The Mag Hags Read online

  ‘You are pollution, Cat,’ said Mand with undisguised venom. ‘Just because I care about the planet doesn’t make me a freak.’

  ‘You do tend to be a little right-on, Mand,’ said Belle, stirring the pot.

  ‘So that means we have to go for Cat’s vacuous air-headed nonsense, does it?’ said Mand defensively. ‘What do you two think?’ She turned to Wanda and Maggie.

  Maggie Jones had a million thoughts swirling around her head, but getting them out of her mouth was always a problem. She would plan her sentences in exquisite detail, but they’d never come out in the same way. She had big ideas about a magazine that would encompass everything about what it was like to be a fifteen-year-old girl living in the modern world. She wanted to explore the teenage girls ‘psyche’ – a word for the human spirit or mind, which she’d recently read in Philosophy: A Road Map for Teens. Despite this, ‘I’m not bothered’ was all she could muster, which confirmed to the other girls that Maggie was well and truly a lost cause.

  ‘What about you, Wanda?’ said Cat to the ever-quiet and studious Ms Hong. ‘A magazine on accounting and the finer details of mathematics?’

  ‘Just because I’m good at maths doesn’t mean I’d want to do a magazine about it,’ said Wanda, who last year topped the annual Maths Inn, a competition for all those boffins who thought Pythagoras theorem was sex-on-a-stick.

  Wanda’s parents ran Accent Accounting, Baywood’s biggest accounting firm, and were grooming their only child to take over when she’d finished high school, been to university and then done a seven-year stint working for the firm. They’d had it all mapped out since they bought her first calculator at the age of one-and-a-half.

  However, these days she found numbers increasingly tedious, but since she’d been hailed as a maths whiz, she found it impossible to escape them. The only upside was her advanced mathematics tutoring sessions with the brain-numbingly boring but bone-achingly beautiful Swedish university student Mattias Iberson, whose singsong accent and dreamy eyes could still her heart.

  ‘Actually, I love fashion,’ she said. ‘I’m really into making clothes.’

  The girls thought she was joking – they had never seen Wanda in anything other than her school uniform, wearing no make-up, her thick black hair scraped back into a tight ponytail. She hardly came across as a doyenne of fashion.

  ‘What about a music magazine?’ said Mand. ‘We could do it on all the bands we love.’

  ‘What, all that sad indie-boy rubbish you listen to?’ Cat pretended to play a violin the size of a matchbox. ‘I’m so sad, depressed and angry because Daddy wouldn’t buy me a pony. Please, someone get me a razor blade now, and spare me the agony of life.’

  ‘I’m really into Jason Jones,’ said Wanda. ‘I voted for him hundreds of times when he won Popstarz. My parents hit the roof when they got the phone bill!’

  ‘Jason Jones is cute if you’re into someone who is so bland, he makes cottage cheese on rice cakes seem interesting,’ said Mand arching her eyebrows and rolling her eyes. ‘He’s a marketing man’s invention, Wanda. Don’t you get it?’

  ‘Can’t we just stop arguing for a second and get on with the magazine?’ said Maggie, putting her hands over her ears.

  ‘All this too much for you, Maggie?’ said Cat. ‘Reality bites, doesn’t it? Perhaps you should go and talk to your nerd friends on the net because I’m quite sure I’ve never seen you with any friends in the real world.’

  Maggie knew she should have kept her mouth shut. It was easier that way.

  ‘God, Cat, you’re such a cow,’ said Belle. ‘As if she’d want the kind of friends you have. I’d rather be in the library any day than be a part of the Us Crew’.

  The rest of the period was spent arguing and sniping. They couldn’t decide on anything – what the magazine would be about, what it would be called or who’d take what role.

  ‘This is not going to work,’ said Cat eventually. ‘I’m going to tell Bone that it’s impossible. We’re too different.’

  ‘While it pains me to ever agree with Cat about anything, she’s right,’ said Mand. ‘A period with you lot is worse than having your period every day for a year!’

  With that, Cat got up, dusted the grass off her grey-check school uniform with its bright yellow collar (obviously designed by a colourblind dag with the style sense of a donkey) and headed across the quadrangle towards Block E, the girls trailing in her wake.

  The group passed the steps at the back of the school auditorium, where Cat would hang out with her gang of supposedly cool girlfriends at breaks, tossing stinging barbs at anyone brave enough to walk within ten metres of their territory.

  Past the silver aluminum seats that would fry your bum in summer and stick to your legs in the winter, where Wanda would sit with her geeky smart mates.

  Past the library, second home to ‘Maggie No Mates’, where she went to read or surf the net every lunchtime.

  Past the steps of block C where Mand would meet her friends, Greg Smith, Simon Albion and Gabrielle Jones, known collectively as the ‘Black Jumpers’, because they would wear hairy black mohairs all year round, whatever the weather. Curiously, they never broke out in a sweat, which was the cause of the rumour that the Black Jumpers were either into black magic or were blood-sucking teenage vampires.

  Past the steps of Block B, where Belle would sit with the revolving circle of kids in her group. Everybody in school wanted to be Belle’s best mate, mainly due to the fact that her father, gaming millionaire Adrian Askew, was developing a brilliant new virtual-reality game where you could explore the universe in a spaceship, play football for the national team, surf monster waves in Hawaii or even attend the Oscars on the arm of a gorgeous Hollywood actor. It had been the talk of the schoolyard for months.

  At Block E the girls traipsed up the stairs in sulky silence, the only noise coming from the heels of their school shoes scuffling against the lino, until they got to Classroom D 34. Ms Marrow sat at her desk, her head bowed, marking assignments with a bright red felt pen. Although she tried covering the paper with her arm, judging by the big fat red D, Elvis Martin hadn’t comprehended last term’s Shakespeare at all.

  ‘Miss, this just isn’t going to work,’ declared Cat, the group’s self-appointed spokeswoman. ‘There’s not one of us in this group who can get along.’

  ‘And this project is too important to mess up,’ said Wanda, who wouldn’t dream of letting her parents down by failing Year 10 English.

  ‘Please, Miss,’ said Mand, putting her palms together like she was praying. ‘It’s not only my English mark, my sanity depends on it.’

  ‘You’ve only had to spend thirty minutes together. What’s the problem?’ replied Ms Marrow.

  ‘Where do I start?’ said Belle. ‘We all have different tastes in everything: music, films, clothes, boys, food, friends, life. It’s impossible to come together and create something good.’

  ‘Do you know the term polar opposites?’ said Mand. ‘Chalk and cheese? Well, that’s us!’

  ‘I’m sorry, girls,’Ms Marrow interjected. ‘I’d like to help, but the groups were chosen by a selection of teachers. You’re the third group to come in and say the same thing. Looks like you’re just going to have to get on with it, and I suggest that is exactly what you do, instead of wasting my time and yours.’

  ‘Awww, Miss,’ said the girls in perfect harmony, as though they’d been practising for a choir of the whingeing. But despite repeated protests, Ms Marrow would not be swayed. They were stuck with each other for the next ten weeks.

  The girls congregated in the hallway, unsure of what to do next. So they did what they were very good at: complained.

  ‘That Bone, she’s a joke,’ said Belle. ‘You can just imagine all the teachers sitting around in the staffroom laughing their heads off as they made up the groups.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ said Cat. ‘Put surfie Jakie Daven-port with the nerdy Neil Knowles, that would be a hoot. Oh, oh, and add menta
l metal kid George Seaman, and footy-playing Niles Ooperheiner to the mix. It’ll just be the funniest thing ever. There should be a law against this stuff. Actually, I’m sure there is. It’s called anti-discrimination or something.’

  ‘How is this discrimination?’ said Mand, who often felt discriminated against because she refused to conform.

  ‘They’re turning our lives into a misery for their own enjoyment,’ said Cat. ‘The teachers have probably got a sweepstake on which group will crack first and have to repeat Year 10.’

  ‘Look, I’m not going to fail English because we can’t agree on anything,’ said Belle. ‘Let’s get together at my place tomorrow after school and try to work something out.’

  ‘Ohhhh, an invite to the mansion,’ said Mand. ‘Aren’t we just so lucky? Going to have your daddy’s chauffeur pick us up?’

  Belle rolled her eyes. ‘Just be at the bus stop tomorrow after school. And girls,’ she added, eyeballing Cat and Mand, ‘leave your attitude at home, okay?’

  The Askew mansion was Baywood’s major landmark, sitting on top of the hill – you could see it from any part of the town. Adrian Askew, a self-made millionaire, was famous around town for his television commercials that featured his good self, beaming out of the box, all balding and handlebar moustached, urging kids to ‘Get A Wiggle On’ and get on down to his Game On retail store. Even more devastating for Belle, at the end of every commercial her father would do a little dance and wiggle his hips like a hula dancer after drinking aRed Bull.

  Adrian had made his fortune from selling discount computer games and consoles all around the world. But recently he had been developing a virtual reality machine with a Japanese company. ‘The Vultron’ was apparently so lifelike, it was going to make every other games console obsolete. Every kid in school was desperate for an invitation to Belle’s place since her father had talked up The Vultron on the six o’clock news. Suited and wired up, he had taken one giant step for mankind as he virtually walked on the moon, in front of the television crew and every household in Baywood.

  Despite her wealth and minor-celebrity dad, Belle didn’t have any real friends. Her motto, since her mother had died when she was nine years old, was ‘Don’t let them get close, and you’ll never get hurt’ and she had stuck to her guns. She was never unfriendly, but there was a coolness about Belle that made you feel you had just gone swimming in the ocean in the middle of winter and got out to find that some bugger had nicked your towel. So the girls were as surprised as Belle that she had invited them to her house.

  Wanda arrived at the bus stop first – she hated to keep people waiting – followed by Cat, Belle, Maggie and, seconds before the bus arrived, Mand. The girls took their seats at the back where the atmosphere was decidedly chilly; there wasn’t much to say, so the girls stuck to safe topics. Belle and Wanda discussed weather (‘Yes, it has been hot today. I can’t believe Mand’s in that big jumper!’), and Cat rabbitted on and on to Maggie about who would be taking who to the Year 10 formal at the end of the year (Emma O’Connor had already asked Che Bartlett, who had said yes, but he really wanted to take Sharon Bright, who didn’t know that Che fancied her, so was considering going with Paul Patten).

  Mand shoved her MP3 headphones in her ears and shut out the world, dreaming of escaping to the city, where her sister Lottie lived in a terrace house with four other uni students. Lottie wasn’t too keen on Mand visiting after the puking-in-the-pub incident, which broke Mand’s heart. She idolised her older sister and felt completely rejected by her since she had left home.

  After a twenty-minute journey, the girls got off the bus and headed towards the big black gates of the Askew mansion. Belle pushed the buzzer and spoke into it: ‘Hello, it’s Belle.’

  ‘Would you like me to pick you up at the gate, Ms Askew?’ said the voice crackling with static.

  ‘No thanks, we’ll walk,’ replied Belle.

  Without a sound, the heavy wrought-iron gate with fancy swirling AA initials embossed into the grate, swung open and a long, tree-lined driveway stretched out in front of them.

  ‘Didn’t know we were going for a hike,’ said Mand as they set off down the drive, which was so long you couldn’t even see the house. ‘Is this why your chauffeur usually picks you up from school?’

  Belle ignored her and stomped ahead, the other girls following behind, accompanied by the sound of shoes crunching on the pebbles, sounding like the snap, crackle and pop of rice bubbles. Eventually the driveway led to a gigantic white mansion that resembled a huge white wedding cake. It spread skywards four levels and horizontally as far as the eye could see.

  ‘Whoa!’ said Cat, her jaw dropping open. ‘That’s twenty-five times the size of my place!’

  ‘Wow!’ said Wanda. ‘It looks like a hotel!’

  The front door opened and there stood Belle’s housekeeper, Mrs Biggins, a woman of about fifty-five, with a huge bust that had made her look matronly from the age of twenty-two. Her husband, the browbeaten Mr Biggins, kept the gardens and the lawns but it was Mrs Biggins who was the boss. And she kept a tight rein on ‘her’ house, as she called it.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Biggins,’ said Belle. ‘These are the girls I’m going to be working with on that magazine project.’

  ‘I hope you’re not going to be making a mess, Corabelle,’ said Mrs Biggins, folding her arms across her chest. ‘I’ve had the cleaners in today.’

  ‘We’ll be very tidy, we promise,’ said Wanda, who had impeccable manners.

  ‘There’s afternoon tea in the dining room,’ said Mrs Biggins. ‘But please be careful, I don’t want to find crumbs all over the floor.’

  The girls trooped inside, being sure to wipe their shoes on the doormat rather than face the wrath of neat-freak Biggins. Everything in Belle’s house gleamed. It looked more like a five-star hotel than a house, with its shiny wooden floorboards, delicate vases filled with freshly cut dahlias, plump white lounges, colourful paintings and exquisitely carved Indian statues. Despite its beauty, there was a certain coldness to the place, like nobody actually lived here.

  The girls wandered in stunned silence through the house as Belle led them to a huge dining room. In the middle of the room sat a grand dining table that could seat sixteen. A crystal chandelier was suspended from the ceiling, throwing speckles of rainbow-coloured light onto the pure white walls. Maggie thought about how long those white walls would remain white in her house, with her three sisters and little brother Billy, who was like a two-year-old human tornado.

  The girls pulled out the heavy wooden dining chairs, careful not to scrape the floorboards, which were so shiny you could actually see your knickers reflected in them. Belle served the girls lemon poppyseed cake and ginger ale that she poured from a crystal jug.

  Maggie noticed a rather beautiful painting of a radiant auburn-haired woman who had more than a passing resemblance to Belle, but even more surprising was the signature at the bottom: Corabelle. Maggie assumed it must have been somebody else; it was too professional to have been painted by a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl.

  Just as they had finished their cake, a tall woman with long golden hair and wearing the tiniest pink frilly bikini poked her head around the door.

  ‘Hello, Belle,’ she said, her pink lipstick dewy and shiny.

  ‘Reanne.’ Belle’s mouth puckered as though she had just eaten something distasteful. ‘Been sitting around the pool all day again?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your … friends?’ said Reanne, ignoring the question and walking in and plonking herself on the edge of the dining table.

  ‘This is my magazine group – Wanda, Mand, Cat and Maggie,’ said Belle. ‘And this is my father’s, um, girlfriend Reanne.’

  ‘Fiancée actually, soon to be Corabelle’s stepmother.’ Reanne stuck out her ring finger where a huge diamond glittered and sparkled. ‘I’ve been so stressed today. Your father’s taking me out to dinner tonight with some important clients and I’ve had to spend the entire day
getting ready. I can’t tell you the hell I’ve been through. I had to buy a new dress, not to mention matching bag and shoes, get my nails and hair done, as well as my bikini line. Have you ever had your bikini line done? It kills –’

  ‘Please, no, Reanne,’ said Belle, rolling her eyes. ‘We’re actually pretty busy ourselves – unlike some, we’ve got serious work to do.’

  ‘Don’t have a cow,’ said Reanne, stomping off in a strop, the suntan oil from her thighs leaving a greasy stain on the mahogany table.

  Once Reanne had left the room, the girls started laughing.

  ‘That’s going to be your stepmother?’ said Mand. ‘How old is she? She’s probably only just out of puberty!’

  ‘She’s actually twenty-eight,’ replied Belle. ‘She’s only been seeing my dad for eleven months and begged him to marry her. She says that otherwise people will think she’s only after him for his money. It wouldn’t be so bad, but she’s as vacuous as an aeroplane sick bag.’

  Belle wanted her father to be happy, she really did, but she couldn’t help but question what he was doing with a woman half his age who never asked one question about anyone or anything. It was me, me, me, and me, oh yeah and me, and have I told you about me?

  Belle’s dad had met Reanne Rowles at a fashion show called ‘Bikini Jam’, put on as a fundraiser for the Baywood Surf Life Saving Club. Adrian had sponsored the event and Reanne was one of the bikini models. From their first date, they had been inseparable or, more accurately thought Belle, Reanne had dug her claws into Adrian like a tiger into a zebra after a kill. Now Belle hardly got to spend any time with her father. He always invited her along to their dinners but the thought of having to listen to Reanne blather for hours and hours about her favourite subject – herself – made Belle decline every invitation.

  ‘She talks so much she makes my ears bleed,’ Belle told the girls. ‘When she moves in, it’s going to be a nightmare. It’s bad enough now, I never get to hang out with my dad by myself.’