The Number One Rule for Girls. Rachel McIntyre

not you. Stop interfering.’

      This was the exact moment at which an emergency gob-stop would have been advisable. Sadly, it appeared my mouth had missed the memo.

      ‘It’s not me who’s interfering with you, is it?’ I said.

      ‘Daisy! ’ said Ayesha, more urgently this time.

      I rolled my eyes heavenwards again. ‘For God’s sake, Beth, get real; he’s a complete pervatron.’

      ‘You’ve never even met him,’ she snapped. ‘You don’t know anything about him.’

      ‘I know he’s a bouncer with a misspelled neck tattoo who follows schoolgirls home.’

      ‘I love him!’

      ‘And I love animals,’ I said, ‘but I wouldn’t particularly want to start a relationship with one.’

      Beth glared, presumably aiming for haughty, but too red-faced and snot-encrusted to carry it off. Ayesha inhaled, poised to rub some verbal Savlon on our bitch scratches, but before she got a word out, Lady Boohoo took a final swipe.

      ‘You’re jealous, Daisy, that’s your problem. Bitter and heartless and jealous. The only reason you want me single is so you won’t be the only one without a boyfriend. Because since Matt left you can’t stand to see anyone happy.’

      Ouch. That hurt so much.

      I didn’t even stay to state the obvious, Er, who’s happy? I just grabbed my coat and stormed past Ayesha’s lovely mum in the hall and Beth’s bonkers dad on the street.

      But as I walked home, muttering, ‘Bitter, am I? Jealous?’ under my breath, my anger began to recede. Had I been too harsh? Was I really being the Queen of Stony Hearts?

      It was true that Matt broke my heart when he went to Spain. (And by ‘broke’ I mean ‘tore out and pounded to lifeless, smushy goop’.) But that didn’t mean I wanted everyone else to be miserable too. Especially not my friends.

      But get real! Any primary schoolkid could have told Beth that if a strange man followed you home, you should report him to the police, not hand him your phone number. No exceptions. And to call it love, puhlease. She barely knew him.

      Beth was a first-class drama farmer. Every other week she created some new boyfriend crisis and expected me and Ayesha to just jump on the emoto-cycle with her.

      Phase 1. Ignore the warning signs.

      Phase 2. Expect Daisy and Ayesha to pick up the pieces.

      Rinse and repeat.

      Well, I’d had it with her Goddess of Melodrama act. Maybe you couldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I was pretty sure you could spot a twat by his tatts.

      She needed to take those wanker blinkers off once and for all and it was my and Ayesha’s duty to remind her of the Never-to-be-Broken #1 Golden Rule for Girls: It is always better to be single than to date a twat.

      AAAARGH. Forget Stony Hearts, I was the medal-winning, record-breaking Queen Gormless of Twatania. Never, in the history of womankind, had anyone ever shown less gorm or more twat (figuratively speaking) than I did the second time I spoke to Toby.

      I’d bumped into Badger a couple of times since Monday’s induction tutorial, but even though I’d kept a tiny eye out for Toby, our paths hadn’t crossed again. Until now.

      I was sitting in the library, headphones on, and completely engrossed in Wuthering Heights when swisssh: an unidentified yellow object sailed over my head and landed thud on the desk.

      Turn: no one there.

       What the . . .?

      Back to desk: bag of sweets.

      Turn again: still no one.

      Back to desk: mmmmm, Jelly Babies. Nom nom.

      Weird. I picked up my book and was back roaming the moors with grumpy old Heathcliff when I sensed a Scarily Handsome Presence.

      My eyes travelled up slowly. Hipster trainers, pair of jeans, tight white T-shirt, moody movie-star face, mop of black hair. Down a bit. Smile so pretty it made me want to cry.

      ‘Hi, I’m Toby. We’re in form together. Daisy, isn’t it?’

      ‘Er, yes, that’s right. Hello.’

      He gestured at the Jelly Babies. ‘You looked in need of cheering up. Sorry if I made you jump.’

      In Fantasyland, where I wasn’t a tit with the social skills of a four-year-old, we would have chatted like two normal people. HOWEVER, because I am the Queen of Twatania, what actually happened was this:

      Me: ‘Er, it’s OK. Thanks.’

      Toby: (pointing at Jelly Babies) I bite their heads off first.

      Me: ‘I’m a bottom-biter myself.’ (casually pick up Jelly Baby; completely miss mouth; scrabble on floor)

      Toby: (pause) ‘Okaaaay, well, enjoy your book. See you later.’

      Me: (cringe cringe, stuff whole fist in mouth, CRINGE) ‘See you.’

      Aaaargh. Toby Smith was not just potential friend material, Toby Smith was potential friend material coated in a sumptuous layer of incredible and dusted with jaw-dropping perfection. And what did I do? Self-lobotomise.

       Bottom-biter.

      Sometimes I really really hated myself.

      Anyway, I went round to Ayesha’s after college again. Partly to make sure the two of us were OK post-Shaneygate Beth bust-up, but mainly to reassure myself I was only a friend-free loser between the hours of nine and four. Cringer-sation with the Divine Toby aside, I didn’t speak to a single fellow student all day.

      On the bus, I ummed and ahhed before deciding not to tell her about the Jelly Baby episode because a) it would mean confessing to my bottom-biting idiocy, b) she’d get giddy over what was, essentially, a non-event and c) we only had half an hour before she went to her boyfriend Tom’s to play with his telescope. (Not a euphemism.)

      ‘Why don’t you come too? There’s a spectacular meteor shower forecast and if the cloud holds off it should be properly dramatic.’

      This was said with the enthusiasm most teens reserve for the phrases ‘parents going away’ and ‘house party’. Bless her geeky little heart. But I had to get home to babysit River while Mum and Dad picked up the tablecloths for Saturday from the hire place.

      That was the thing with running a wedding business: people assumed it was a once a week in the summer kind of job. No chance. Something Borrowed was flat out year round. When they weren’t collecting supplies, Mum was sorting the playlist or rehearsing with Uncle Harvey’s band, Something Blue, fitting a gown, creating table decorations, checking venues, visiting vintage fairs or any of a billion other things she could turn her multitalented hands to. And if Dad wasn’t photographing a bride and groom, he was busy baking and sculpting the most incredible wedding cakes this side of, well, anywhere. I helped out by doing lot of babysitting. And eating a lot of cake.

      ‘Sorry, I can’t tonight,’ I said. ‘But I am going to ring Beth to clear the air.’

      Ayesha pulled her hmmmm face. ‘I’d better warn you: she has not stopped going on today about what you said about Shaney. You really pissed her off.’

      ‘Well, one of us needs to give her some tough love,’ I said. ‘If we both go “yeah, great” every time she lands another slack-ass, she’ll