Katy Birchall - The It Girl - Don't Tell the Bridesmaid

I held my arm out to illustrate my story. ‘But I’m not wearing any jewellery so the security woman was weirded out by the whole thing and that got me thinking: maybe I’m actually a product of a scientific experiment that went wrong and when I was little they injected me with an experimental serum just like Captain America, but it didn’t work out so my parents have kept it secret from me all this time and the only way I’ve discovered the truth is because whatever chemical runs through my veins sets off airport security scanners!’

Jess lifted an eyebrow. ‘Yeah, I actually meant were you OK with all the press out there, but thanks for that really long spiel of crazy.’

‘Oh.’ I checked my wrists suspiciously anyway. ‘Yeah, it was fine. Let’s go to the information point.’

As we walked, I filled Jess in on the family dinner.

‘Marianne and Tom are moving in together?’ She looked surprised. ‘I thought he was on tour at the moment.’

‘He is. When he gets back, they’ll sort it.’

‘Ah. More importantly, though, how did you leave things with Connor? Did he give you a passionate goodbye kiss?’ she teased, nudging me with her elbow as I swatted her away.

‘No! Well, you know.’

I felt my cheeks growing hot. It hadn’t exactly been the most romantic setting, what with my whole family in the car behind us as we stood at his doorstep.

‘Well, thanks for inviting me tonight,’ he’d said, as I spotted everyone in the car looking very obviously the other way. Except Dad who was having his head forcibly turned by Helena.

‘Thank you for coming,’ I replied. ‘I hope my family weren’t too overwhelming. They can be.’

He laughed. ‘They were great.’ He paused, pushing his fringe back. ‘I’m going to miss you, Spidey.’

I blushed at the nickname he’d given me on discovering that we were both big Marvel geeks.

I opened my mouth to say something along the lines of how I wished so badly he could come with me to Rome and was there any chance he could forget about the comic book for just two weeks. But I stopped myself, swallowing my words. It wasn’t fair. I should be proud of having such an intelligent and motivated boyfriend who was willing to give up his summer holidays to work on something he was passionate about.

‘I’ll miss you too.’

‘By the sounds of things, I’m not sure you will,’ Connor joked, looking slightly uncomfortable.

‘What are you talking about?’ I said, taken aback.

‘Oh, you know.’ He jerked his head towards the car before looking down at his feet. ‘What Helena said . . . You’ll be having too much fun.’

‘I’d have way more fun with you there.’

Connor smiled and reached across for my hand.

‘HOOOOOONK!’

I jumped round at the embarrassingly loud car horn just in time to see Helena giving my dad a reproving whack across the head.

Oh my God. Just let me curl up and die in a hole in Outer Mongolia right now.

‘Haha. I guess we should be used to having an audience by now.’ Connor laughed nervously. ‘At least they don’t have cameras.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m not sure a car horn is much better,’ I muttered, glaring at my dad.

‘It will be nice for you to escape the press in Italy. Plus,’ he smiled, ‘I’ll be shut away in my room most of the time working on The Amazing It Girl so they can’t use me as an excuse to hound you. I’ll be away from it all.’

‘Sure,’ I said, trying to match his enthusiasm. ‘Although, you know, it would have been better to get away from it all together.’

‘I know. It would have.’ He nodded. ‘But we’ll speak and message all the time, though.’

The car honked again and my dad gestured for me to hurry up, pointing at his watch. I felt a little better when I saw Helena give him yet another thwack over the head.

‘I better go!’ I sighed. ‘Good luck with the comic.’

And then that had been that.

‘That’s it ?’ Jess looked unimpressed.

‘What were you expecting?’ I laughed. ‘A pledge of his undying love?’

‘That would have been nice,’ she said before getting overexcited at all the headphones on display in the electrical store. She ran over to try them all on and I followed, picking up the first pair and shoving them over my ears, immediately shutting out all the busy airport noise with a tragically slow romantic ballad about heartbreak. Not quite what I needed right now, but I wasn’t going to show that in front of Jess.

I sighed. The truth was that I was a little disappointed at my goodbye with Connor. I don’t think some signs of a little more pain and heartbreak at having me leave the country for two weeks would have gone amiss. A little tear? The exchange of romantic tokens, perhaps? Obviously nothing gross like in the olden days when they exchanged lockets of hair, which, you know, probably would have creeped me out, but something .

I comforted myself with the reminder that Connor was shy and I wasn’t exactly the smoothest of operators. And that my dad seemed to have lost control of his senses when it came to what’s appropriate in a seeing-your-daughter’s-boyfriend-safely-to-the-door situation.

And they say that distance makes the heart grow fonder. Just like Arwen and Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings for example. Or Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson . . . Anyway, he had definitely said we’d speak every day. I’d probably even have an email from him waiting for me as soon as I landed telling me how much he regretted not being able to have a proper goodbye . . .

Suddenly my headphones were yanked off my head. ‘Hey!’ I spun round to find Jess was standing right next to me.

‘Didn’t you hear me say your name like a hundred times? It’s time to go join the group,’ she said, placing the headphones back on their stand. ‘You were in some sort of weird daydream.’

‘No, I wasn’t,’ I said, feeling my cheeks going hot and picking up my bag.

‘Oh, really?’ She raised her eyebrows and put my headphone to her ear. ‘I can’t imagine what you were thinking about.’

We came round the corner and saw Mrs Ginnwell waiting for everyone by the information point. She was now holding up a large yellow sign that said ‘WOODFIELD ASSEMBLING POINT’ and was waving a Union Jack with her other hand.

‘May I commend you, Mrs Ginnwell, on your variety of signs,’ Jess said, as we approached her.

‘Thank you, Miss Delby,’ she replied, gesturing for us to wait by her side. ‘Any more of that cheek and you’ll be making notes on the architecture of the hotel while everyone else is at the end-of-trip party. Understand?’

Jess scowled and I pursed my lips, trying not to laugh. I had to give it to Mrs Ginnwell, she was taking her job very seriously, making sure the students were all under control. Unlike the other two members of staff, Miss Lawler and Mr Crowne, who were having a heated debate in the bookshop over the best crime writers, and Mr Kenton, who I spotted in the arcade playing on a zombie game with James Tyndale.

I laughed when I saw James throw up his arms in victory after destroying the zombies, forcing a grumpy-looking Mr Kenton to declare him the winner and earning a congratulatory high-five from his best friend, Brendan Dakers. James has a competitive streak, which admittedly had been very handy when he was on my team last term for Sports Day, but also, it turns out, can be really quite tiring when he regularly shows up at your door in the summer holidays expecting you to join him for a ‘casual jog’.

Clearly I tried to refuse every time because (a) Sports Day was over and we had won so there was no point in doing physical exercise any more and (b) I’m not an insane person who runs for fun.