Super Awkward (22 page)

Mrs Hitchman looked like she was going to pop
with
fury. I silently shouted at my face to not look guilty. Or have any pea on it. Zac and the rest of the sixth formers she'd dragged back looked mortified that they were soon going to be supervising people who didn't know the difference between a basketball and a baked bean. I couldn't even look in Zac's direction in case Lou or Luke were watching me.

With no obvious culprit (luckily Luke had the sense to take off his splattered blazer), there was no obvious person to blame, so the whole room got a group guilt-trip instead.

When Mrs Hitchman eventually finished yelling and left the room, the canteen returned to normal. Spitting insults at us (the potato and bean still clinging to his head like triumphant rodeo riders), Luke finally went back to his table.

But despite his threats, I was a little bit happy.

I waved the thrower over.

“What made you do that?”

“Well, words didn't seem to be getting through. And when he put his arm around you, I lost it. So, y'know . . . when all else fails, shot-put a potato.”

I laughed. So did Rachel and Mikey.

“Shot-potato.” I replied then stopped as I worked out what to say next.

A
lot depended on it.

“Well, as much as I wanted to eat my meatless-meatballs, not use them as darts. . .” What decision was I going to make? “. . . Thank you.”

Thrower smiled. The kind of smile that made having a chunk of omelette in my shoe OK.

We still had a lot of talking to do, but for now, it was good to have Tegan back.

CHAPTER

TWENTY

It was only thirteen days till term ended, but for the first time this year, maybe ever, I was looking forward to going to school. Now I had my friends back, everything felt more positive. With their help I could focus on the most important thing during these two weeks of exams. Keeping Luke away from Zac. And hanging on to every single prom point.

Tegan, Rachel and I arranged to meet in our usual before-school spot outside the post office – which doubled as supplier of emergency morning chocolate and/or crisps depending on how bad the morning was going/how dire Mum's cooking had been the night before. As yesterday's dinner had been Tuna and Natural Yogurt Surprise – and the not surprising
surprise
was that it was entirely unswallowable – I bought both.

I waited outside, chewing on my chocolate breakfast and checking
PSSSST
. What had started as something to fill my friendless moments was now making me feel more popular than ever. I had my real-life friends back to tell my real-life dramas to, so could keep
PSSSST
to share the things that made me laugh. The cheese-in-ear story had gone down a treat. One person's evil-ex is another's six-second internet LOL. As well as the followers, I'd also got more people commenting. LilDrummerBoy made me laugh so hard with a post about sniffing his sister's scented nail varnish, but getting too close and gluing glitter on to his nose for two days, that I was still chortling when Tegan bounced up. She had a massive smile plastered across her face. We'd spent most of last night on the phone, her talking, me listening, her apologizing, me slowly beginning to realize that forgiving her wasn't betraying me. In fact, it kind of made me happier – give or take the annoyingness I felt at Jo being sort of right. I'd had to keep checking she wasn't listening at the door, ready to say ‘I told you so'.

Tegan hadn't said anything new, but the difference was I was finally ready to hear it. Plus, it's always nice
to
talk to someone who hates Luke as much as I do. We'd ended up catching up on everything – from Zac (who I sent photos of to Tegan, while on the phone, causing her to involuntarily gasp and say ‘oh my' at his beauty, like she was in a black-and-white movie), to Luke making out I was a liar, through to my prom point problem – promlem – and even a new gymnastics student Tegan's teaching who's only five and keeps saying Tegan has a gentle face. Except he pronounces it ‘genital'. Despite two threats from Mum to get off the phone, we ended up speaking right up until bed. Friendship Goals 1, German Homework 0. But, I'd woken up, bleary-eyed, to some picture messages from Tegan. Fact – there is no better way to glue a friendship back together than with the surprise gift of conjugated German verbs. I don't even know what ‘conjugated' really means. I thought it was something that happens to your eye.

When Rachel finally turned up, we set off for school. She'd been held up by a manicurist her mum had booked to come to their house that morning. Her mum literally nails life.

The three of us linked arms and we set off as a six-legged mono-person. I didn't spoil the moment by mentioning a substantial bruise was forming where the
corner
of Rach's maths textbook was whacking into my ribs. Rachel squeezed on both of our arms, happy to be back in the middle of us, rather than stuck in the middle of our argument.

“Sorry to sound like a cheese, but it's so nice being back together. We thought we'd lost you to the netball crew for a while.”

I couldn't help but laugh.

“Pah. As if. Did you not hear that I let in fourteen goals on my team debut?”

Tegan's bad attempt at a shocked ‘no' clearly meant an unshocked ‘yes'.

Rachel smiled supportively.

“Oh well. Who needs to stop balls being thrown into nets anyway? It's not like that's the one thing you need to become an internet squillionaire, or a music photographer,” she looked at Tegan, “or a human writing lawyer.”

Correcting her for the millionth time didn't even scratch the surface of Tegan's never-ending patience.

“It's human ‘rights'. Still, you got the points for playing right?”I nodded.

“Yup, got the points, lost the respect of thirteen girls, two teachers and around ten parents. So, nothing new there.”

Rachel
laughed, but Tegan wasn't smiling.

“Seriously, you two. We need to focus. Rachel – you haven't lost any all term, right?”

She nodded. “Yup, still got all twenty.”

“Good. I've got eighteen, as I lost a couple for having to wear my trainers after I forgot to put my shoes in my gymnastics bag. Bells – did you tell Rach where you were at?”

I rolled my eyes.

“It's not good.” I cringed at how much I'd let my life slide. “Eleven. I lost three when Mr Lutas caught me on my phone again, but got one back for netball. Which I then lost the next day when Mr Lutas overheard me describe Zac as a ‘sexicle'. He said it was derogatory, cos he doesn't get that being called ‘sex on a stick' is a good thing.”

Rachel OTT huffed.

“But that's not fair, because being a sexicle is just a factually accurate description for Zac. And that's not Bella's fault. Right, Tegan?”

Tegan nodded.

“Yup, definitely right. He's a bona fide hottie.” I felt weirdly proud at this confirmation, as if I myself had birthed him. “BUT we do need to hang on to every single point. The three of us not going to our first prom
together
is NOT an option. Especially if it's Bella's chance to get Zac back.”

She was right. Prom was exactly what the three of us needed to put this rubbish term behind us.

“Agreed.” I nodded firmly. “Times one million. So I suggest we start off with totally avoiding Mr Lutas. He's the Death Eater of points.”

Tegan had a determined look in her eye. When she put her mind to something, she made it happen.

“Totally. And do you reckon we could help get you any bonus ones to be on the safe side? We have –” she closed her eyes in concentration – “fifty-four school hours to get them.”

I chipped in.

“And fifty-four school hours feels like at least one zillion normal life hours.”

She smiled.

“Exactly. Plenty of time.”

We carried on walking, racking our brains for inspiration. I was going to have to tread very carefully. And that was literal as well, as I once almost lost a point for accidentally stepping on a ‘Mile of Maltesers' that the Year 8s had spent laying down in the corridors for charity. It really is surprising how far hundreds of malt balls can travel with one accidental step.

Tegan
squeezed my hand.

“Look, B, we got this. It's only a few more days of keeping Luke away from Zac, and staying drama free, and we'll be there. It's all three of us going to prom, or none of us, OK?”

It's what she'd said on the phone last night and she wouldn't take no, or even a ‘m-bee, let's see how it goes', for an answer. But before I could reply, Rachel dug her elbow into my side.

“Look!!” she hissed, pointing repeatedly at the other side of the road with a single finger, like she was doing hand aerobics.

There, just waiting for the bus, as if it was no big deal, was MIAGTM. Blast from the boy past. And what a cute blast it was. He'd been off-radar for a while, but seeing as Zac wanted me to pretend he didn't exist, I figured it was no longer morally questionable to appreciate how hot MIAGTM was looking. And by the look on Rachel's face, she wasn't having any issues about admiring the view either.

MIAGTM was laughing with his mates, trailing a football under his foot as he leant against the bus stop. Why do boys always take them to school like they aren't provided? It's not like you see me packing a netball and desk to be on the safe side.

I
swear the point of school uniforms is to render us all unfanciable in an effort to keep teachers' lives simple. But I can confirm, looking at MIAGTM, he breaks that rule. (I can also confirm, having looked in the mirror this morning, that I don't.) He's so funny too. I mean, I can never hear what he's saying, but I can just
tell
it's hilarious. As he his mates laughed at (probably) his most hilarious joke yet, I swooned out loud, like I was deflating.

“Oi! We can
hear
that.” Tegan jerked my arm, narrowly stopping me from striding into a hip-height bin, proving once again why I needed friends in my life. “Haven't you got enough boy probs in your life?”

“Surely looking can't hurt?”

“It can when you almost land head first in a bin, you nugget.”

I laughed. And stopped gawping. And gave the bin a dirty look for leaping out on me.

We spent the rest of the journey talking about the fact we definitely didn't need to talk about boys any more. But when we arrived at school, there was one waiting for us. And he looked unhappy.

“I'm so glad you're here. Wow, you're
all
here.” Mikey took a moment to register that it really was all three of us. “I wanted to give you a heads up.”

Gulp.
This didn't sound good.

“Mr Lutas is on the war path. Apparently – wait for this – Luke blabbed it was us that started the food fight.”

INWARD SPEW. How could Luke do this to me? To us? Mikey must have read my mind. Or just seen my face.

“Apaz he thought he'd get away with it if he dobbed us in, but he ended up getting in trouble too. Word is we might be getting detention.”

Oh great, I love it when bad gets worse. If I wasn't trying to hang on to the points I had left, I'd kill Luke right now. Although ‘psychopathic murderer' probably isn't the one quality that's going to score me a prom invite.

How dare Luke drag the others down with me?! Tegan had never had a detention in her life, and Rachel normally managed to talk her way round anything.

But Tegan looked like she had more than bad marks on her mind.

“Look, there's NO WAY you lot are taking the blame for this. It was me who started it, and I'm just going to tell Mr Lutas that.”

AS IF. If it was anyone's fault, it was mine for ever getting involved with Luke, not hers for sticking up for me. I corrected her.

“
And it was
us
who backed
you
up, 'member? You didn't squirt those condiments unaided, so don't even
think
about it. We're in this together, that's what we just agreed, right, Rach?”

Rachel nodded.

“Ms Fisher. Ms Allen. Ms Waters. Mr Jackson.”

CRAPFLAPS. Surname address meant one of two things. We'd time travelled to Victorian England, or Mr Lutas was at the front steps, and he was calling us, in front of everyone.

Sadly (not that sadly) my uniform hadn't turned into bloomers, so I had to concede to the latter. Mikey was scanning the scene, assessing who had heard. Luckily it was just the trickle of latecomers. He hated people being reminded he was called Michael Jackson.

We walked over to Mr Lutas.

“You may or may not know that I have news for you. Thanks to the stunt you pulled in the canteen yesterrrrrday, Mrs Hitchman has decided that you are to spend thrrreee of yourrrr rrrremaining evenings this term in DETENTION. A letter will be sent out to your parents.”

Thank goodness Mikey had warned us, or I'd be in serious danger of yelling ‘AAAARRRGGGGHHH, YOU MANIAC GIBBON' in Mr Lutas's face and
spending
every evening for the rest of my life in detention. Instead I shot Tegan a look that said ‘don't you dare say anything', trying to reinforce our earlier agreement with a complicated combination of squinting and slo-mo nodding.

“Underrrstand?” Mr Lutas growled.

Relieved that Tegan stayed silent, we all nodded, unenthusiastically, ignoring the nosey looks of everyone walking past. Mum was going to FREAK (a zen freak is still a freak) when she finds out.

“However, after a long discussion with the headmistrrress I have a prrrroposal for you.”

My brain accidentally pictured Mr Lutas proposing.
Shudder.

“End of term prrrom is fast approaching. One week. Two days away. Correct?”

Thanks, Mr Lutas. As if we hadn't been counting down ever since term started.