Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery (8 page)

Becoming a celebrity is a whole lot easier than you'd imagine.

‘Over here, Lia!'

‘This way, darling!'

‘That's great. . . Lifting the glasses in the air. . . Lovely!'

There were three camera crews at the press conference, plus loads of photographers and reporters. The room was hot and stuffy, and the journalists smelled of sweat and cigarettes. Luckily I'd double-sprayed with deodorant beforehand. But I could feel my face going a bit pink.

People want to be famous so they can get rich. It's a well-known fact. Look at all those idiots lining up to be on reality shows. No one becomes a celebrity because they're rich already. What would be the point?

But then I remembered Paris Hilton. She's an heiress. She has pots of cash. Why did she want to be a celebrity? Did she have a choice? She'd really got famous because of that sex video on the internet. My toes curled inside my new Manolo Blahniks.

But I forgot poor old Paris immediately the press conference began.

There's something about being asked lots of questions, with a roomful of people desperate to hear your answers. It makes you feel special. It makes you feel important. It makes you feel like you're really grown-up . . . fully-formed . . . someone who has the answers.

‘How does it feel being one of the youngest winners ever?'

‘Oh, it feels good. Yes. Very good. Exciting.'

‘Are you going to stay at school, Lia?'

‘Umm, well I have to. GCSEs. I don't know what will happen after that.'

That was my tactful way of telling the world that I was leaving school as soon as possible. Luckily no one noticed.

‘What are you going to do with your money, Lia?'

‘Oh. . . I haven't decided. I'll buy my sister some singing lessons so she can go on
Britain's Got Talent
.'

They loved that answer. There was a ripple of approval through the room. The cameras flashed. Natasha gave a whoop from the back of the room. She had to stand there because the lottery publicity people said that minors weren't allowed in pictures. All the approval, all the attention was coming my way. For the first time since she was born, I wasn't having to share with my sister.

I liked that approval. I wanted more of it.

‘I'm going to buy my mum and dad a holiday to say thank you for everything they've done for me,' I said. ‘I'm going to take all my friends shopping. I'm going to give a load to charity.'

‘Have you got a boyfriend, Lia?'

I got an instant flashback to Raf's strong arms wrapped around me – and I flushed and giggled and said, ‘No one special,' completely unconvincingly.

When we watched it later on Sky News, my mum shot me a piercing glance and said, ‘What was that about, Lia? Jack?'

‘Paula! What are you like? Oh my God. Can't I even have a male friend without you thinking we're at it? You have
such
a dirty mind!'

They only showed a few minutes on the news. But the questions went on and on.

‘How did you pick your numbers, Lia?'

‘How much pocket money did your parents give you before your win?'

‘Do you work at your dad's shop, Lia?'

‘Tell us about buying your ticket . . . had you ever bought one before?'

I took a big gulp of lemonade when they asked that question – Natters and I both had tall glasses full up with Sprite.

‘I can't give you alcohol when you're under eighteen,' said Gilda, as she filled up my flute.

‘I was with my friend at the newsagent – he bought it for me,' I said carefully. ‘It was the week after my birthday and he hadn't got me a present.'

Oh, they loved that. They were like a roomful of puppies who'd been tossed a ball. Tails wagging, feet scampering. They were all over it.

Which friend? What's his name? What did he think of your win? Are you going to share the money with him? Is it the best birthday present you've ever had?

This was such a stupid question – from the
Daily Star
– that I momentarily dropped my saintly-sweet façade.

‘Duh,
yes
,' I said. And then, quickly, ‘Err . . . although, if I hadn't actually won anything,
he'd still owe me a proper present.'

They all laughed. And then someone said, ‘Are you going to get him a proper present now?' and I nodded and grinned and gulped down some more lemonade.

I rang Jack as soon as we got home, when everyone was busy sorting through the takeaway menus because Paula said she was too excited to cook.

‘Hey,' I said. ‘Umm, Jack, at the press conference I told them, I told them you'd bought me the ticket, right?'

‘I know you did,' he said, and he didn't sound too happy. ‘We had a couple of reporters come round. Wanted to interview me about how it felt buying someone a present worth eight million pounds.'

‘Oh my God, Jack, what did you say?'

He laughed, ‘Well, naturally I told them that I bought it for you in exchange for a steamy night of unbridled passion.'

‘Oh my God! You didn't!'

‘No, of course I didn't. Chillax, Lia, I'm not a complete dickhead. I just said I hadn't got you a birthday present yet so I bought the ticket. And that I'm really pleased for you, and that's it.'

‘Oh . . . good. . .'

‘My mum was really narked, though, said I should've bought my own ticket.'

‘Yeah, but, Jack, it was the numbers that mattered, not the ticket as such.'

‘You want to tell that to my mum?'

‘Umm, no. Look, Jack, I'm going to buy you a present. To say thanks for the ticket.'

‘Really? Like something expensive?' His voice went all croaky. ‘Like . . . a
motorbike
?'

I wondered how much a motorbike cost. Loads, I bet. And Jack couldn't even get a licence until he was seventeen.

‘Yeah, of course. A motorbike. A car as well, if you want.'

Jack's whoop of joy nearly blew my ear off.

‘Yay! I love you Lia!'

And that feeling I had in the room full of journalists, that special, grown-up, approved feeling swept over me again. I was doing the right thing. I was sharing my luck. I was Lia, the lucky, kind, generous one. Jack loved me. I loved him.

As a friend, of course.

Or at least I did, until we got the papers the next day and I saw how he'd totally stolen my moment.

‘He bought his friend a lottery ticket . . . and she
won a fortune' was the headline in the
Daily Telegraph
. ‘The £8m Sweet Sixteen present' in the
Daily Mail
. ‘How Lia got lucky – on a ticket from a friend' in the
Express
.

It was the same in almost every paper. Only the
Sun
didn't go big on Jack, but had, ‘Lia the baker's daughter wins a load of bread,' which wasn't much better. Oh, and the
Independent
had an opinion piece on page five. ‘Should the lottery experiment end?' it asked. ‘Is it right that a schoolgirl wins eight million pounds when the NHS can't fund vital operations?' which made me feel really guilty for about two nanoseconds.

The pictures of me weren't too hideous. The designer outfit did make my legs look nice and long, and the jacket showed off the way my chest had exploded over the last year . . . but in quite a subtle way. I'd had a blow-dry beforehand so my newly-chestnutted curls had that crispy shine; and Natters had done a great job on my make-up. My dark eyes looked bigger than usual, and my mouth a bit smaller.

It was kind of annoying to see that Jack actually had more quotes than I did, and the papers had made him the hero of the story – particularly as he'd said
stuff like, ‘I'm really glad for Lia that she's won,' and, ‘It's totally up to her if she wants to give me anything.' But it could have been far worse, I knew.

The next few days were crazy. Suddenly I was a media star. Mum and I were on breakfast telly. We met Lorraine Kelly, Christine Bleakeley, Adrian Chiles. Lorraine's just as nice as she looks. Adrian's just as snarky.

I was interviewed in the
Daily Mail
, the
Daily Telegraph
, on Radio 1. They all asked if Jack would be interviewed too, but his mum refused.

Jack texted me.
She's really angry. Keeping head down.

Never mind, I thought. I'd talk to Gilda. Maybe when I bought Jack his motorbike, she could arrange another press conference. Jack's mum'd be happy then. Jack would be happy too.

And everyone would see how nice I was.

Chapter 8

Getting lots of attention is like drinking too much. You get a bit silly. Your judgement goes out of the window. You may want to appoint a sensible friend to monitor your actions in the first few weeks.

‘It's a well-known fact,' said Shazia, brown eyes wide and serious, ‘that winning the lottery ruins your life.'

‘Oh right, thanks a
lot,
Shaz,' I said, buttering some toast – Dad's best sliced white – while she helped herself to an apple from the fruit bowl. Shaz had arrived freakishly early to walk to school with me – so early that I was still eating breakfast. Naturally she'd made herself at home.

‘Don't look at me like that,' she said. ‘I saw it on Channel Five. A documentary. One girl telling about how she'd been ripped off by all these guys. She was
buying them cars, drugs, whatever. Then another woman said it had torn her family apart. Everyone was arguing over the money, saying it was unfair because she'd helped one child more than another.' She shook her head. ‘I don't want that to happen to you, Lia.'

‘That won't happen to Lia,' said Natasha.

‘This girl, she said she'd broken up with her boyfriend six months after the win because he couldn't handle it, and she couldn't trust anyone else because she always thought they were after her money. So she was still single at thirty-five and really miserable about it.'

‘Wimp,' I said. ‘What was her problem? She could've just gone out with them on her terms, had her own place, done her own thing, never mind if she could trust them or not. She could've been thirty-five and having the time of her life.'

I loved saying stuff like that to Shazia. She was always really shocked.

‘Lia!' said Shaz. ‘That's not very romantic.'

‘Well, Shaz, you were the one standing up for arranged marriages the other day. That's not exactly romantic, is it?'

Shaz looked a bit pink. ‘It can be,' she said. ‘My
auntie told me that when she met her fiancé, she had never felt anything like—'

But Natasha flapped her hands to shut her up and said, ‘Shaz! Shaz! Lia's having a romance!'

‘
What?
' said Shaz, sounding a lot more amazed than she should have. After all, I'd had three boyfriends before. Marcus Richardson and I went out twice in year nine, then he started trying to feel me up and I chucked him. I went out with Adam Norris for a whole month during year ten, and things were going quite nicely. We used to go to the cinema and hold hands, and I was quite hopeful that it'd get more serious. But then I went to France for the summer holidays and had a snog with a guy called Thierry (tongues and upper body groping) so I felt I ought to confess all to Adam, who was really upset and chucked me. And just as we thought we might be about to get back together again, his mum got a job in Moscow and they all moved there. You can't really make up with someone on Facebook, so after a bit I'd un-friended him.

Natasha spread Nutella onto her toast and said, ‘Raf Forrest. You know, the mysterious one. All the girls in year ten think he's a vampire or an angel or something.'

‘How stupid,' said Shaz, throwing her apple core into the bin. ‘He's just an ordinary boy like anyone else.'

Shaz was about the only girl I knew who wasn't into the paranormal. She wanted to be an engineer, and she said that because she was into science she wasn't interested in anything supernatural. Strange, eh? Felicia Murray wanted to be a vet, and she'd seen all the
Twilight
films hundreds of times.