Supermodels and schoolgirls: An excerpt from Australian writer Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s upcoming novel, ‘West Girls’

“Since learning I was beautiful, I often struck poses, like I expected model scouts to pop out of the bushes.”

It began with compliments that didn’t seem like compliments. Like the hoon who yelled out of his car, telling me to go back where I came from. Or the nonnas and yia-yias and tetas who came up to the deli counter, smiling like I was their favourite granddaughter and speaking to me in their languages. Or Jinrong’s dad remarking that I looked like a Uyghur movie star. I had to ask my dad what a Uyghur was. When he told me, I wasn’t pleased. I wanted to look like Marissa Cooper.

One Sunday, taking the train home from the city, a lady in a Grimace-purple tracksuit with effed-up teeth gave me the evils all the way to Karrakatta. When she jumped out of her seat, I cowered. “Girl, you’re soooo pretty,” she slurred, Bundy-breath stroking my face. “… Thanks.”

After she got off, I linked eyes with the only other girl in the carriage. Shrugged as if to say, ‘It happens’. She rolled her eyes. Crossing the river, the train’s windows became solid-gold mirrors. I couldn’t look away. A few weeks later, a guy with a soul-patch and soulful brown eyes tapped me on the shoulder while I was waiting for the bus. I paused my iPod Shuffle.

“Sorry to bother you. I just saw you listening to your music and thought, ‘She looks like she’s got incredible taste in music’. Can I ask what you’re listening to?”

“The Killers.”

“The Killers!” His eyebrows jumped up. “So… am I right in saying, you’re kind of an alternative girl? You’ve got interesting taste?”

“I guess.”

“You seem like an interesting girl. I could tell, looking at you, you’re not like other girls. What else do you like?”

“Um.” The way he was gazing into my eyes, I felt like he was about to ask if I was ready to accept Jesus as my Saviour. “I like dance music, too.”

“Dance, awesome. So, techno, house? You like clubbing?”

“I’m not old enough.”

“Oh.” His eyebrows dropped. “Can I ask how old you are?”

“Fifteen.”

“Wow. Okay. When I first saw you, I thought you were eighteen, nineteen, easy.” This seemed pretty stupid, given I was in my school uniform. He noticed my frown. “I don’t mean you look old. Just… mature for your age. Sophisticated.”

“Okay then.”

“When do you turn sixteen?”

“August.”

“What’s that, Leo?”

“Leo-Virgo cusp.”

“No wonder you seem interesting. Are you having a party?”

“Maybe.”

“Listen. I wouldn’t say this to any fifteen-year-old, but if you need any drinks for your party, let me know. A girl like you deserves a real party. Can I give you my number?”

I got out my Sailor Moon pencil case, let him write his name and number in the back of my notebook. His name was Damon. I told him mine, then said I had to go, my bus was coming. “Nice to meet you, Luna.” Damon didn’t break eye contact as he shook my hand, fingers short and clammy. “Let’s party, sometime.”

A few weeks later, Grandad died. Then I had exams. Then I started taking more shifts at the deli to save up for Malta, where we were going over Christmas to scatter Grandad’s ashes. By the time I returned, I knew I could do better than Damon. All the girls were excited about Makoto before he even set foot on campus.

Getting a new guy halfway through term two, our final year at Pleasance Senior High, was newsworthy enough. But an American with a Japanese mother and a Russian father, who’d been in Teen Vogue and walked in San Diego Fashion Week.

Also, he was gay, and the only other openly gay guy in our year group was Julio Deleon, who was doing a hairdressing apprenticeship so was hardly ever around, and when he was, mostly just did nangs behind the canteen with Krystal and Carmen. Which – no offence to Julio – wasn’t what most of us wanted from a gay best friend.

I didn’t really think I had a chance with Makoto. Still, I was disappointed when he wasn’t in any of my classes, and even more disappointed when, of all girls, he befriended Caitlyn Benson – the hottest remaining member of the big group of blondes we sometimes called ‘the Barbies’, sometimes ‘the Aryan Sisterhood’, sometimes just ‘the Blondes’.

Most people called her Caitlyn B, to distinguish her from Katelynn G, Katelin M, and Caitlin W. Her friends called her CB. It was widely known that CB was on the books at Horizon Model Management, and also that she’d given a blow job to a West Coast Eagle. How we knew this, I don’t know. Nobody in my group talked to CB. Nobody cared about football.

My group were born in the Philippines (Flory), Hong Kong (Jinrong), Sri Lanka (Bhakti), Taiwan (Pei-Yu) and Brunei (Rose). There was also Penny, who had a white dad but whose mum I called ‘Tante Ayu’ whenever I met her smoking menthols in my stepmum’s kitchen. I started sitting with them in lower school, when we were all shy and I was fat.

By upper school, we were less shy and I was the opposite of fat. Yet we were used to each other. And I blended in: straightening my black hair, ordering Filet-O-Fishes instead of Big Macs, bitching about those cock-sucking Barbies with their year-round tans. I even knew how to squat the Asian way, feet flat on the ground.

If any of these girls took geography, I might’ve never had anything to do with CB. As it was, I sat alone on the bus trip to the Darling Scarp, staring out the window with my headphones in – except for the minutes when Emil leaned over his seat and asked what I was listening to, was I cold, did I want his jumper? Trekked alone with one bud in my ear as Mr Chiggens led us through jarrah-marri forest in his Sea Shepherd shirt and Akubra, pausing at a bleeding marri trunk. “Any guesses what’s going on here?”

“Needs a tampon!” Tristan called out.

“Nobody?”

Makoto raised his hand. “Red gum. It’s a kind of kino, or acaroid resin.”

“Bingo!” Mr Chiggens beckoned us closer. “Now: in Noongar, we call this resin ‘mayat’. It’s used for its antiseptic properties, and as a treatment for diarrhoea. Doesn’t work on whitefellas. Tristan, you’re outta luck …”

As Chiggens talked, I half-listened, half-leaned against a marri, pelvis out and tummy in, thumbs tucked into the loops of my indigo low-riders like James Dean. Since learning I was beautiful, I often struck poses, like I expected model scouts to pop out of the bushes, contracts at the ready. I didn’t expect to see CB, staring.

Glittery green eyes. Like my birthstone, peridot, barbed with black mascara. She held my gaze without smiling. Bitch. I looked away. When I looked back, CB was whispering to Makoto. I crossed my arms and hunched into myself, letting my cold hair fall in my hot face. I had both earbuds in, re-boarding the bus. Makoto tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Lana?’

“Luna,” I corrected, removing my music.

“LU-na! Cute!” His accent was so American, his hand-on-heart pose so fawning, I was sure I was being mocked. “You know your body’s perfect?”

“Um?”

“I’m not hitting on you!” Cringing, he made as if to back away. “Perfect for runway.”

“Oh.”

“CB’s agency is doing a model search.” He lowered his voice. “Go for it. Otherwise it’ll just be boring blondes.” I looked back at CB, laughing wide-mouthed against Tristan’s shoulder as he made ‘bock-bock’ noises behind Chiggens’s back.

“Okay then,” I mumbled, returning my music to my ears. Months later, CB would tell me how she was too shy to talk to me when she first saw me, leaning against that tree. We’d both been at Pleasance since we were twelve, but that was the first time she saw me.