The It Girl (11 page)

2. He ate some bad shrimp or something and was sick and disorientated.

3. He took pity on the fact that I fell on my butt.

4. He likes Marianne—who does not fall on her butt—and wants me to introduce him to her.

5. He's just a nice person?

6. He believes that I actually am an It Girl.

Points 3 and 4 seemed the most likely. I asked Jess and Danny their opinion at lunch as we sat at our table, desperately trying to ignore the pointed looks of everyone around us. “Maybe he was just being human.” Danny shrugged, moving his vegetables around his plate. “People like Brendan Dakers do have the ability to be nice.”

“But then why does he hang out with Sophie Parker and Josie Graham?” Jess asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at their table.

“He did stick up for me that time in class when Sophie was yelling at me about setting Josie on fire,” I added.

“He said it was funny,” Jess pointed out. “Not exactly backing you up. I don't know; it seems a bit odd to me that the day he decides to talk to you happens to be two days after your celebrity status appears in the papers.”

“Or it just happens to be the day I walk into a pillar right in front of him. If it had been anyone else, he still would have helped them up, right?”

“Maybe.” Jess shrugged. “It's not like Brendan Dakers has ever been horrible. He just chooses to spend his time with people who are. Maybe he thought you were someone else at first?”

“Yeah, I thought that.” I nodded.

“I think you're both thinking about it way too much,” Danny said, looking at us in exasperation. “Does it even matter?”

“Um . . . yes?” Jess and I chorused.

“It's not every day the most popular and best-looking boy in school talks to me, Danny.” I sighed. “Normally I would be very happy right now. Sadly, my dad has ruined my life, so occurrences like Brendan Dakers talking to me are kind of overshadowed by the likelihood that everyone is going to be wetting their pants laughing at the fact that the papers suggested I might be the next newsworthy socialite. I bet Sophie and Josie are on their way to humiliate me right now.”

“Um, first of all, Anna,” Jess jumped in. “Just let Ms. Queen Bee and her evil minion try it. They'll have me to answer to.”

“Yeah, me too!” Danny chimed in. “What?!” he asked, outraged at Jess's look of disbelieving pity.

I gave him what I hoped was a sympathetic and supportive smile.

“And
secondly
,” Jess carried on, “it's not that bad. Being an It Girl could be very cool.
Couldn't it
, Danny?”

“Please don't call me an It Girl,” I groaned, resting my forehead on my arms in front of me.

“It's, um, very cool,” Danny mumbled through his lunch, looking at Jess perplexed. “Yeah, think of all the great things about it.”

“Like what?” I muffled, not raising my head.

“Uh . . . ,” Danny began, looking at the ceiling for inspiration.

“First, you're probably going to get lots of free stuff,” Jess interrupted, poking Danny. “Celebrities always get free stuff. Clothes, shoes, accessories.”

“You can say important stuff to the press!” Danny said desperately, scowling at Jess and rubbing his ribs. “You could speak out for those in need and bring attention to important charities.”

“Like going to Africa and handing out rice?” I asked, lifting my head.

“Um. Sure?” Danny gave me an odd look. “I'm sure there's a charity out there that . . . goes to Africa and hands out rice.”

“Danny,” Jess said, sighing, “focus on the important things here. What about all the events she's going to get invited to. Premieres, black-tie galas, shop openings, fashion shows. That's the best thing about being a celebrity.”

“Oh no,” I whined, returning my head to my arms. “I'm going to have to learn how to walk like a normal person.”

“Yes,” I heard Danny say solemnly. “Yes, you are.”

“Oh my God!” Jess suddenly gasped, reaching forward and shaking my arm so that I was forced to look up at her. “If you get tickets to On the Rox, you have to invite me. Marianne is definitely having a thing with the lead singer. I saw it online a couple of weeks ago.”

“On the who?”

“On the Rox! They're my favorite band. Being Marianne's sister, you're bound to get free tickets.”

“Stepsister,” I corrected.

“Anna, who cares? Please, promise me you'll take me if you get tickets to see On the Rox. I would be the happiest person in the world.”

“Promise.” I smiled as she punched the air in victory. “I've never even heard of them, though.”

“Of course you haven't! But you'll love them.” Jess nodded vigorously with a huge grin. “Ask Marianne; she'll tell you all about them.
It's so cool that she can date rock stars. You might start dating rock stars!”

I snorted. “Don't think so somehow.”

“Well, if you keep snorting like that you certainly won't.” Jess raised her eyebrows at me. “I bet you're going to meet some pretty amazing people. We're going to have to work on your conversation skills. You'll have to learn not to talk about Dog and Marvin comics so much in the presence of celebrities.”

“Marvel. Not Marvin. Seriously, who is this Marvin person?”

Before Jess could answer, we were interrupted by two people suddenly standing by our table. I looked up to see Sophie and Josie smiling down at me. I immediately sat up straight. This was it. I braced myself for the onslaught of ridicule.

“Hey, Anna, sorry to disturb your lunch,” Sophie began.

Jess was scowling so hard, I thought the waves of “go away” coming off her might knock Sophie and Josie off their far-too-high-for-school heels.

“I just wanted to say that we saw about your dad in the papers. That's really cool.”

“It is?” I replied warily.

“Yeah, really cool. Anyway, my uncle remarried a few years ago, so I know what it's like to be in your position.”

“Not quite the same thing,” Jess muttered, picking up her fork and stabbing at a tomato.

Sophie ignored her. “If you ever wanted to talk about anything. Maybe fashion tips or . . . hairstyles.” She eyed my head coolly. I was well aware that having been leaning on my folded arms for the majority of our lunch break I probably had a watch mark right in the middle of my forehead or something.

“Sophie has talked a lot with Brendan's mom about stuff like this,” Josie said authoritatively. “So feel free to ask us any questions.”

“How generous.” Jess smiled sweetly up at them, like a viper would right before gobbling up a mouse.

“Um, yeah, thanks,” I said, trying to elbow Jess.

“And listen, Anna.” Josie took a deep breath. “The fire thing. It's forgotten. I know it was an accident. And you've clearly been under a lot of stress. It can't be easy being around people like Helena and Marianne when you're obviously not really . . . well, not that interested in their sort of things.”

“Uh, right. Yeah. Thanks.”

“Well, we'll catch up later,” Sophie said, clearly blown away by how articulate and charismatic I was being now that
I was in the papers. And looking satisfied, they both waltzed out of the cafeteria.

“Wow.” Danny shook his head and pulled his focus back to the vegetables.

“They are so weird.” Jess laughed.

“Everyone is acting very strangely today. Maybe they all ate shrimp.”

“Why are you talking about shrimp? You know I hate shrimp. Queen Bee and her sidekick are obviously interested in the new celebrity in their grade,” Jess argued. “Maybe Sophie figures being nice to you can't hurt her chances of getting more attention.”

“You think? I thought they were just being nice.”

“I don't think so.” Jess frowned. “What do you think, Danny?”

Danny finished off his water and slammed his glass down. “Girls are weird.” He then began munching his vegetables.

“Thanks for that golden nugget, Daniel.” Jess sighed. “You're as genius with advice as you are with voice mails.”

“Honestly, Anna.” Danny looked at me seriously. “I think you're going to have to prepare yourself for a lot of change.”

Jess nodded slowly in agreement. I glanced around at the other students looking curiously at me. I gulped. I had a feeling Danny was, as always, right. There was a lot of change coming my way.

And I didn't have the first clue what to do about it.

TEN REASONS WHY BEING IN
the papers is not very fun:

1. Suddenly people look at you A LOT. This means that you have to try to not be yourself.

2. Because you are concentrating very hard on not being yourself, you do awkward things like walk into pillars and forget the entire English language when someone popular speaks to you.

3. You spend break times hiding in the prop closet of the drama department. This drawn-out solitary confinement leads to you slightly losing it and having a genuine conversation with a human-size sheaf of corn, last used in the school's production of
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
.

4. People expect you not to do stupid things. You do stupid things regardless. They laugh at you.

5. There are photographers outside your school waiting for you to do stupid things.

6. In detention people won't stop asking you about the reason you're in the papers, making the detention teacher Mr. Kenton get very angry at no one being quiet.

7. The detention teacher ends up spilling his coffee over his white shirt midway through shouting, giving you an evil glare as though it is all your fault.

8. At the end of detention someone actually asks for your autograph so that they can sell it on eBay.

9. When you say no, they call you a “grouch.”

10. You will most likely lose the only two friends you have due to the odd things you start to do that will freak them out, like having conversations with a sheaf of corn prop. You will therefore be left with very little dignity and a yellow Labrador that will betray you for bacon.

I never thought I'd be grateful for detention, but it was nice to put off going home back to my dysfunctional family life for another hour. Sure, it was very annoying when people like Joe Winton in the grade above kept asking for Marianne Montaine's number—yeah, Joe, because a famous It Girl is going to want to date a thirteen-year-old who is currently in detention for disrupting assembly by pulling down a fellow student's pants—and I could have done without all the questions about why, now that I'm a celebrity, no one has “fixed” my hair yet.

But once everyone shut up, it was nice to get some work done. Not that Connor let me get away with it completely that first detention after it had been in the papers.

“It's funny,” he'd said, leaning back in his chair, chewing a pen. “I don't remember seeing ‘Become Britain's new It Girl' on your list of ambitions. . . .”

“It wasn't on the top of my list, no.” I sighed, slumping into my chair next to him.

“Hey,
Anastasia
.”

I knew that would come back to haunt me.

Max was a friend of Connor's who made frequent detention appearances too. “Yes,
Maximillian
?”

“If you ever need anyone to come with you to any of those
celebrity parties where there are going to be supermodels and famous actresses looking for a fella to show them a good time, then I'm your man.” He winked at me.

“Wow, Max, thanks. That's a pretty irresistible offer.”

Connor snorted.

“Well, that's what the ladies tell me.” Max grinned.

“His mom,” Connor interjected under his breath. And for the first time since the newspaper article, I laughed out loud.

“That's what I was looking for, Spidey. Nice to see you smile today.” He slid his sketchbook across to me. “Now, on to more important things. What do you think of this new character I've been working on? I'm not sure if he looks too obvious. You think I should tone down the muscles?”

It was my Mr. Kenton–supervised hour sanctuary of normalness. And it soon became my favorite part of the whole day.

•  •  •

Outside of detention everything was going wrong. Not only was school a catalog of embarrassing un–It Girl displays from me, Dad was paranoid about me leaving the house without him in case I got pounced on by rogue members of the press. It was getting out of hand. I was starting to feel like Frodo in
Lord of the Rings
when Sam wouldn't leave him alone. Except instead of being on a mission to return a ring, I was
on a mission to keep my two remaining friends who in school saw me being ritually laughed at and outside of school didn't see me at all. And instead of an optimistic hobbit, who handily happened to be an excellent chef, following me around, I had a grumpy old man who insisted on saying things like “what is the world coming to” every five seconds and kept putting olives in pasta sauce.

Something had to be done.

It was a Wednesday afternoon, school had finished early—there was no detention that day, as Mr. Kenton had been struck down by the flu and no one could cover for him at such late notice. The sun was out, Dog was restless and, despite not having my usual refuge of detention, I was in a relatively good mood.

Jess and Danny were both busy, so I went home and decided to take advantage of the cloudless sky and take Dog for a walk. I picked up Dog's tennis ball and leash, and immediately Dad was standing in the doorway looking suspicious.

How come parents always know when you're thinking of doing something you shouldn't?

“Are we going on a walk?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Dog and I are going on a walk,” I said firmly. “Once he stops running around the house.”