The It Girl: Team Awkward. Katy Birchall

Jess! Outside Miss Duke’s office is hardly a romantic setting,’ I hissed. ‘Stop talking about . . . kissing so loud! Imagine if someone heard you!’

      Jess rolled her eyes but went quiet and Danny began to talk about scorpions again.

      I was being honest: Connor and I had talked. But what I wasn’t telling Jess was that it hadn’t just been the two of us . . .

      I was only in the headmistress’s office for about thirty seconds. She’d wanted to check whether if I was OK after the whole me-stuck-in-a-plant-pot-being-an-Internet-sensation thing.

      ‘You know . . .’ Miss Duke began, no doubt wondering how she could possibly comfort me, ‘. . . these things blow over.’

      ‘The Internet doesn’t help that.’

      ‘In this day and age I’m afraid that fame is a very difficult game.’ She sat back in her chair thoughtfully, like a wise owl. Now that I think about it, her bright, round eyes and pointy features do kind of remind me of an owl.

      ‘I’m not even sure why I’m famous. I haven’t done anything except fall into a plant pot!’ I shook my head. ‘Seems unfair, really.’

      ‘Well, if you feel like everything is getting too much for you,’ Miss Duke looked at me kindly, ‘my door is always open.’

      I smiled at her and was getting up to leave, but she carried on.

      ‘Except for Friday lunchtimes, when Mrs Ginnwell and I play Cluedo. I’m afraid my door is firmly closed then. I need all the concentration I can get.’

      I almost laughed, but then I noticed her deadpan expression, so I just nodded and hurried out of the office. That’s when I saw Connor down the corridor. He was talking animatedly with a girl from our year, Stephanie. I didn’t know her very well, and I definitely hadn’t been aware that Connor knew her that well either, but clearly he did. She was laughing out loud and tossing her very shiny hair around glamorously. Why hadn’t Connor ever mentioned being friends with her before?

      Flustered, I turned round to walk the other way. But then Connor called out, ‘Spidey!’

      ‘Er, hi,’ I said, turning around. I could feel myself blushing all the way down to my toes. Connor had called me ‘Spidey’ ever since last term, when he had discovered in detention that I shared his love of superheroes and all things comic book. I was usually teased for my Marvel comic-book obsession – especially by Jess, who continued to call it my ‘weird, geeky Marvin habit’, despite me correcting her a hundred billion times – but Connor didn’t tease me one bit. He had even created a comic strip, called The Amazing It Girl, that was inspired by me. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me.

      ‘You’re looking very furtive,’ he grinned as he strolled up to me. ‘Where have you been?’

      ‘Miss Duke’s office.’

      ‘We haven’t even got to the first lesson of term yet.’ He folded his arms and smiled cheekily. ‘That’s impressive, even for you, Anna.’

      ‘She just wanted to, um . . . she wanted to check that I was OK. After the . . . plant pot incident.’

      ‘Ah yes,’ Connor nodded slowly, a look on his face that I couldn’t quite work out.

      Just then Stephanie and her impossibly shiny hair joined us. I saw that she had a cool, super short block fringe – I’d always wanted one and had considered cutting my long shaggy fringe shorter, but I knew I couldn’t pull it off. Once I’d combed my hair forwards to see if it would give me a geek chic celebrity look. Dad walked in as I was doing it and asked, ‘are you acting out War Horse again?’

      I decided the look wasn’t for me.

      ‘Hi, Anna, did you have a nice holiday?’ Stephanie asked.

      ‘Um, yes, thank you. Not much happened,’ I lied, hoping that she was the only person in the world who hadn’t seen the plant pot video.

      ‘I felt like I was working the whole time,’ Stephanie said, rolling her eyes. ‘So much revision!’

      ‘Yeah, it wasn’t fun,’ Connor agreed. ‘But there were some highlights.’

      I felt a flutter in my tummy. Was he talking about hanging out with me? He must be! He had just been doing revision or Art class otherwise. Oh my goodness, Connor had referred to me as a HIGHLIGHT. I couldn’t wait to tell Marianne and Jess!

      ‘Well, you might call them highlights. But they were quite stressful as well!’ Stephanie nudged Connor’s arm.

      Well, that was a little uncalled for, I thought. Hanging out with me hadn’t been stressful! OK, fine, there had been moments of stress, like the time I got chased by a goose. But that only happened once and I was sure that Connor had just found it funny, not stressful.

      ‘We learnt a lot,’ Connor argued.

      Very true. Next time, I was just going to surrender the bread to the goose.

      ‘Maybe, but I still think I enjoyed the milkshake bar more.’

      Wait. There definitely hadn’t been a milkshake bar involved. What were they talking about?

      ‘Milkshake bar?’ I asked, as casually as possible.

      ‘Sorry, Anna, I should have explained,’ said Connor, turning to me. ‘Stephanie was in those Art classes I went to, and after class a couple of times we went to this amazing milkshake bar. It does every flavour in the world.’

      ‘You should come next time we go, Anna! Connor told me that you have a bit of a sweet tooth. They do Nutella flavour, and I know it’s your favourite.’ Stephanie smiled, hitching up all the books she was holding.

      He’d told her about my Nutella love? I tried not to feel jealous of this girl who not only had very nice hair but was apparently artistic too, and who had spent her Easter holidays with Connor at a milkshake bar.

      ‘I had a Nutella milkshake once in your honour,’ Connor informed me proudly. ‘It was pretty good.’

      The bell rang, echoing down the near-empty corridor.

      ‘Right, better get to class.’ Connor hitched his bag on to his shoulder. ‘Anyone walking this way?’

      ‘I am,’ Stephanie smiled.

      Of course she was.

      ‘I’m going the other way,’ I said, in my most cheerful-not-minding voice.

      ‘See you later, Spidey.’ Connor smiled at me. ‘I’ll come find you.’

      I nodded and walked away, glancing back to see Stephanie launching into what was probably another hilarious, sophisticated Art story that didn’t involve anyone being chased by a vicious goose. But just as my heart was sinking, Connor looked back over his shoulder, catching my eye and smiling slowly, and the butterflies in my stomach went sugar-high crazy.

      

      Jess can be very secretive.

      While we were in detention that afternoon I could see that she was working on something, but annoyingly she wasn’t sitting near enough for me to slip her a note as easily as we do in French. Mr Kenton had made us sit a couple of desks apart so we didn’t distract each other.

      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