Super Awkward (14 page)

One for the bin. With huge hand actions I pressed delete, like my phone had big imaginary buttons.
Look! I don't want to be around your digital communications, let alone actual you
. They could stick their Babybel up their bum.

I SOL-ed (snorted out loud) at mental images of Bumbybel, but got weird looks, so tried to weave the
laughter
into whatever it was that Sarah was saying. I realized too late she'd moved on to talking about her cat dying. I shut up.

“You like quizzes. What's five letters and begins with S?”

EURGH. That smug voice made me want to spit out my sandwich. I spun round. Why had
Luke
come to speak to me? What did he want
this
time? Oh well, there was nowhere to run (plus running is forbidden in the canteen, plus plus I have a really embarrassing run). I plonked my gherkin sandwich aggressively back in my Peppa Pig lunchbox. Intimidating.

“Don't know. Don't care. So how about you leave me alone?” But Luke dug his hands further into his pockets. He wasn't going anywhere.

“Wrong answer. It was ‘sorry'. But I'll accept your apology however you want to give it to me.”

As if.

“Get lost. If I wanted to speak to you, I would have come over to douchebag corner, or wherever it is that you hang out these day.”

He grinned patronizingly. I swear even his nose was condescending. How could I have ever thought he was anything other than vom-inducing?

“You can always ask your
best mate
Tegan. She's
often
aware of my personal movements, if you know what I mean?”

He was trying to wind me up about the kissing, but he didn't know that ‘personal movements' was the exact phrase my mum used for having a poo. 1–0 to me. I matched his condescending smile, hoping my nose also joined in.

People were looking over at us, excited at the prospect of another shouting match. I caught Tegan and Rachel staring, concerned. Please tell me there were no more revelations? All I wanted was to be left alone.

“Look, I'm not in the mood for this. Just go away.”

I turned back to the table and took a big gherkin-y bite.
Can't you see I'm chewing here?
This whole situation bummed me out so much that it almost – but not quite – put me off my sandwich. It wasn't just everything that had gone down. Or being the centre of all the unwanted attention. It was the humiliation of everyone knowing there was a time when I
liked
Luke. I could kick myself at being sucked in by his fakery. I should have known we had, we
have
, nothing in common. He likes blonde girls that wear black bras under their school shirts; I like going to fancy dress parties in a sleeping bag and pretending I'm a caterpillar. He likes girls on bikes; I like boys
with
guitars. He likes making ramps; I like trying to recreate album covers with nail varnish on my toenails. Everyone knows who he is; a lot of people still think my name is Tina (always Tina, I have no idea why).

A battered rucksack slammed down next to my Peppa flask (note to self, must work harder on intimidating Tupperware).

“She doesn't want to talk, all right? So if you could do one, that'd be great.”

Mikey plonked himself on to the stool next to me. I hadn't seen him since Tegan, Rachel and I had fallen out – it was good to know he hadn't switched to the dark side too.

Luke slapped his hand on Mikey's shoulder as his mates bunched up around him. Did they ever speak, or just spend their spare time choreographing ‘threatening lad' moves.

“If I wanted the opinion of a nobody, I would have asked a Year 7.”

Mikey stood up again, and drew his shoulders back. I swear he was a foot taller than normal.

“Well if
we
wanted the company of the biggest jerk in school, we would have asked that loser who once put the wrong answer when an exam paper asked for his own name. Oh sorry. THAT'S YOU.”

Luke
pushed at Mikey's shoulder.

“If you've got a problem with me, mate, just come out and say it.”

Mikey smiled warmly.

“I am saying it,
mate
. I've got quite an epic problem with you.”

Wow. I'd never seen Mikey have a problem with
anyone
or
anything
. Was it wrong that my main thought was that it was kind of hot? But when I looked back at him, I realized this wasn't about me. Because despite Luke being all up in his face, Mikey was distracted, staring across the canteen, the anger gone from his face. He wasn't just protecting me, he was protecting the person he couldn't help but watch to make sure she was OK. Tegan. And she was oblivious, whispering to Rachel. With all her As and full marks, she could sometimes be so clueless.

My heart sank for Mikey. He'd give anything to kiss Tegan, and Luke had done it just for laughs. No wonder he was so angry.

“BOYS.”

I looked up. A furious looking teacher was striding towards us, his face wrinkled with the strain of not smiling for at least fifty years. I tugged at Mikey's jumper.

“
BOYS, ENOUGH!”

Why was it
always
Mr Lutas that arrived at the wrong second? Maybe his jangly pockets were stuffed with misery magnets that automatically dragged him to our worst moments.

Mikey murmured a sorry. Luke thought he was far too cool to actually say anything and swung his shoulders instead.

“You do not need me to rrremind you that aggrrressive behaviourrr is not tolerated at this school. So unless you want to lose YET MORRRREE prom points, I suggest you put this petty feud to one side and start behaving a little less like children. Understood?”

Mikey nodded. Luke still did nothing. Mr Lutas jangled his keys/coins/magnets in his pocket. I didn't try to work out what – no one wants to see teacher groin jiggle, whatever the mechanism. Instead I smiled at Mr Lutas, trying to distance myself from the drama. But a cold-as-ice stare met my gaze.

“And that goes for you too, young lady.”

Oh excellent. He hated me enough
before
this term.

“One morrre wrrrrrrrrrong move from ANY of you and it's a one-way ticket to detention.”

It was the worst timing ever, but my face went rogue and looked inappropriately impressed at his
monumental
tongue roll. Mr Lutas totally noticed. I tried to regain control. “NOW GET GOING!”

Luke stormed out of the canteen. Mikey sat back down beside me. The rest of the room switched back from gawping to gulping. My shell-shocked lunch crew looked horrified. The most drama they'd ever had at their table was when Sarah's best mate Pam discovered her Oxtail soup was actually made of an ox's tail, and it wasn't just a posh name for a vegetable. I hoped they knew this was kind of high-visibility new to me too. But, quickly, kindly, they got back to lifting the mood with chat about how OMG, they just realized they'd all visited the same cat crematorium. Mikey didn't even pretend to listen and turned to talk to me.

“Sorry about that. I didn't know Mr Lutas was around.” He reached out and stole a crisp. “Luke winds me up something chronic.”

“You and me both.” I picked my packet of crisps up off the table. “Thanks for helping me out. Him
and
Mr Lutas seem on the warpath for me this term. It sucks.”

“Tottalius suckius muchius.” He stole another crisp. “Well, guess I just wanted to say ‘hi'.”

I put my crisps into the safety of my lunchbox.

“Hi?”

He waved before swooping his hand down to nabble
the
last crisp in the packet. I shut my box lid on his fingers. He pretended nothing had happened. “Now we've both said hi.”

“Sure have, a ‘hi' point of my day.”

We laughed, but his face flushed at me catching him shooting yet another look at Tegan. I couldn't think of what to say. All I had was, ‘Isn't the girl you are in love with a total and utter cowbag, so how about stop looking at her?', and I didn't think that was a dead cert to help the conversation flow. Mikey sensed my awkwardness (yet again proving he is the most un-boy boy I know).

“OK – well, cool. I don't want to disturb you and your friends any longer.” He stressed the words
friends
as if to say, ‘Who are these people that I had no idea you even knew, but whatever that's fine'. “And thanks for the crisps.” He winked, and waving goodbye, walked out of the canteen in the opposite direction to Luke.

I wanted to make a move too, so stuffed my mum-made vegan, dairy-free, no-chocolate brownie (with added bits of Chomp in) back into my lunchbox. I still had fifteen minutes of break to kill, which meant fifteen minutes to head to the library to locate a book on Modern Art, for Zac-date revision purposes. Annoying I couldn't just borrow one of Rachel's, but I
wasn't
about to ask
her
for favours. Zac said he was in to a man who painted soup cans, which sounded like the kind of art I'd like. Wonder if he painted beans and sausage cans too? I waved goodbye to Sarah and the others.

“Bye, Bella – see you same place tomorrow?”

“Totally.” Well, it sure beat any other option I had.

“Don't forget to let me know how it goes with netball today? The team's going up any minute?” Oh yeah,
that
. Sarah is also one of the sporties in our year. The reason we first got talking is because, in the nicest way possible, she'd asked me why I'd suddenly got off my arse in games lessons and had started joining in. Games lessons had previously been an opportunity to gossip with Rachel, keeping one eye on our overenthusiastic games teacher, so we could break into action if she looked over. Tegan achieved enough for the three of us anyway. Now, it was a whole other ball game. Literally. This week, taking part meant avoiding unwanted convos, and winning the tiniest chance of finally getting into a team. And teams meant points. And points meant prom. I only had fourteen – four more than I needed to go, and with Mr Lutas already unimpressed with me, I wanted more spares in the bank.

I
walked the long way out of the canteen, strategically avoiding any places I could bump into Tegan and Rachel, past the team noticeboard – that didn't have my name on – and underneath the menacing picture of Mr Lutas on the wall. Even his fake eyes on me made me shudder. His only happiness seemed to come from making others massively unhappy. Although . . . maybe two could play that game?

I swung by my locker to grab my phone. We were only meant to use them for emergencies, but this kind of was one.

NAKED AMBITION

WHAT KIND OF A PERSON LIKES TO

DRAW THEMSELVES NAKED? OUR ARRRRT

TEACHERRR, THAT'S WHO. AND FROM

WHAT I'VE HEARD, HIS BIG PERSONALITY

MAKES UP FOR SOMETHING ELSE

NOT SO BIG. IN HIS PANTS.

I mean, Jo hadn't
technically
said that, but I'm sure she would have done if she hadn't been trying not to think of the detail.

I pressed send. I didn't need to be on
PSSSST
any more, but I was kind of enjoying it. Now I had
someone/
something I could tell my secrets to, who was actually going to keep them safe.

I made my way into the library and began revising. I felt like an intellectual being here on my own, as normally I'd only come here with the others to whisper-gossip.

But as I flicked through the art books I recognized from Rachel's room (must remember, the bigger the artist's hair, the more ‘influential' they are), practised imaginary chat about my college, and made playlists of bands Zac would approve of, I neglected the one thing I should have been reading up on.

If only I'd hunted for the book on, ‘Ten Top Tips On How Not To Make A Massive Dork Of Yourself In Front Of The World's Hottest Man. Twice.'

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

Why does my face always know when there's a crucial Bella life event and develop a strategically placed comedy spot? I gave myself – and the massive spot between my eyebrows – evils in the mirror. I hope my face knows I am cross with it.

I looked out of my bedroom window. Everything looked normal considering it was a totally un-normal day. Today was Z-day. And Z-time was only thirty-five minutes away. I wouldn't get up pre eight a.m. on a Saturday for anything else. Probably not even a house fire.

Today was the day I had to try and make Zac like me again. As in,
like
like. I'd planned to messy-style my bob, paint my nails (the advanced polka dot look I've
been
working on), shave my legs, pluck my eyebrows and clean some of the grime off my shoes. However, even though I'd geared my entire week around today, I was totally behind schedule, and only had time for emergency plucking of my hedge-esque brows (avoiding spot of doom). I also had to abandon nail painting too, meaning only two out of five on each hand have got gold dots on. I'm going to have to pretend it's a
thing
here.

I'd almost suffered a physical meltdown too, as I tried on over thirty outfit combinations in under fifteen minutes. Skinny jeans are basically a workout. Someone should make a fitness DVD out of it.

I shouted downstairs.

“Mum – can we go PLEASE? I don't want to be late.” There was no way Zac could see me cadging a lift off my mum, especially not in the brown Mini of shame. My rare attempt at not being late triggered the Mum-suspicion-alarm.

“Just need a wee. Who are you meeting again darling?” Classic mum move – interrogation disguised as casual concern.

“Just my new netball friends.” I'm
sure
Zac could love netball, so this wasn't technically a lie until he said otherwise.

“
I thought they stopped speaking to you yesterday when you fractured the captain's wrist in PE?”

Correct. In real life they probably
were
never going to speak to me again. But this was made-up life.