Super Awkward (10 page)

“Got to keep myself in demand.” His hair had grown since I last saw him, mainly outwards. I looked at it curiously.

“So the rumours are true – you really are trying to grow the first ever in-built hair-helmet?” I sometimes wonder if he takes hairdressers an emoji as his inspo pic.

“Well, isn't that what girls are completely mad for these days? Safety
and
style?”

He ran his fingers through his thick black hair, like he was in a hair advert, but gave up as he realized he was rubbing finger crisp debris into his hair, creating salt and vinegar potato dandruff.

Tegan
politely pretended not to notice the falling morsels.

“If we can possibly hold ourselves back, might you be joining us for lunch?” She pulled out the spare stool beside her.

“Can't, I'm afraid. I've got a full week of homework to do, and thirty-seven minutes to do it.”

And he was still prioritizing lunch. I loved this guy. Although it was unlike him to turn down some Tegan time.

“Oh well, tomorrow? Same place, same time?”

“Sure – I could do with people seeing me hang out with the most badass girls at St Mary's. In fact –” he did a full 360 degree turn – “do you think they're seeing me now?”

Wow. I have never been called a badass before. Laughing, I pulled his jumper.

“Siddown. And tell us
exactly
what you've heard. . .”

“Only that between the three of you, you totally annihilated Luke in front of all of his mates?
Everyone
is talking about it.”

My stomach knotted. As much as I was glad we'd done it, I didn't love the idea of everyone chatting about it.

Tegan looked disapproving.

“
Well, everyone needs to stop talking about it, and get on with their own lives.”

But the hint went over Rachel's head – funny, considering she was so tall.

“It
was
amazing, though. I wish you'd been there Mikey! Srsly. Tegan and Bells were
on fire
!”

I jumped in.

“Not literally. You would have heard the alarms. And our jumpers would have melted.”

“Thanks for clearing that up, Bells.” Mikey laughed. “But melted jumpers or not, I wish I'd been there. It's about time that douche got a taste of his own medicine.”

I never understood that phrase. Surely the only medicine we taste is our own, or we'd all be stealing strangers' medicine, which sounded very risky. Mikey stood back up.

“Tomorrow you can tell me
all
about it. Just not loud enough for Tegan to hear, cos we don't want to be on the wrong side of Ms Power Woman!” He winked at her. “So I will love you and leave you as I've got a geography essay due in on South America and all I've got so far is – ‘it's like America, but lower'.”

Mikey was not like most of the other boys I knew. He was sort of, well, nice. I didn't have a brother, but if
I
did, and it was OK to have once fancied him for 0.5 days, then I imagine he'd be a bit like him. He'd been the honorary boy in our group ever since four years ago when he'd asked Tegan if she wanted to join their kick about on the playing field in our village. What started off with needing someone for a five-a-side, had developed into him being hopelessly and utterly in love with her. Not that Tegan could see it – or would believe it even if she could.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Rach gave me a cheeky eyebrow raise and I knew we were in for a classic instalment of BUM-ing. A pact we'd secretly made with each other to Big Up Mikey (BUM) to Tegan until she realized that he was a boy and not an inanimate object.

“Is it just me, or is Mikey looking all kinds of cute these days?”

Helmet hair aside, he
was
looking good. But Tegan didn't react one way or the other, and soon we got back to chatting about this morning and how we'd have to stay below the radar to make sure we didn't drop any prom points. Everyone started the year with twenty, and you needed ten to go to prom, so normally it's only the total troublemakers and jokers that are in real danger of not going. But Mr Lutas's bad side is a
dangerous
place to be. The only fun he has is when he's stopping other people's. That and painting bowls of fruit. Why can't he just take a picture of them instead, it's much quicker?

Mr Lutas had already docked me six prom points this year for being too engrossed in an article about the true meaning of your crush's messages, and accidentally switching off a freezer instead of a camera charger. I'd melted the entire Year 7 first-ever attempt at ice sculpture. On the plus side, I did learn when someone messages you with ‘See you later', it ‘ninety per cent might mean that they'll see you later'.

The bell rang, shattering our prom plotting, and Tegan and I reluctantly headed to double physics. As if that should be allowed on a Monday. Our surnames meant the two of us were in the same class for all of our lessons (top set, but on average our year thinks Macbeth is a type of sandwich, so it's nothing to be too smug about). The one good thing about physics was that it was so boring, it gave me plenty of time for thinking about more useful things. As Mrs Scuse droned on, I wondered whether, since she was so good at physics, she could explain why in her lab sixty seconds seemed to take six hundred. Or how my life could get so messy in 48 hours. In just two days, I'd landed myself with the
problems
of figuring out how to avoid Luke AND Mr Lutas for a whole term, and how to make a boy, who probably isn't speaking to me, doesn't go to school any more, and is wandering around Wolverhampton totally unaware, be my date for prom.

Mrs Scuse caught my eye and I did a fake-interested smile. Seriously, lady, as if I have any time to care about the heat generated by burning a peanut when all this is going on. The only thing I need to know about Kcals is that it's the bit of a crisp packet I don't look at.

As soon as the bell rang, Tegan and I scrambled towards the door, our bags already packed up as of five minutes ago. Rachel met us at our usual spot – by the tree with the enormous nobble, AKA Bum Tree – so we could walk back together. But someone I only half recognized was heading our way. She looked like one of the girls from JOGS.

“Hey, Teeg!” she shouted in our direction.

Tegan gave a tiny wave back, but her normally friendly face was lacking its usual smile. And so was Rachel's. The girl marched over, unaware.

“Hi, Rachel, great party, thanks. Bella, shame you couldn't make it.”

Was the atmosphere weird, or was it just me? I half-smiled, not wanting to be rude. But now she was closer,
maybe
I
did
recognize her after all. And she knew me. Wasn't she one of Tegan's gymnastics friends? She rummaged in her bag. Yeah. It was definitely her.

The weird tension suddenly made sense as gymnastics friend pulled something out of the bag. A wide-brimmed purple hat. THE wide-brimmed purple hat. She pulled it over her long brown hair, as if it wasn't the most vital clue in a snog-mystery ever produced. It should be in a museum, not on a head! As the hat weight went on to her shoulders, it instantly came off mine. Hurrah! Hat-rah! So SHE snogged Luke! Mystery solved!

I prodded the other two, but they hadn't twigged as quickly as me. Maybe I could get a selfie with us and The Hat, and send it to little liar Luke to show him he'd been caught out?

Hat girl registered the awkwardness. All three of us were acting oddly, but in very different ways.

“Sorry, have I interrupted something?”

The only thing she'd interrupted was us solving the final mystery. I wasn't cross with her. I was delighted! I leapt in to answer slightly too enthusiastically for someone she's only met once.

“You're not interrupting, it's GREAT to see you. Honestly. Really great, hatually, sorry, actually.”

Did
she look relieved or unnerved? My manic smile must have struck again.

“Well, it was just a quickie. For Tegan really.” Tegan was slowly shaking her head. Hat girl looked confused.

Hat girl looked back at me. I gave her a reassuring nod to carry on. She didn't need to explain herself. It was Luke who had caused all the problems.

“I just wanted to say
thanks
. For putting my hat back in my locker. Seriously, Tegan, I knew you'd take care of it. And you looked HA-MAY-ZING in it. You can borrow it again any time you like.”

I didn't hear any other words.

The hat wasn't a hat after all. It was a bomb. That Tegan and Rachel clearly thought they'd diffused. But they hadn't. And it had just exploded my world apart.

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

Plus side: at the age of fifteen years and one hundred and twenty-seven days I'd already achieved the worst day of my life. Opposite of plus side: my life was ruined and I could never go back to school again. And last year when I'd asked Mum about home-schooling, she'd suggested learning the Karma Sutra instead of biology, which meant that option was out too.

I couldn't figure out what was worse.

Having two ex-best friends.

Having the whole school see me shout at my ex for being a liar.

Having the whole school knowing all along he was actually the true-er.

Having a person I don't really know forever thinking
of
me as ‘that girl who had the most extreme reaction to a hat, ever'.

Being called a goat herder.

I
should
be cringing so hard right now, but luckily/ unluckily my cringe muscles are fully occupied with feeling one hundred per cent gutted instead. How
could
Tegan and Rachel do this to me? HOW? And
why
?! Why couldn't they have just told me? It was the lying that twisted my insides way more than the kissing.

I'd been walking, going nowhere, since it happened, hoping that being alone could help me work it all out. But all I'd worked out was how to get really sore feet, and that I should definitely de-junk my school bag more often. (Note to self, no one person needs to carry around seven half-used lipbalms. Unless they have multiple mouths. Which they won't.) My eyes ached with the feeling of tears pushing to come out.
Well, water blobules, you can stay right where you are. You're not deserting me too, not like everyone else
. I pushed myself upwards on the swing, the rush of air helping to seal them in. If there's one way to claw back some dignity after the most humiliating day of your life, it's by spending the evening solo-swinging in a children's playground. At least MIAGTM wasn't here to witness
the
tragedy of my life. Although he'd probably heard about what happened, and was laughing at me along with the rest of the world. I'd achieved the kind of humiliation that spreads all-years, all-school. Probably all-countries. People in Papua New Guinea were likely laughing at me right now. Eurgh. I was a human embarrassment epidemic.

I felt sick. Like that time I had to take two days off school after accidentally eating some potpourri thinking it was Bombay mix. It was obvious now.
SO
obvious. How stupid could I be?! Silly me for thinking that being a friend meant ‘always offering to share clothes or nail varnish or deodorant (even if it's roll-on) and being an OK person', not ‘being a total lying, scheming, ex-boyf-snogging, two-faced betrayal machine'. It made me so cross I actually ‘bleurghed' out loud, causing a pigeon to throw shade at me. After all the things I've done for them over the last fifteen years. The list was endless.

•
I've
never
told a soul that it was Rachel who set off the school fire alarm last year when she was trying to hair-straighten her maths homework.

•
I've pretended Tegan's evil cat, Mr Nibbles, is cute on a daily, even hourly, basis. I hate cats. I hate Mr Nibbles even more. In fact, I'd go so far as to say he is my nemesis and gives me evil looks when the others aren't looking.

•
I must have watched Hunger Games with them at least one hundred times – with added horror of Mr Nibbles glaring at me from behind a curtain – although SHOCKER I prefer the books.

•
For eight years I've kept my promise to Tegan about not saying anything about her hide and seek ‘problem'.

My swing jolted, almost throwing me off. In my rage I'd almost gone vertical. I didn't want a broken face to add to my list of woes.
Why was everything so rubbish?!
How could someone whose initials were BF be so BF-less?

If only I could snap my fingers and be magically transported to under my duvet with the base of my bed transformed into a giant fridge so I could exist there happily for ever after. But as I can't teleport, or even click my fingers, I guess I'm stuck here.

“
Bella, thank goodness I found you. I am SO SO SO SO sorry.”

So Tegan had figured out where I was. And the girl who never showed a chink in her armour was crying so hard she could hardly speak. I swung myself up higher.

“I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I SWEAR.”

STAY WHERE YOU ARE, TEARS. Don't you dare let her see how much she's upset us.

“It was when I saw that pic. I freaked out. It was just a game – you know?” She gulped in breaths between tears. I concentrated on trying to make hanging on for dear life to some children's playground equipment look aloof. “I have no idea WHAT was going through my head. As if I ever play snog and nom?!” Classy. “I swear I said I wasn't playing a zillion times, but something made me cave in. I'm so annoyed with myself.” She kicked at the floor. “SO annoyed!”

Great. The one time she gives in to peer pressure, and it's caught on camera. How brilliant for us both.

Tegan carried on, her normally calm voice bouncing all over the place.

“Then just as we started, Luke appeared out of nowhere. Seconds later he got snogged and had to nominate. He chose me. You should have seen his smirk. I didn't know he'd get someone to take a photo.
I
didn't even know he was still at the party till it was too late. And I thought if I made a scene and said no it would look like it was a thing. Like you were still into him. I SWEAR I was thinking of you.” She paused. “And now look what's happened.” She glugged a breath in. “And it's all my stupid fault.”