Katy Birchall - The It Girl - Team Awkward

Like that could stop me.

I screwed up a piece of paper tightly and tossed it towards her desk. I missed. Jess didn’t look up.

‘Psst!’

She still didn’t look up. I saw how it was. Well, if it was OK for her to distract me and get us detention in the first place . . .

‘PSST!’

Mr Kenton looked up, and I smiled innocently at him until he slowly looked back down at his book.

More inventive measures were clearly called for. I folded a paper airplane, wrote ‘ pay attention!!! ’ on one of its wings and skilfully (I thought) hurled it into the air in Jess’s direction.

It went straight up and then just plopped back down pathetically on to the ground by my feet.

I’m almost FIFTEEN and I can’t even make paper airplanes.

In desperation, I threw a rubber at her head.

‘What the . . . ?’

‘Jess!’ I whispered enthusiastically. ‘It’s me!’

‘No kidding.’ She rubbed the side of her head and gestured irritably around at the empty room. Somehow even Connor, who had been in detention all of last term for drawing comics and not concentrating, had escaped detention today.

‘Are you practising French vocab?’ I asked in a low voice, glancing warily at Mr Kenton.

‘No.’

‘Science?’

‘No.’

‘Is it English? Are you going over some notes for the exam?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s my Art project.’

‘Geez!’ I exclaimed, a little louder than I meant to. ‘What is so good about Art?! I hear nothing else these days except for art, art, art!’

Mr Kenton looked up again and cleared his throat as Jess looked bewildered. ‘Miss Huntley, might I suggest you use this hour to actually do some work? I know that it’s far more tempting to throw rubbers at the heads of your peers and rant about creative subjects, but this is detention. I can’t bend all of the rules. I’m sure you have some homework to be getting on with?’

I nodded, flicking through some pages of notes and feigning interest in them until he went back to his book. Then I quietly tore out a piece of paper from my Chemistry book.

TOP SECRET

Jess, do you think Connor hasn’t kissed me because I can’t draw? WRITE BACK ASAP.

This time I got lucky. The scrunched-up ball landed on top of Jess’s pencil case. She rolled her eyes at me. ‘Read it!’ I mouthed, glancing warily at Mr Kenton. Luckily, he was now engrossed in his novel.

I watched Jess as she opened it up, sighed and then wrote what I hoped was a sensitive and intuitive answer to my love-life woes. The paper whipped past my nose and skitted across the desk on my right. I reached over and eagerly opened it.

You’re a loser.

When detention finally came to an end, Mr Kenton said, ‘You know, Anna, you shouldn’t let that YouTube video get you down. If anything, it’s a lovely insight into the life of celebrities! I’m rather inspired to get a set of palm trees to frame my own staircase now. They add a certain je ne sais quoi .’

‘Not a bad idea, Mr Kenton,’ Jess nodded. ‘Anna, maybe you should get Helena to put the palm trees on eBay! I bet you’d make a fortune.’

‘Excellent business thinking, Jessica,’ Mr Kenton said. ‘Gold star!’

‘They’re not palm trees,’ I cried, ‘they’re Dracaena Lisa plants!’ And I flung my bag over my shoulder and flounced out the door.

‘Word of advice, It Girl,’ Jess grinned as she caught up with me, ‘next time you make a witty comeback, try not to sound like the biggest nerd in the world. You just managed to make Mr Kenton look cooler than you.’

Note to self: kill Danny.

As we made our way towards the school gate, I caught sight of something that made my heart race about ten times faster than normal. Connor was standing right by it, rooting through his bag.

Jess sighed and shook her head as she noticed him. ‘Seriously? You guys kind of disgust me, you’re so cute.’

‘What?’ I played innocent.

‘You said he wasn’t your boyfriend! He’s totally waiting for you.’

‘Keep your voice down, Jess!’ I hissed. ‘He’s not my boyfriend. He hasn’t said anything about it and nothing’s, you know, happened. We haven’t even really been on a date, unless you count the goose incident.’

‘Just lean in and kiss him, it’s no big deal,’ Jess said a little too loudly for my liking as we crossed the yard towards Connor.

‘It is a big deal when you’ve never kissed anyone before. Anyway, stop talking, he’ll hear us.’

‘Hey guys,’ Connor smiled, looking up as we reached him. ‘How are you, Jess? How did the photography internship at the magazine go?’

‘It was great!’ said Jess cheerfully. ‘I’ll have to show you some of the work I did sometime. I’ve got to rush off now. See you guys tomorrow!’ She gave me the most unsubtle wink I have ever seen and jogged away, grinning.

I was left blushing at Connor. Then my phone beeped. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled and dug around in my bag. I pulled it out.

SMOOCH TIME. Jx

Connor watched me, bemused, as I threw the phone back as if I’d been bitten. Did she have to use capslock?!

‘You OK there, Spidey?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, just . . . um . . . someone annoying messaging me,’ I sighed. ‘Fans, you know how it is.’

‘Sure.’

‘And, um, how come you’re still here?’ I asked as innocently as I could, hoping he might say something like, ‘I’m madly in love with you and I wanted to wait for you to tell you that. Will you be my girlfriend for ever more?’

He shrugged. ‘I was in the Art studio with Stephanie after school, doing a bit of planning for my Art project this term. I left, but then I thought I must have left my phone there, so I came back for it. I’ve just found it, though,’ he said happily, tapping his bag. ‘In here all along. Hey, this was great timing, I forgot you had detention.’

Oh.

‘I’ll walk you back home if you’d like? It’s kind of on the way to mine, after all, and it’s a nice day.’

‘I’d love . . . er . . . like, er . . . that would be cool.’

‘Right.’ He grinned and pulled a bag of Milk Bottles out of his bag. ‘So, how was detention without me?’

Distracted by my favourite sweets, I was relieved to find I could speak like a Normal Person again. ‘It was fine. Not as entertaining as when you’re there, though.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You and Jess didn’t just chat the entire time?’

‘She’s working on her Art project. And, you know, I’ve got lots of stuff to do. We were both pretty focused.’

‘Right,’ he chuckled. ‘All that stuff you have to do.’

‘Hey! I’m very busy and important, I’ll have you know.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘I forgot that you were Britain’s favourite It Girl.’

‘ Second -favourite. Marianne is firmly in the lead, especially now that she and Tom Kyzer are a proper thing.’

‘Does it feel weird that you’re about to be the stepsister of someone who’s dating a rock star?’ he asked, looking at me quizzically and pushing back his dark hair from his eyes.

He was so nice to look at.

‘Anna?’

Oh my god. I’d been STARING at him.

‘Oh. Haha. Yes, well,’ I mumbled trying to remember the question. ‘I’ve only met Tom properly once, and my dad was so embarrassing then that I’m pretty sure Marianne will never bring him round again.’

‘Did your dad really ask him if he wanted to do a duet?’

‘A guitar duet,’ I sighed, recalling the moment in agony. ‘He actually said, “back in the day I could have been a rock star myself.” I almost died.’