Cecelia Ahern 2-Book Bestsellers Collection: One Hundred Names, PS I Love You. Cecelia Ahern

She really needed to have a serious talk with him about this. She had let him off lightly the other night because he had been so excited and she didn’t want to make a scene, but at this stage she had enough problems on her plate without having to worry about this too.

      She flicked through the rest of the papers and saw what it was Sharon was ranting about. Every single tabloid had an article about the documentary and one had even printed a photograph of Denise, Sharon and Holly from a few years ago. How they got their hands on it she did not know. Thank God the broadsheets contained some real news or Holly would have really worried about the world. She wasn’t too happy with the use of the words, ‘mad girls’, ‘drunken girls’, and the description from one of the papers that they were ‘well up for it’. What did that even mean?

      Holly’s food finally arrived and she stared at it in shock, wondering how on earth she was going to get through it all.

      ‘That’ll fatten you up, love,’ the plump lady said, placing it on the table. ‘You need a bit of meat on your bones; you’re far too skinny,’ she warned her, waddling off again. Holly felt pleased at the compliment.

      The plate was piled high with sausages, bacon, eggs, hash browns, black and white pudding, baked beans, fried potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes and five slices of toast. Holly looked around her with embarrassment, hoping no one would think she was a complete pig. She saw that annoying teenager heading towards her with his gang of friends again and she picked up her plate and ran inside. She hadn’t much of an appetite lately; but she finally felt ready to eat and she wasn’t going to let some stupid spotty teenager ruin her breakfast for her.

      Holly must have stayed in The Greasy Spoon much longer than she thought, because by the time she reached her parents’ house in Portmarnock it was almost two o’clock. Against her prediction, the sun was still sitting high in the cloudless blue sky. She looked across at the crowded beach in front of the house and found it difficult to tell where the sky ended and the sea began. Busfuls of people where continuously being unloaded across the road, and there was a lovely smell of sun-tan lotion in the air. There were gangs of teenagers hanging around the grassy area with CD players blaring out the latest tunes. The sound and the smell brought back every happy childhood memory for Holly.

      Holly rang the doorbell for the fourth time and still no one answered. She knew somebody had to be home because the bedroom windows were wide open upstairs. Her mum and dad would never leave them open if they weren’t home, especially with throngs of strangers wandering around the area. Holly walked across the grass and pressed her face against the living-room window to see if there was any sign of life. She was just about to give up and wander over to the beach when she heard the screaming match between Declan and Ciara.

      ‘CIARA, GET THE DAMN DOOR!’

      ‘NO, I SAID! I … AM … BUSY!’

      ‘WELL, SO AM I!’

      Holly rang the doorbell again, just to add fuel to the fire.

      ‘DECLAN!’ Ouch, that was a bloodcurdling scream.

      ‘GET IT YOURSELF, YOU LAZY COW!’

      ‘HA! I’M LAZY?’

      Holly took out her mobile phone and rang the house.

      ‘CIARA, ANSWER THE PHONE!’

      ‘NO!’

      ‘Oh, for Christsake,’ Holly snapped loudly, and hung up the phone. She dialled Declan’s mobile number.

      ‘Yeah?’

      ‘Declan, open the goddamn fucking door now or I’ll kick it in,’ Holly growled.

      ‘Oh sorry, Holly, I thought Ciara had answered it,’ he lied.

      He opened the door in his boxer shorts and Holly stormed in. ‘Jesus Christ! I hope you two don’t carry on like that every time the doorbell rings.’

      He shrugged his shoulders noncommittally, ‘Mum and Dad are out,’ he said lazily, and headed up the stairs.

      ‘Hey, where are you going?’

      ‘Back to bed.’

      ‘No you are not,’ Holly said calmly, ‘you are going to sit down here with me,’ she patted the couch, ‘and we’re gonna have a nice long chat about Girls and the City.’

      ‘No,’ Declan moaned. ‘Do we have to do this now? I’m really, really tired.’ He rubbed his eyes with his fists.

      Holly had no sympathy for him, ‘Declan, it’s two o’clock in the afternoon, how can you still be tired?’

      ‘Because I only got home a few hours ago,’ he said, cheekily winking at her. Now she definitely had no sympathy for him; she was just plain jealous.

      ‘Sit!’ she ordered him.

      He moaned again and dragged his weary body over to the couch where he collapsed and stretched out along the entire thing, leaving no room for Holly. She rolled her eyes and dragged her dad’s armchair closer to Declan.

      ‘I feel like I’m with a shrink,’ he laughed, crossing his arms behind his head and staring up at her.

      ‘Good, because I’m really going to pick your brains.’

      Declan whinged again, ‘Oh, Holly, do we have to? We just talked about this the other night.’

      ‘Did you honestly think that was all I was going to say? “Oh, I’m sorry, Declan, but I didn’t like the way you publicly humiliated me and my friends. See you next week”?’

      ‘Obviously not.’

      ‘Come on, Declan,’ she said, softening her tone, ‘I just want to understand why you thought it would be such a great idea not to tell me you were filming me and my friends?’

      ‘You knew I was filming,’ he said defensively.

      ‘For a documentary about club life!’ Holly raised her voice in frustration at her younger brother.

      ‘And it was about club life,’ Declan laughed.

      ‘Oh, you think you’re so bloody clever,’ she snapped at him, and he stopped laughing. She counted to ten and breathed slowly to prevent herself from attacking him.

      ‘Come on, Declan,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you not think that I am going through enough right now without having to worry about this as well? And without even asking me? I cannot for the life of me understand why you would do it!’

      Declan sat up on the couch and became serious for a change, ‘I know, Holly, I know you’ve been through hell but I thought this would cheer you up. I wasn’t lying when I said I was going to film the club because that’s what I had planned on doing. But when I brought it back to college to begin the edit everyone thought that it was just so funny that I couldn’t not show it to people.’

      ‘Yeah, but you put it on TV, Declan.’

      ‘I didn’t know that was the prize, honestly,’ he said, wide-eyed. ‘Nobody knew, not even my lecturers! How could I say no to it when I won?’

      Holly gave up and ran her fingers through her hair.

      ‘I honestly thought you would like it,’ he smiled. ‘I checked with Ciara and even she said you’d like it. I’m sorry if I upset you,’ he mumbled.

      Holly continued nodding her head through his explanation, realising he genuinely had good intentions, however misguided. Suddenly she stopped. What had he just said? She sat up, alert in her seat. ‘Declan, did you just say that Ciara knew about the tape?’

      Declan froze in his seat and tried to think of a way to back himself out of the corner he found himself in. Coming up with nothing, he threw himself back onto the couch and covered his head with a cushion, knowing he had just started World War Three.

      ‘Oh, Holly, don’t say anything to her. She’ll kill me!’