The Manifesto on How to be Interesting (15 page)

2) They trolled people on the internet

Seriously. It took up about fifty per cent of their time. There was this national website – Dirty Gossip – where you logged onto your own school's page and posted rumours about your classmates. Their head teacher had been on national news trying to get it banned. Bree had clicked on it once and read all sorts of awful and simply implausible things about fellow students.

With glee, Jassmine etc. would make up random crap (
Hannah Jayden got fingered by Seth but then her fanny sneezed on him
) and post it via their phones – though they swore to Bree it was all true. Either way, she'd heard crying in the same toilet stall Natalie had used, looked underneath it, and saw Hannah Jayden's shoes. Bree considered making a poster for the cubicle, like the ones you see on the backs of toilet doors in cafes and stuff for domestic violence.

Are you a victim of Jassmine Incorporated? You're not alone. Call our free helpline service on 0800 LIFE'S UNFAIR to talk to a trusted advisor.

That was the weird thing. The posse really knew everyone – like,
everyone
. Who they were, who they fancied, how rich they were, what their parents did. Bree had always assumed they found everyone else irrelevant. But, in fact, no one went under their radar. They kept tabs on the somebodies, the nobodies, and the inbetweeners, while simultaneously spreading malicious rumours about them. Bree had always thought their perfect lives were just down to luck. But luck had nothing to do with it. Other students' lives were harder because they made them harder. Because they kept them down where they belonged. Like the captain of a pirate ship making crewmates walk the plank so there wasn't a mutiny.

3) They were OBSESSED with what they looked like

Bree wasn't sure if it was just them, or all girls. But these girls piled make-up on like it was running out. Bree had already started getting up an hour earlier to get ready for school, yet she reckoned her new “friends” took double that. They all wore fake eyelashes. Every day. They all GHD'd their hair into perfect ringlets or flicky waves, securing the style in storm clouds of hairspray. And they were always on the lookout for the latest miracle product. It was only now she realized the true power of her lipstick.

It was tiring though – living life as one big photo shoot. Wherever she turned, the word “Smillllllllllle!” was yelled at her and a phone camera lens would be shoved in her face, the picture immediately uploaded onto whatever social networking site was in that week. Every outfit was documented. Every “look”. Every style. Every pound of weight lost.

These girls were their own PR and marketing gurus, plugging their product of “me” at any given opportunity. Only up-close were the flaws visible – like Monet paintings. Gemma, for instance, had spots. Jessica had the world's largest forehead, carefully hidden under her sweepy fringe. Emily was so pale she couldn't find a foundation white enough to match her skin tone.

It was only Jassmine who was visually perfect. Isn't that always the way? There has to be one that's naturally gorgeous – just to add that extra pull of envy.

Bree documented these discoveries on her blog, typing out everything each night. Exhausted. It felt like extracting poison from a wound.

Material. It was all writing material, she supposed.

It was her first creative-writing club since Mr Fellows had agreed she could come back.

She stood in front of the half-empty classroom with two top hats nicked from the drama cupboard, one in each hand.

“Right,” she told the small class. “In my left hand you've got your subject. It's a hat full of nouns. Please don't ask me to explain what a noun is otherwise I will bash you to death with a Collins dictionary.”

The cluster of Year Sevens and Eights chuckled.

“Good. Now, in my right hand is a hat filled with stuff that could happen to your noun.” She reached in and grabbed a piece of folded paper and opened it up. “Like this one says
Gets lost in a storm
. I want you guys to come up here, pick something from each hat, and then use the combination of the noun slip and the action slip to write a short story.”

The miniature people, all looking too small in their businesslike school uniforms, nodded enthusiastically.

“Brilliant. You've got until the end of the lunch break. Up you come.”

They scampered over, grabbing bits of paper and opening them up like Christmas presents. “
Oooh
”s and “
What have you got
?”s filled the room. When they were all quiet again, Bree leaned back, put her feet up and sighed. Her shoes were killing her.

“Feet hurt?” Mr Fellows pulled up a chair next to her. Bree ignored him at first and looked at her teeny students, frantically scribbling in their exercise books in pencil, snapping the lead in their excitement.

“You know what's really depressing?” she said, gesturing to them. “Is that, in two years' time, they'll swear on their mother's life that they never used to come to this club.”

Mr Fellows gave her a small smile and lazily propped his chin on his palms.

“Strange, isn't it? Secondary school. You think
you
find it hard? I'm here year after year, watching eager children bounce up on their first day, rucksacks rigidly on their backs, desperate to read. And then I have to watch their slow deterioration into adolescence. You know, when I became a teacher, I had all sorts of daydreams that I'd be like Robin Williams in
Dead Poets Society
. I thought I'd dazzle students with my knowledge of words, get them to love books as much as I do, and at the end of term we'd all get matching
Carpe Diem
tattoos or something.” He sighed, and looked over the desks. “But, no, year after year, you all grow up and get hormones and I'm just the saddo teacher harping on about poetry.”

One girl, JoJo, caught Bree's eye. Her nose was so close to the table it was almost rubbing it. She'd already filled a page of her book.

How long until she finds boys and it all goes downhill?

“Why do you do it then, sir?” Bree twisted in her wheelie chair and fixed him with a stare.

“You get the odd student who makes it all seem worthwhile.” He stared back and time slowed a little.

Then he chucked a book at her. Bree almost missed it, distracted by searching for the meaning in his words. She caught it just in time though and looked at the cover.

“Franz Kafka?”

“I thought it was about time you were enlightened.”

Bree grinned and chucked the book back at him. “I've read it already.”

Mr Fellows missed the book and it landed, splayed open, on the floor.

“You're kidding! I didn't find Kafka until I was at university.”

“Yes, well, I'm probably smarter than you were at my age.”

Mr Fellows returned her smile. “As I said, some students make it all worthwhile.”

It felt nice in there – in his classroom, with the little ones. She'd forgiven him for all the pretending-he-didn't-kiss-her bollocks. Now she'd lost Holdo, Mr Fellows was the only person left with whom she could be Bree. He was her mini-break from her double life.

As if guessing her thoughts, he said: “So what do your new mates think, then? Jassmine and her crew – I've seen you with them. Are they impressed that you're running the creative-writing club?”

Bree smirked. “They think I have detention.”

“Extra-curricular activities aren't cool, then?”

“Sir, this is Queen's Hall, the only school on earth where extra-curricular activities
are
‘cool', as you so out-of-touchly put it.”

He picked up the Kafka book and put it away in his desk drawer. “So why the lies then?”

“There are extra-curricular activities, and then there's running the creative-writing club.”

“So creativity isn't cool?”

“Please stop saying ‘cool', sir.”

He held up his hands. “Point made. So these new friends of yours? They can't be good friends if you're lying to them.”

Bree turned to watch the students again, all of their heads off in a world created by their imagination. A million mystical miles away from the reality of school.

“This is secondary school. Everyone lies to everyone. The earth would stop rotating if someone under the age of eighteen in this place said something that wasn't utter bullshit…”

She stopped herself and thought of Holdo. Was that true? Was she being fair? He never spoke bullshit…in fact, he was unpopular because he was so open about what he believed. Did he care? He didn't seem to… Was it only Bree who cared?

When she side-glanced, Mr Fellows was giving her another look. A look that said he got it. Similar to the look he gave her outside the golf club. She felt heat rise up her body.

“Bree…”

“What?” She flicked her new blonde “do” round to face him fully.

“I—”

“FINISHED!”

Enthusiastic JoJo banged her exercise book on the desk between them.

Bree jumped. “Wow – already?”

She nodded, her ponytail bobbing.

“What was your noun and action combo?”

“Peanut butter sandwich and the storm one.”

“Tough one. What did you come up with?”

“A teddy bear's picnic that gets out of hand,” the girl said confidently.

“Riiiiight. Wow. Original. I never would've thought of that.”

The girl glowed from the praise – it was like a light bulb illuminating her from inside. She leaned forward. “You're friends with Jassmine Dallington and that lot, aren't you?” Her voice was full of awe, like Jassmine and co. were Pulitzer Prize winners or something.

Mr Fellows noticeably bent in to hear Bree's answer.

“Kinda, yeah.”

The girl leaned in further. “What are they like? You know…in real life?”

Bree was so tempted to say,
Well, why don't you visit
www.themanifestoonhowtobeinteresting.blogspot.com
and find out that they're all actually dull bitches?
but decided against it. Now was not the time to blow her cover. So much still needed to be done. So many words still needed to be written. Good ones. Interesting ones. Not like old-Bree ones.

“They're just people, JoJo.”

“They're not… I think Jassmine looks like an angel.”

Bree shrugged the comment off, a bit annoyed. “This looks like a good story,” she said, changing the subject. “Do you want another combo?”

“Yes please.”

She held out the two hats and JoJo grabbed more slips and ran back to her desk.

Mr Fellows chuckled. “Wow. You hear that? You're friends with angels, Bree.”

She was more annoyed now. This was supposed to be her time to escape all that crap. “You know, magic tricks are never that interesting once you know how they're done.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” he asked.

Bree looked out of the window in the door and watched students trickle past in big clumps. “I dunno. It's just not so exciting, is it? Once you know it's just a hanky stuffed up someone's sleeve?”

He got up and sat on the desk, blocking her view of the corridor.

“Why are you suddenly close with them, Bree? What's going on? You're a completely different person from the girl I spoke to a couple of weeks ago.”

“You're the one who told me to live my life, sir.”

“I said ‘life'. Not ‘a lie'.”

She stood up, really annoyed now. The heat from her body shotgunned up to her face.

“So me being pretty and popular is a lie then?” she whispered at him angrily.

He held up his hands. “Whoa. No,” he whispered back.

“Well, you're suddenly talking to me now. You weren't so interested in that different girl two weeks ago, were you?”

Mr Fellows glanced over his shoulder to make sure the students weren't listening.

“I don't know what you mean,” he whispered.

But he did, she could see it in his face.

“I think it's you, Mr Fellows, who's lying.”

And, for the first time ever, she left creative-writing class early, banging the door behind her.

She was in such a rage she didn't look where she was going and smacked right bang into Hugo's rugby chest.

“
Doooph
.”

“Ouch. Walk much?”

She looked up, rubbing the arm which had taken the brunt of the collision. Recognition dawned in his face as their eyes made contact.

“Hey, it's you,” he said. “Where are you leaving in such a hurry?”

“Detention.”

Hugo raised one of his perfectly-formed dark eyebrows. “Detention? Already? You're not starting out well, are you?”

“Huh?” Bree tried to fight all the internal urges swimming round her belly triggered by the eyebrow raise.

“It's just, you're new, aren't you? I've seen you with Jass. Isn't it a bit soon to be getting detention? Especially at Queen's Hall…you'll be down on the ‘naughty list' straight away.”

It was just as well she'd decided that “nonchalant” was the way to win him over. She bristled with anger. “Hugo. I've been in your form room since Year Seven.”

He ran a hand through his gorgeously spiked hair and smiled mischievously. “No way.”

“Yes way.”

He laughed. “Well, that's embarrassing.”

“For you.
I
know who
you
are.”

He puffed out his chest proudly. “Well, everyone knows who I am. Look at me.”

She knew she was supposed to giggle, but – thank GOD – she didn't think he worked that way. Not really. Maybe when he was part of a boy herd, but not now, just the two of them. So she rolled her eyes and – bingo! – he unpuffed his chest. Just like her research movies had told her he would.