I met Kylie at school, when we were in Grade 7. She wasn’t in my class but we were in science club together. She was quiet and shy. I liked that because I like being quiet too. A lot of kids think making noise is good, but I think the less you say the better. I just like to keep quiet and hope no one notices me. I don’t want to get noticed; getting noticed causes trouble. At least that’s what I think. At least that’s what always happens with me.

We were so different from each other. I’d always been big for my age and now I was also fat. Too fat I guess. Kids teased me, but I’d got used to it in a way. I was not ugly though, just plain. But my mother always told me none of that mattered. What was important was what was on the inside. I believed her, but I sometimes thought no-one else did.

Kylie was tiny. It was like she’d stopped growing at about eight years old. She had thin, tiny wrists and small feet. She was like a doll to me. Where I was tough on the inside, Kylie was soft and fragile. When I look back now I think I loved her the first moment I saw her. I knew we’d be best friends forever. Even now, after everything, I know we’ll be best friends always.

Kylie and I became project partners. We decided to grow beans. We wanted to show whether bean plants move in the direction of light. It was a nice project. I like growing things and so does Kylie. Plants are never insincere. They appreciate everything you do for them. If you water them and make sure they have sunlight, they will grow for you.

We won a prize for that project. The bad part was having to go up and get the prize on stage at school assembly. People laughed at us. Afterwards, Kylie vomited in the bathroom, she was so upset.

“It doesn’t matter what those kids say. You just need to ignore them,” I told her there in the bathroom, as I looked for a Chappies gum in my book bag.

“Yes,” she said that day, though I knew she wasn’t listening. She was like that, Kylie. She liked to make other people feel better. She wanted me to think that what I was saying was helping her, but I knew it wasn’t. I felt bad about that.

I tried to change the subject. “Were your parents happy to hear about the prize?” I asked her.

“Sure,” she said.

I wondered about her parents. She never said anything about them. She had told me her father was sick and her mother was dead. She never said how her mother died and I never asked. I could see it upset her. I also knew she had an older sister. I hadn’t even known where she lived, but later, after some years, when we became good friends, she told me she lived in Evandale. But I never went to her house.

I didn’t like to upset Kylie. I always felt like it was my job to take care of her. I failed I guess. That’s what I feel worst about, how badly I failed her.

***

Tell us what you think: How might Gosego have failed Kylie as her friend?