Le Triangle

The gathering begins as it always has; three sections are drawn from each head of cornsilk hair. Three pairs of arms weave a snaking, blonde rope down a slim, pale back. Three elastics are snapped against the end of a tight, perfect braid. Three girls stand from the compact triangle they have formed and admire the handiwork of whoever had sat behind her.

This is how meetings of their triad have always been. Their braids have become tighter over the years and so have their waistlines, but nothing much has altered between them since they first met on the Curtis family’s glistening pontoon all those summers ago.

Ada doesn’t remember much about that day. All she knows is that the three of them had somehow forged a friendship as their legs dangled lazily above the glittering country club marina. And here they are now, thirteen years later—all of them almost sixteen, all of them sweating in Diana Curtis’ crucible of a bedroom and all of them flipping through the various magazines that had arrived in the mail for Mrs Curtis earlier that morning.

To an untrained observer, Evelyn seems to be working through Women’s Weekly. Ada herself is halfway through Harper’s Bazaar, but neither of them are reading. From where she’s sprawled against the rug, Ada watches Evelyn’s eyes focus on the front cover of Vogue and the manicured, chip-dusted fingers smudging the glossy paper. That is what they’re all waiting for: Vogue, and for Diana to be done with her turn.

Their braids have become tighter over the years and so have their waistlines, but nothing much has altered between them.

Time continues its sluggish trek forward as Ada’s gaze wanders to the posters tacked to the wall. Once there, she lets herself swim for a moment in the six-packs protruding from the more handsome bodybuilders, the charm exuding from the rising stars of Hollywood, the danger radiating off the shirtless guitarists. They are locked behind a sheen of gloss, these men with their watercolour eyes and shaggy heads of strawberry blonde, but Ada is already half-submerged in their sideways glances and open, hungry mouths, so she might as well sink lower.

On the afternoon she had put them up, Diana had declared the figures on the posters to all be foxes; they were beguiling, mischievous creatures. They would be the last thing she saw before she went to bed and they would be there before she awoke in the morning. Sly and coy as they were, they would watch her, and she would watch them. Evelyn had made a faint noise of agreement, and the three of them had sat on the floor for the rest of the afternoon, surrendering to the bright-eyed stares of the foxes that circled above and around them.

‘Do you think I’d look good with short hair?’

Both of them look up at Diana. With her back pressed against her silken ivory sheets, she callously flings her magazine in Ada’s general direction. A model with chiselled cheekbones and a head of cropped black hair glares from the page. Ada looks away, her neck flaring. Diana would look good with short hair; she has the bone structure for it, delicate as she is. There is no doubt.

‘Of course,’ Ada blurts out in the heat of the moment. She has never been one to think or process her words. ‘You’d look good with anything, Di.’

‘That’s sweet,’ Diana replies. Ada is reminded once more of why the rest of the world is infatuated with small-chested, wide-eyed Diana Curtis. Her potholed pavement of a throat has been roughened by swallowed ash and inherited huskiness, the muscles in her forehead ease when she smiles and the world awaits her next movement with bated breath. ‘I think I’ll give it a go. Change things up a bit.’

Ada agrees. It is time they changed things up a bit. It is. But—

‘I don’t know, Di…’ A rustle of coated paper, the crack of adolescent bones sliding into place. Stretching as she shuffles forward, her braid swishing like a fishtail through calm water, Evelyn inspects the model in the magazine. Synthetic rosewater, carefully sprayed on her face but moments earlier, gushes from her pores. ‘We’ve always kept it long. None of us would be able to braid that, you know.’

Diana’s noncommittal hum buzzes fly-like from her Cupid’s bow, and like a trio of waxen figures frozen despite the heat, they stay as they are: Ada hunched over the model, Evelyn extending like a kitten and Diana flat on the bed.

‘But just think about it. Would it really be so bad if I couldn’t put it up in a braid? Long hair’s never done me any wonders.’ With a sluggish hand, Diana seizes her plaited hair and unleashes it from its elastic prison; tresses of gold unfurl from her face like astigmatic rays. A fist curls slowly around the strands. Gently, her locks are lifted and they coil against her chin.

Difference is the hallmark of the…creature that blinks lethargically at Ada. This is not Diana Curtis but something chiselled and sharp-edged. Harsh as it is, the pretend cut is blunt enough to accentuate Diana’s pointed teeth, her aquiline nose. The shortness of it all leaves her freckled neck vulnerable to the elements, but no one would dare sink their teeth into her skin. She’s too predatory for that. Too unfeminine.

‘You think about it, Diana. You know that your mother wouldn’t let you.’ Ada has never heard Evelyn’s voice command with such precision, never seen it slice so expertly through the oppressive heat that envelops their summertime haven.

The fist loosens; the creature rescinds. Diana Curtis rejoins their triad once more. ‘I won’t have to listen to her for much longer,’ she argues, sitting up. Vogue lies forgotten against the pink rug, the model’s face orange with chip dust. ‘We’ll be adults, girls. Women. And women don’t listen to their mothers or care about juvenile hairstyles.’

The shortness of it all leaves her freckled neck vulnerable to the elements, but no one would dare sink their teeth into her skin.

Diana’s gentle gaze fixes dangerously on Evelyn’s guarded one. Ada is immediately reminded of a spider watching as an insect finds itself engulfed by webbing, a fox smiling at a wounded rabbit.

‘Ada,’ Diana says. Her languid eyes do not leave Evelyn’s frame. ‘Be a dear and pass me the scissors.’

When it comes to hunting, Diana is every bit her namesake, stalking men and oppositional opinions with the same voracity. Ada has lost track of the girls who have fallen victim to her claws; the boys who have succumbed to her charm. The question of virginity, however, is where the girl and the goddess diverge.

Ada had been there when Diana had been deflowered. She had witnessed her Lachlan Samuel’s bedroom two months ago with a grown-up swagger, a glimmer of otherworldly superiority twinkling behind her lidded eyes as if she had been welcomed into a society to which she alone had access.

They have never discussed this development; they’d never felt the need to. Undeniably, though, the evening had effortlessly—and silently—affirmed Diana’s position as the apex of their triangle. How could it not have? Here was a girl who had gotten a head start. Here was a girl who had ventured into a world of pacing, sharp-toothed foxes and emerged triumphantly. In Ada’s eyes, there is simply no stronger claim to authority than the spoils of maturity that Diana Curtis had won from her conquest. As of the present moment, Ada sinks when she stares at the figures leering from the walls. She’d much rather float.

‘No, don’t,’ Evelyn protests, her pupils are frantic as she looks over at Ada. ‘You can’t. What about us, Di? What about the braids? And—?’

The heat of the day swims before Ada’s eyes like an evasive fish, its scales rippling with visible waves as it courses through a marina that is fuzzy in her memory.

‘Ada,’ Diana repeats. ‘Pass me the scissors.’

Pointed ears, coy smiles, narrowed eyes. Fragmented traces of the foxes flicker in shades of russet and brown, leaping up and down the pale bedroom walls.

Ada stands from the floor. The scissors are tucked in a drawer nestled in Diana’s vanity. The blades are sharp and smooth.

Their gathering had begun as it always has, but it ends with a withered plait of cornsilk hair curled helplessly on the floor. A wailing howl escapes Evelyn’s reluctant throat. Two heads, one freshly shorn and the other not, incline towards the ceiling.

The circling foxes leer as the triad surrenders to their gazes once more.

‘Le Triangle’ is the winner of the KYD School Prize 2025. Read the judge’s report here.