Kitabı oku: «The It Girl: Team Awkward»

‘You know, I think you will find that this whole situation will really boost your popularity,’ Jess said, leaning back against the cubicle door.

‘How, exactly?’

‘For one thing.’ She hauled her bag up from the floor sharply, causing her Chemistry book to tumble out on to the bathroom floor. Jess grimaced. ‘It makes you . . . approachable.’

‘Approachable?!’ I pulled my knees closer to my chest, struggling to maintain my balance on top of the closed toilet seat.

‘Yes.’ Jess shuffled into the corner of the cubicle and awkwardly leaned sideways to pick up her book, her forehead narrowly avoiding my knees. ‘Approachable. You’re one of the people, just like Princess Diana was.’

‘I don’t remember Diana, Princess of Wales, ever getting stuck in a plant pot,’ I huffed.

‘Probably because there were no smartphones back then,’ Jess said comfortingly.

‘This is so embarrassing.’

Jess looked at me. I could tell that she was less sympathetic than she had been before I’d forced her to cram herself into a toilet cubicle with me before school began on the first day of the summer term. ‘Are you speaking to your dad yet?’ she asked.

I sighed. The truth was, what had happened at Dad and Helena’s engagement party probably hadn’t all been his fault. But everything else that had happened up until then definitely was.

You’d think that after your dad decided that he was going to marry the most famous actress in the world, meaning that you suddenly have not only a future stepmum who has two Oscars sitting on her drinks cabinet but also a future stepsister who happens to be Britain’s most well-known It Girl, your life would get a bit better.

But noooooo. Since Dad’s sudden revelation last term I have:

1. Become the enemy of the most popular students in my year.

2. Accidentally tried to steal the Queen Bee’s boyfriend.

3. Accidentally set her best friend on fire.

4. Been left hanging upside down in a waterfall in front of my entire year, my Wolverine vest on full display.

5. Unintentionally become an It Girl in the press and almost lost my two best friends, Jess and Danny, when I attempted to use this to become more popular.

6. Sung Fame! in front of my WHOLE school, out of tune and with no backing music.

7. Fallen backwards into a plant pot, the video of which has now gone viral.

So yeah, you could say that Dad’s surprise, very public engagement hadn’t really helped my personal and emotional growth as a teenager.

And yes, it was pretty annoying of him to choose to have the party in Helena’s house rather than a super-cool exclusive club somewhere in London. I mean, come on, he’s marrying the most famous actress in the world and where do they choose to have their engagement party? At her home.

If you ask me, it’s disappointing.

But still. I guess it wasn’t not technically his fault that I fell into the plant pot. I don’t even blame Helena for having Dracaena Lisa plants in her house. Some people might think them an unnecessary decoration for a hallway. And yes, some people might perhaps have thought to move them away from a space that guests might be gathering in.

But I have decided to overlook this lack of judgement. For my humiliation there really is only one person to blame: the person who invented sausage rolls.

I told Jess this.

‘You’re blaming sausage rolls?’

‘No. Just the person who invented them,’ I stated. ‘I tried looking it up online. There’s no one listed specifically, but I bet it was someone who owned a cat.’

Jess, for some reason, looked confused. ‘What do cats have to do with anything? And why are we talking about sausage rolls?’

‘Because,’ I explained to her wearily, ‘that’s the whole reason we’re in this mess in the first place!’

At the party, I had been happily listening to Marianne Montaine, my It Girl soon-to-be stepsister, wax lyrical about her hugely famous rock star boyfriend Tom Kyzer. But Dad forced me to come with him so he could introduce me to some of his old-person author friends. They weren’t talking about interesting things like rock stars, either, just history and politics, which no one cares about really.

Luckily I spotted a waiter milling around with a platter of sausage rolls and an escape plan formed in my mind. ‘Sorry,’ I excused myself to no one in particular. ‘I’m going to go get a sausage roll.’

The waiter had sped back towards the kitchen, though, so I followed him. But as I looked back over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching, he came back out with another big tray of sausage rolls. I swerved to avoid him, he yelped, I got scared by the yelp, lost my balance and fell back into the plant pot.

Jess blinked at me. ‘And now you have a thing against sausage rolls?’

‘The inventor of sausage rolls. The sausage rolls themselves were not at fault.’

‘Well, it’s a great story that makes no sense,’ Jess nodded. ‘Now can we get out of this cubicle? There really is not enough space in here for both of us.’

‘But there are people out there.’

‘Yeah, and I’m sure they’re all desperate to hear the sausage-roll-plant-pot story.’

‘Jess, be serious. It’s all over the Internet. Everyone will be laughing at me. Again.’

‘I’m sure they won’t laugh. And if they do I’ll tell them off.’

‘Promise?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK, then,’ I gave in. Jess opened the cubicle door and squeezed herself behind it while I shuffled nervously out towards the sink and checked the coast was clear. She followed me.

‘Much better,’ she sighed, putting her bag down again so she could run her fingers through her hair in front of the mirror. ‘Now, what was I saying?’

As she spoke the door swung open and two girls from a couple of years below us came in chatting excitedly. They stopped as they saw us and then one of them hurriedly reached into her backpack, pulling out a notepad. ‘Hi Anna,’ she squeaked, coming nearer. ‘Can you sign this for me?’

Jess smiled at me encouragingly. This girl couldn’t be one of the four million people who had seen the plant-pot video.

‘Of course,’ I said in my most sophisticated voice, taking the pink sparkly pen that she offered and doing a swirly AH on the page.

‘Thanks!’ she giggled. ‘You getting stuck in the plant pot was really funny.’

I shot a look at Jess. I was very much ready for this girl to get told off.

‘It was hilarious, wasn’t it?’ Jess squealed – then she saw my face and stopped abruptly. ‘But, er, not that funny.’

I pursed my lips and then, head held high, swept past the two girls out of the bathroom. As the door swung back I heard the first girl say, ‘I’m putting this on eBay.’

‘OK, so that wasn’t the best telling-off I’ve given,’ Jess admitted as she walked beside me along the corridor, ‘but from now on I will be seriously cross if anyone even dares mention plant pots.’ She patiently waited while I fiddled around with the code on my locker.

‘Hey, anyone got any spare plant pots?’

I didn’t give Danny the satisfaction of turning round.

‘No, Danny,’ Jess said sternly. ‘That’s not OK.’

‘Hey,’ he responded defensively. ‘You’re the one who told me that you’ve sent the video to your relatives in Canada.’

I looked at Jess accusingly. She held up her hands. ‘That has definitely not happened. I have definitely not sent it to my four relatives in Canada and also a random second cousin in New Zealand.’

‘Cheer up,’ Danny said happily, giving me a nudge. ‘It’ll blow over.’

‘Can it blow over quickly?’ I hissed, my eyes darting towards a group of students with their eyes glued to a phone. They burst into laughter and looked up at me.

‘You have way more important things to care about,’ Jess said, a smile slowly expanding across her face. ‘Like your boyfriend.’

I blushed furiously. ‘Connor is not my boyfriend.’

‘Maybe not yet, but you’re a great match,’ Jess said matter-of-factly. ‘You’re both kind of weird.’

‘Did you see him lots over the holidays?’ Danny asked as Jess ruffled his blond curls. He swatted her off.

‘A little,’ I said quietly, looking round to make sure he wasn’t there. I still didn’t know how Connor, the super-gorgeous, comic-drawing, perfect-in-every-way boy who made my hands go clammy just by smiling, still seemed to like me despite all the ridiculous things I had done last term. Well, I thought he still liked me . . . ‘We saw some films.’

‘Aaaaand?’ Jess asked.

‘And what?’

She sighed. ‘I’ve only been asking you this question all holidays and you’ve been avoiding it. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said, turning back to focus on the contents of my locker in the hope that Jess wouldn’t make fun of how red my cheeks were going.

‘Did you . . . kiss?’

‘Jess!’ I exclaimed, hitting the back of my head on my locker door, which had started swinging closed behind me.

‘Well, did you, you smooth operator?’ Jess laughed, pushing the locker door back open for me as I rubbed my head.

‘It didn’t come up.’

Danny raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m surprised at that.’

‘Why?’

‘You obviously like each other.’ He shrugged. ‘Still, I suppose you can’t rush these things.’

‘OK, Dr Casanova,’ Jess snorted. ‘Since when do you know anything about these things?’

‘Casanova was not a doctor.’ Danny rolled his eyes. ‘What I meant was that Connor and Anna are both quite shy. Or, well, I guess I mean that Anna is quite socially awkward.’

‘I am not socially awkward,’ I protested.

They both looked at me.

‘Anyway,’ Jess cried. ‘Why didn’t Connor just lunge at you?’

‘JESS!’ I yelped, desperate for her to keep her voice down.

Despite my annoyance at Jess’s lack of subtlety, it was actually a question I had been asking myself too. Connor and I hadn’t seen much of each other during the Easter holidays. I’d had a bunch of things going on, including all of the celebrity events I now had to attend with Helena and Marianne, and Connor had been going to art lessons and working on his cartoon strip, The Amazing It Girl.

But still. There had been enough opportunities for him to, you know. Lunge at me.

‘It’s none of your business.’ I fumbled for my books and shoved them in my bag.

‘Oh please, it’s always our business. You’ve been thinking about it, I can tell,’ Jess teased.

‘I have not. Well, maybe a little. It’s just . . . do you think that . . . ?’

‘Ahem.’ Sophie Parker, the Queen Bee of Woodfield, had marched over with her ever-present sidekick Josie Graham. By the scowl on Josie’s face, she clearly still hadn’t forgiven me for setting her hair on fire last term.

‘Hello, Anna,’ Sophie said, coolly.

‘Hi, Sophie, how was your Easter?’

‘Great. I spent most of it with Brendan.’

I flinched. Brendan was the most popular boy in our school. In an attempt to prove my popularity last term I had accidentally (and temporarily) stolen him off Sophie. It was all sort of behind us now, though. Sort of. ‘That’s nice.’

‘It is,’ Josie sneered, from behind Sophie. ‘Because she’s Brendan’s girlfriend, duh. And it’s nice . . . being Brendan’s girlfriend.’

Danny snorted.

‘Thank you, Josie,’ Sophie hissed back at her. Josie looked embarrassed.

‘Miss Duke wants to see you in her office, Anna,’ Sophie told me, looking at her perfectly-manicured nails. ‘Pretty impressive, getting called to the headmistress’s office on the first day of term. Oh, and don’t forget to check out the list of events for sports day. I’ve put it up on the main noticeboard.’

‘Sophie was asked by the Sports department to put it up first thing this morning,’ Josie added as smugly as if Sophie had been asked to appear on the front cover of Vogue.

‘I take it you’ll be putting yourself forward to be team captain of the Puffins this year, Jess?’ Sophie raised an eyebrow. ‘Of course, there’ll be no competition for me – I’m going to be leading the Eagles.’

‘Actually, no,’ Jess answered calmly as I looked at them all in confusion. Puffins? Eagles? Had my school turned into a bird sanctuary over Easter? How had I missed this? ‘I want to put all of my focus on my Art project and my photography this term. So you don’t need to worry about me waving the winner’s trophy in your face when the Puffins win. I’m sure our captain will do the honours on my behalf.’

‘Oh per-lease!’ Sophie cackled. ‘The Puffins haven’t beaten the Eagles in years! Everyone knows you don’t have a chance. Besides,’ she looked me up and down, ‘it’s not like the Puffins have the . . . best team this year. Anna, I know you’re a Puffin. Good luck,’ she smirked. ‘I don’t think there are any plant-pot assault courses so you might not fail in every event.’ She turned on her heel and strode back down the hallway, with Josie laughing loudly next to her.

I looked at Jess in confusion.

‘Oh, don’t worry, I’ll fill you in about sports day later.’

‘Er . . . and the stern plant-pot telling-off you promised?’

‘Damn it!’