Miss Parker thinks she’s cool and does the whole Donnie Darko thing: “Sit next to the boy you think is the cutest.” Chloe looks at the boys one by one, not moving, bag over one shoulder, then sits down next to me and says, “sorry babe. It’s not you, it’s them.”

She says she came here to avoid suspension. At her old school she stapled some sleeping mole’s hair to the desk in music class then blew a trumpet in her face. Chloe’s cool, hey, so I take her to meet the gang and she’s one of the bitches from day one.

PAUSE

I told you, she was my bestie. Sometimes she just rubbed me the wrong way. After a few weeks she catches on that no one likes Stephie, so she plays her. Tells her that Daniel Abercrombie – who’s one of the few guys who isn’t like hideously ugly – has a crush on her and Stephie totally humiliates herself by asking him out. The gang thinks Chloe’s crazy funny but Stephie’s always good to us even if she’s a lame-arse mole. You don’t mess with your own nest, hey. Anyway, she’s new and she’s already getting a bit too chubby for her uggies so I have to bring her down a few sizes.

So Cam-Cam has a party at her dad’s third biggest mansion and we have ciders and vodka cruisers and a bunch of the least lame guys are there. I slip a little something into Chloe’s Rekorderlig and everyone gets to see her get to second base with Spaz. I tell Spaz to piss off back to his mummy’s trailer and we take Chloe home before she does something dumb. So now everyone thinks she’s a trash bag and start called her Hoey.

PAUSE

I realised what she was made of after that. Sarah Pembroke called her a slut and she’s like, “So what, virgin? If I want some at least I don’t have to go running to daddy.” Chloe was deadly, hey. You messed with her, you messed with fire. That fat Goth bitch Ness and all her emo idiot whores started laughing at her. One day she’s sitting with me in bio Facebooking on her phone. I see she’s on some hot guy’s profile. “You shagging that guy?” I say. “Nah, he’s Ness’s new boy,” she says. “Serious?” I say. Then I see she’s writing from his profile. A hot and heavy message to Ness. Chloe strings her along for three weeks then gets her guy to tell her she’s dumb and fat and dumps her. Wow – I’m impressed. On Monday Ness comes in with twice the number of fresh cuts on her arm than usual.

We are besties now and I’m the only person who can call her Hoey Chloe and get away with it. We pull pranks on all the moles and skanks and Asians. Ming Yu goes to the bathroom halfway through a maths exam and I take her paper when Mr Brady isn’t looking and ditch it. She has a total spac attack when she gets back and Brady – who is super Christian and totally unqualified for this kind of thing – takes her outside where she wails like a Geisha for the rest of the test...

END OF EXCERPT