Making Trouble by BROOKE BLURTON and MELANIE SAWARD is a follow-up to The Good Kind of Trouble and is a heart-warming, coming-of-age story of dance and footy for younger YA readers. Read on for an extract.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Things don’t always go to plan. I should be at the Australian Ballet School. But instead, here I am, boarding and going to school hundreds of kilometres away from home, but I feel even further away from my dreams. At least I’ve got Jamie … that part’s deadly. Until she finds out my secret.
Stella is nervous about another new city, a new school and new friends. Her love for ballet – and Jamie – pulls her forward, but fear threatens to drag her back home.
It’s only when she thinks she’s lost everything that Stella starts to see what she’s been missing. Maybe she can shine – in class, on stage and in her own story – and make her family and Jamie proud.
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EXTRACT
NARM
Dear Diary,
The day is here and our new lives in Melbourne are about to begin. I feel like every second year I write an entry like this. I expected to be leaving Parkerton and Mum and Dad behind this year, but going to MICs wasn’t the plan at all – I’m still not sure how I feel about it. Part of that feeling is knowing I’m probably not supposed to be here. This weird, churning kind of feeling rises up in my belly whenever I think about my scholarship.
You’re the only one who knows the truth about me being here, Diary. I haven’t even told Jamie and you know I tell her everything. But this secret will upset Jamie if she finds out, so I’ve got to try real hard to push it back down and not let that feeling eat my guts to pieces. I need to focus on how deadly it is that Jamie is going to be with me at school – we wouldn’t have been together if I had gotten into the ballet school like I was supposed to so that part is good.
Like Mum says, I just have to focus on the positives.
Love,
Stella xx
Jamie is basically vibrating with excitement from the minute we get to the airport. Everything about it fascinates her, even though it’s just Perth Airport. Compared to Brisbane, where I used to live, or Melbourne, where we’re going, it’s not that exciting to me. I imagine myself seeing things through Jamie’s eyes instead of rolling mine. I remember that Jamie is a small-town girl – her family has stayed in one place. Mine has moved around a lot. One thing is not better than the other, just different.
‘How do they know which plane to put the bags on?’ Jamie asks, as her new big black suitcase – a gift from the Parkerton footy team – disappears down the conveyor belt.
‘The tag we put on it has a code,’ Ms Reilly explains.
Jamie looks worried and Ms Reilly gives me a look that says: Stella, you’re not making this easy. I resolve to bite my tongue and let Ms Reilly handle Jam’s questions.
‘But it hardly ever happens,’ I add, trying to be helpful. I reach for Jamie’s hand and give it a squeeze.
The truth is that even though I’ve been on planes before, I reckon I’m more nervous than she is today. Melbourne Indigenous College – MICs – is not where I thought I’d be going this year: my plan had always been the Australian Ballet School – ABS. But I’d caught COVID in July, right at audition time, and got so sick that I’d missed not only the Perth auditions but the ones over east as well. I’d been in bed for basically two whole weeks and it had taken months to get myself back to my usual rehearsal schedule. And even though I won my place to MICs, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for … I shake my head, and Jamie throws me a questioning look. ‘There was a mozzie,’ I say, dropping her hand and swatting at my face. She holds my gaze for a second, and I can tell she’s not quite convinced, but she doesn’t say anything. She trusts me.
It takes us ages to get through security and then, finally, we’re in the airport. We wander around the newsagent to waste some time before our flight boards. Jamie looks at the snacks even though Ms Reilly took us to Woolies to stock up last night when we got to Perth because she said the ones at the airport are a rip-off. I go straight for the books since that’s where I always go, especially since we’ve been living in Parkerton where the library takes ages to get new books in. I pick up a novel called Borderland by a Kokomini author and flick through the first few pages. I really want to buy it, but I don’t have any spending money, just emergency money that I’ve had to give to Ms Reilly for safekeeping.
‘They’ve called our flight,’ Ms Reilly says, coming over to me. ‘What book have you got there?’
I hold it out to her. ‘Oh, that’s Graham Akhurst’s novel, good choice!’ she says, glancing at the book’s yellow cover. ‘He’s coming to teach some writing workshops later in the term.’
Something about this makes me want the book more. If the author is coming to school, I need to make sure I know everything about the book before he comes. Ms Reilly smiles. She’s pretty young for a city teacher – my dad has always said the young ones do their rural service first to get it out of the way. She has long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, blue eyes and really good skin. She told us she’s not mob, which surprised Mum when she arrived to meet us a couple of weeks ago, but apparently lots of the staff at MICs aren’t Indigenous.
‘We’ve got the book in the library at MICs, we get all the new Indigenous books donated by a sponsor,’ she says, seeing the way I tighten my fingers around the cover. ‘Come on, let’s go get on the plane.’ I slip the book back on the shelf.
Because I’ve flown lots of times before, I let Jamie have the window seat even though technically it’s my seat. I sit in the middle and Ms Reilly takes the aisle.
Jamie is buzzing with excitement as the plane pushes back, flicking through the channels on the screen in the seat, looking at the movies she can watch and letting out a low, ‘Yesssss,’ when she sees that she can even watch footy while we’re in the air. She’s such a dork and I love her for it. But then when the plane reaches the runway and the engines get louder, I see the colour drain out of her face.
‘What’s that sound?’ she asks.
‘It’s just the plane getting ready to take off,’ I reply.
‘Stella?’ she says gulping, ‘This is winyarn. I wanna go back to Parko.’
‘It’s a bit late to change your mind,’ I reply with a grin. ‘I don’t think they’re going to let you off. The doors are closed.’
The plane starts to taxi, the seats shaking and rumbling as we speed down the runway. I expect her to say something cheeky back because that’s my Jamie, but when I glance at her, she’s sitting straight-backed in her seat, hands gripping the arm rests so hard that her fingers are going pale. What a time to learn that she’s a nervous flyer.
I reach over and put my hand over hers. Gently, I prise her grip away from the chair and give her a little squeeze. All the worries in my body slip away because I’ve got somewhere to channel my feelings now: looking after my girl.
‘But bags go missing all the time,’ I reply, thinking about the one time me, Mum and Dad flew from Brisbane to Sydney and our bags didn’t make it. We were lucky that my gran – my mum’s mum – lives in Sydney and had money to help me replace all my dance gear, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to perform.
‘You know what?’ I say, leaning towards her ear and speaking just loud enough for her to hear over the plane noise. ‘You can do this. We can do this. Because we can do anything together.’
She gives me the smallest smile, but I feel her grip relax in mine, so I know she’s feeling a bit better. ‘Together,’ she repeats, as the plane lifts into the air and we fly away from Perth and towards our new lives.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Brooke Blurton is a proud Noongar-Yamatji woman and broke records as the first Indigenous and bisexual Bachelorette for Network Ten’s reality television franchise. Brooke is a passionate mental health advocate and champion of young people, especially First Nations and queer youth, and all people of colour. Brooke developed her passion for mental health advocacy as a youth worker by reflecting on her own challenging journey and educating young people about essential life skills, including Aboriginal Mental Health First Aid. Brooke is an RUOK Ambassador, supports the Uluru Statement from the Heart via the Uluru Youth Network, and is a champion for LGBTIQ groups. She lives in Melbourne.
Read more about Brooke Blurton here.
Melanie Saward is a proud Bigambul and Wakka Wakka woman. She is a writer, editor, and academic based in Tulmur (Ipswich), Queensland. Her debut novel Burn was published in 2023 and her first romantic comedy novel, Love Unleashed, was published in 2024.
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