But it’s worth enduring every minute for the moment when the buses zoom past the Circular Quay turn-off and head into the Rocks.
Beth Tupman is the first to notice. ‘Hey!’ she says loudly. ‘I think we were supposed to turn left back there. Harriet! We’re going the wrong way.’
Harriet looks so genuinely surprised that I’m almost convinced by it, even though I know better.
The chatter quiets down. Everyone watches as Harriet staggers up the aisle in her ridiculous heels and makes a show of speaking to the bus driver.
She staggers back. ‘Apparently there are road closures,’ she announces. ‘We have to go the long way round.’
This satisfies the passengers. Fools. They return to their ear-splitting conversations. The bus winds its way deep into the Rocks. The noise only settles down again when we screech to a stop in a narrow laneway and the doors wheeze open.
‘This isn’t Dish,’ says Beth.
‘No, but look.’ Eileen Sarmiento points.
Some of the girls start shrieking.
There are so many people craning to look through the windows that it’s not until I’ve pushed my way down the aisle, out the door and into the cool air that I get to see it for myself.
I sense someone hovering next to me. ‘Nice,’ I say under my breath.
‘I told you the bus trip would be worth it,’ murmurs Harriet.
Smoothly she moves away into the crowd, slipping between guests to follow Edie through a timber doorway. Above it is the enormous banner that’s been getting all the attention, lit up by festoon lights.
AMELIA WESTLAKE WELCOMES YOU TO ROSEMEAD’S YEAR-TWELVE FORMAL.
Chapter 30
HARRIET
The whole thing was relatively straightforward to organise: a call to Dish to cancel our booking; a chat with the Sphere team; a word with their friend who cooks at Deep Fryer; and a visit to the Parnells, the family whose daughter, Lucy, I tutored in Maths. Fortunately for me, not only did Lucy do extremely well in her recent trigonometry tests, but her parents own (in addition to the Heritage Resort and three CBD restaurants) this club in the Rocks: a below-ground space with exposed beams and dripping sandstone walls. They let me hire it for a discount, which makes up for the cost of the hefty deposit I lost to Dish. I even had enough spare to pay the Deep Fryer team for the catering.
Once those details were settled, all that was left was to arrange for Liz Newcomb to help with the decorations and let the bus company know about the slight amendment to the route.
The teaching staff that planned to attend have no idea where we are. Principal Croon and her friend, Mr Chair of the Board, are similarly none the wiser. Which means they won’t be making a welcome speech. They won’t be attending this year’s formal. We won’t be enforcing their ridiculous rule.
And in their place, Will gets to be here, after all.
‘This place rocks out,’ says Eileen Sarmiento as she comes through the door beside me.
‘I know, right?’ says Daphne Chee behind us. ‘It’s like, way cooler than the place we originally booked. Go Amelia Westlake.’
‘Yeah, go Amelia. What a babe,’ Inez Jurich chimes in.
Arthur, beside the stage, waves me over. ‘Hey, Harri, where can I find another one of these?’ Dressed in his army pants and leather jacket, he is dangling a power cord in the air. Glitter shimmers on his cheekbones in the dim, yellow-tinted light.
‘Check the greenroom.’
Arthur cups a hand to his ear.
‘THE GREENROOM,’ I repeat. The music has already started – a soundtrack Nat put together on the weekend. She promised me there wouldn’t be too much heavy rock and so far the music is suitable, but I make a mental note to talk to her about the volume.
‘I saw some more power cords on the other side of the stage.’ Liz Newcomb is beside me. ‘You want me to get them?’
‘Oh! That would be great.’
She races off. I must say, Liz has proven herself to be extremely competent during these past few weeks. And sensible. And friendly. I have definitely been underestimating her.
‘This is amazing,’ says Edie when I find her ten minutes later at the bar. She is attempting to eat a Deep Fryer burger from a paper plate with a relative amount of decorum. By now, the club is almost at capacity. People are eating, drinking and mingling in groups. Nat’s soundtrack is getting dancier, preparing the crowd for the live act soon to appear on stage.
‘I was expecting a sit-down dinner, complete with fussy table settings and daggy top-forty hits. This may in fact be the coolest school formal in all of history.’ Edie is clearly astonished. ‘You say one girl organised the whole thing? I thought you were organising the formal, Harriet. Why have I never heard of this Amelia Westlake?’
‘That’s easy,’ says Zara Long. She leans over the bar, where she is helping herself to another jug of sangria. ‘Amelia Westlake doesn’t exist.’
It is Zara’s tone of complicity that fascinates me. I hardly know the girl, and yet here she is talking like she’s in on the whole thing.
‘She’s right,’ I tell Edie, making an effort not to sound too proprietary. ‘Amelia Westlake is basically a made-up person.’
Edie’s eyes widen. ‘You mean she’s a hoax?’
‘Something like that.’
‘What else has she done?’
I pause. ‘The odd cartoon, I believe. A joke involving essay marks.’
‘I can’t believe you never told me about any of this. Really, Bubble. I know you loathe anything playful or political, but this is genius.’
‘I don’t loathe playful or political things.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘No, she doesn’t.’
I turn.
My heart quickens. It isn’t as if Will has even spent any money on
