The Manifesto on How to be Interesting

by Holly Bourne

  “At least she’s tried to look sexy. Have you seen the state of Bree? A sheep’s costume!”

  “I know. I don’t get why they’re mates with her.”

  “Such a weirdo.”

  “Always has been. And suddenly we’re all, like, supposed to forget, just because Jassmine had a lobotomy or something.”

  “Hold my bag, will you? I’m dying for a wee.”

  They listened, both their hearts thudding, as one of the girls clopped into the cubicle next to them and started peeing like a carthorse.

  “Hugo looks so fit, as always,” the girl called through the cubicle door, mid-wee.

  Despite the urgency of the circumstance, Bree couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

  “And doesn’t he bloody know it,” the girl’s friend replied.

  It was so hard to breathe quietly. Bree had never noticed before just how noisy an activity it was. Or how her heartbeat appeared to have an amp attached.

  Logan wasn’t much quieter, his breath was quick and rasping. His hand over her mouth was shaking so violently, she was surprised it wasn’t making tap-dancing noises against her teeth.

  The girls argued amongst themselves a bit longer, discussing the physical merits of Hugo, Seth and Matty Boy.

  God, Bree thought, girls really do take ages in the bathroom.

  Finally, after an eternity, they left, the door swinging shut heavily behind them. Logan and Bree stayed in silence, listening out for any stray noise that may indicate someone had stayed behind

  There was nothing.

  Logan let out a big sigh of relief, so loud it could’ve been heard from the dance floor.

  He didn’t say anything though. Just removed his hand from Bree’s mouth and stepped away from her like she was toxic all of a sudden.

  “Well,” she said, wanting there to be noise to erase the tension. “That was terrifying.”

  His face had gone white. He wouldn’t look at her. “Shit,” he muttered. “What if they’d caught us?”

  She cupped his face and tried to get him to look at her. “They didn’t. We’re okay. Come on, look at me.”

  But he wouldn’t. “I could’ve lost everything.” Logan took off his Santa hat and wrung it.

  Bree tried again to reach out to him. “But you didn’t. Everything’s still the same.”

  “How am I even going to get out here without getting caught?” He looked round the cubicle in panic.

  “I can go out first,” she suggested tenderly, “and check that the coast is clear.”

  “Would you?”

  “Not until you stop being weird with me.”

  “I’m not being weird.”

  “You are. You really are.”

  More silence. More tension. He gave her a weak smile.

  “I’m sorry… That just scared the crap out of me. What are we playing at?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied shyly. “But I like this game.”

  He didn’t reply and she bit her lip, wondering how to calm him down.

  “Do you want me to go check if it’s okay for you to get out now?” she asked.

  “Not really. I’m terrified.”

  “Don’t you have to guard a punchbowl?”

  “Oh that…yeah… I don’t think I’m very good at my job, Bree. I keep breaking all these rules.”

  “Is it worth it?” she asked quietly.

  And he came back to her again. That led to one more kiss, and another, and another. Eventually, Bree crept out of the cubicle, looking left and right repeatedly like she was crossing a busy road. Nothing. All the sinks stood empty. She tiptoed cartoon-style to the door, opened it and looked up and down the corridor. It was dark. And empty. Delightfully empty.

  “Logan,” she whispered behind her. “It’s all clear. Go, go, go, go, go.”

  And like a lightning bolt, he was out of the door. Stopping only to graze his lips against hers in the darkness before he was swallowed by the beating sounds of the music down the hallway.

  chapter forty-four

  Bree stayed in the corridor, leaning against the door, letting her exhalation of breath take with it all the tension of the past twenty minutes.

  “Well, well, well, so this is why you’re not replying to my texts.”

  The voice came from nowhere, like a ghost. She immediately knew who it was. Every hair on her arms stood on end.

  “Hugo?”

  He stepped out from a crevice of darkness that had hidden him so successfully. Cold-blooded fear ran through her brain.

  How much had he seen?

  “The English teacher, Bree? Seriously?” He stepped nearer.

  Bree tried to step away, but she was backed up against the wall. “What are you on about?”

  Even she could tell her attempt to sound blasé had failed.

  “You puzzle me more and more as I get to know you better,” he said, his eyes scanning her face for a reaction. “I find it hard not to think about you.”

  “This is lovely and all, but I’m going back to the dance.” She turned to leave but Hugo slammed his hand in front of her face, blocking her exit with his arm. The violence of it made her jump.

  “What if I tell someone?”

  More dread ricocheted into her bloodstream, like someone had just squeezed a UV drip filled with the stuff. “Tell them what?”

  He couldn’t prove anything. Could he?

  “That wonder girl Bree is boning a teacher.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Hugo. I’m not boning him.”

  That, at least, was true.

  “Really? Am I a tough act to follow then, is that it? Does poor Mr Fellows not think he can live up to me?”

  Judging on Hugo’s one measly performance, Bree was quite certain a slug on Viagra could outscore Hugo’s sexual expertise. Although she didn’t think this was the time to tell him that. Every neuron in her brain was in think-quick mode. She attempted to push past his arm, expecting him to drop it, but he stood firm and slammed the other one on the other side of her – utterly pinning her in.

  Alright, she’d admit it, she was actually quite scared.

  “Hugo. What are you playing at?”

  He leaned his face so close to hers that if anyone walked past it would’ve looked like they were snogging. Not good. Nothing about this situation was good.

  “I’m getting bored of you pretending you don’t want me, Bree,” he said, in what he probably thought was an alluring way. “Let’s just skip forward to the bit where I do filthy things to you again. If you’ve got a thing for teachers, I can teach you a few things…”

  There are times in life when you really should do the sensible thing. This moment was one of them. The sensible thing was to pretend she fancied the pants off Hugo, make some false promise to shag him later, and launch into some big speech about how she and Mr Fellows weren’t doing anything, she was far too much in love with Hugo instead.

  But recently Bree hadn’t been doing the sensible thing.

  In fact, Bree was getting a thousand words of material every day out of not doing the sensible thing.

  And Bree had just about lost her temper.

  “FOR FUCK’S SAKE, HUGO!” she yelled into his face, so loudly that he recoiled, giving her a bit more room. “When are you going to get the message? I don’t fancy you. I NEVER want your hands, or anything else, anywhere NEAR me again. Do you get that? That night at your party was the worst experience of my life. It was crap. YOU were crap. And you wanna know why? Because you’re full of crap. I hate you. I hate everything about you. I think you’re a nasty, vacuous, arrogant, chauvinistic bell-end. How you treat Jass is despicable. How you treat EVERYONE is despicable. You wanna know why I slept with you?” She stood up straight, high on finally saying what she felt after months of suffocating. “It was an experiment. That’s all. And it was a gross one at that. So please, let me go, cos if I have to spend another SECOND near your teeny tiny penis, and teeny tiny brain, I will scream for help and then projectile vomit onto
your smug, self-satisfied face.”

  If she were in a movie, people would’ve appeared out of the darkness and started a slow applause that built to a crescendo.

  If she were in a movie, Hugo would have burst into tears, run off into the distance, and gone to get a job as a bin man or something.

  If she were in a movie, Logan would have chased after him, smacked him in the jaw, then run back to Bree, scooped her up into his arms and they’d have ridden off on a perfectly white horse that appeared out of nowhere.

  Life isn’t a movie though, is it?

  Hugo stepped back. He cocked his head to one side and gave her a wink.

  “Careful, Bree. I’m not the sort of person you should piss off.”

  “Shut up, Hugo. You’re not in the bloody mafia.”

  He smiled. He wasn’t supposed to be smiling.

  And smiles aren’t supposed to fill you with dread.

  “I’d better be getting back to Jassmine. She’ll be wondering where we both are.”

  “Can I suggest you keep her wondering? She’s my friend, I don’t want to hurt her.”

  That was the point when Hugo lost his temper. He got right up in her face, and spat as he talked.

  “YOU don’t tell me what to do, Bree. Got that?”

  If he was trying to intimidate her, it was working. Her hands shook uncontrollably and she scrunched up her face to blink out the spit splatters.

  “You’ve dropped your baby Jesus,” she said, and pointed shakily to the floor.

  He followed her finger, saw the doll discarded on the lino, and burst out laughing. “Oops.”

  Then, just like that – just like nothing had happened – he picked up the baby Jesus, winked at her again, and sauntered back towards the music.

  While Bree slid down the wall and hunched up on the floor, desperately trying to get her breath back.

  chapter forty-five

  She was woken by the delicious smell of hot buttered toast.

  “Wake up, Miss Hangover, you’ve still got one day of school left.”

  Her mum put the breakfast on her bedside table and yanked open the curtains. Dull grey light from the drizzly landscape outside half-arsed its way into her room.

  She sat up, rubbed her eyes and blinked. “Ergh. What time is it?”

  “Half seven. You’ve not got too long.”

  Bree turned her achy head to look at the side table. She saw the toast, plus a glass of orange juice. “Mum, you are an actual legend, you know that, right?”

  She smiled and sat down at the end of Bree’s bed. “I was young too once, believe it or not. I know from experience that carbs and vitamin C are the way forward.”

  Bree took a bite and moaned. “Definitely the way forward.”

  “So, did you have a good time? I found your sheep costume at the bottom of the stairs this morning. It’s pretty ruined.”

  Bree tried to remember the end of last night. Ahhh – it had been raining on the way home. Her sheep costume had absorbed everything and doubled in size. Jass had found it hilarious and walking home – well, staggering home – had taken double the time because she’d kept cackling and taking photos.

  Jassmine… Oh crap, Hugo. The thought of their conversation filled her with dread again. But he’d acted like nothing had happened once they both got back to the dance. She’d arrived in time for the last two songs and they’d all put their arms around each other in a circle and yelled “Happy Christmas”. And Hugo had just been normal – well, as normal as a six-foot rugby player dressed as the Virgin Mary can be.

  What else had happened…?

  Oh yeah – Gemma had got a bit too sweaty doing sexy dancing to “Santa Baby” and dripped puddles of gold glitter all over the place. That was brilliant.

  It’d been a good night. She never would have thought that lot were capable of fun, but sometimes, just sometimes, Bree was willing to admit she was wrong.

  And now there was only one day left until two weeks off. She planned to scale back her Manifesto duties over Christmas – spend more time reading important books, watching a few art-house DVDs. She thought she might even see if she could rekindle her friendship with Holdo on the sly… She missed talking about…life stuff with him. She missed…just him, so much.

  “Yeah, it was fun.” Bree sipped the beautifully thirst-quenching juice. “The costume got rained on, but other than that I had fun.”

  “Did you kiss anyone under the mistletoe?”

  “Mum!”

  “What? I’m just asking. I know you’re hiding a boy from me.”

  Logan. The horror of Hugo seeing them smacked into her again. But she was sure he hadn’t said anything the rest of the night… So she bit down on her worries for now.

  She was meeting Logan after school to say goodbye for Christmas and to exchange gifts. Well, she hoped he’d bought her something. She still didn’t quite understand why they weren’t allowed to see each other over the holidays, but he’d brought up all sorts of reasons – mainly family commitments, and having to go to Scotland to see in-laws, which made her jealous as hell.

  “I need to get dressed,” she told her mum.

  “Yes, yes, yes. You never tell me anything,” Mum answered as she swished out of the room.

  Bree didn’t spend a large amount of time on her appearance that morning. Just plastered foundation with reflective particles all over herself to hide any signs of hangover, plumped on some red lippy and scraped her hair into a high ponytail. It took a few attempts to get the buttons right on the security gate but, other than that, she felt relatively functional.

  She was only two minutes late to meet Jassmine at their usual corner, but Jass wasn’t there. She played on her phone for a few minutes, expecting to see a Jassmine-shape strutting down the pavement from a distance. But no Jassmine-shape materialized.

  She gave it another five minutes.

  Still nothing.

  She texted her.

  Where are you, waster? I’ve made it to the corner okay, so you better. I’m waiting five more mins then I’m off without you.

  No reply.

  After ten minutes, still nothing. Jass was either asleep or vomming down the toilet, Bree reasoned. So she set off on her way.

  Waiting for Jass had made her late. She ran to school, sweating off her light-reflecting foundation and ending up a red mess. There was only a minute to get to the form room so she didn’t have time to meet up with the others for their usual post-party toilet gossip.

  The moment she walked down the corridor she felt something was up.

  Eyes, all of them, were on her. Students actually rubbernecked as they passed her. Whispers whizzed round her ears, making them tingle.

  What’s going on?

  It was hard to check herself subtly. Did she smell? She angled her head down and tried to sniff her armpit. She didn’t think so. Was her red half-melted face that bad? She dug out her compact mirror and checked her reflection. Nope. She looked okayish…not spectacular…but okay.

  She kept hearing the same word.

  Potatoes.

  Seriously, what the hell was going on?

  She made it to form room just as the bell was going. Everyone was already sat down, including Hugo, Seth and company. The moment Bree walked in the door they burst into sniggers.

  “Be quiet, the bell’s gone,” Mr Phillips commanded.

  This made them laugh harder. Bree sat down and gave them all a What the hell? look but none of them would return her gaze. Apart from Hugo. He smirked and stared at her as she pulled out her chair and took a seat. She repeated her questioning look and he made a face that made her blood turn to ice and harden up her arteries. She couldn’t even describe what face it was. A mixture of a wink, a nod, and a Cheshire-cat grin.

  It was bad.

  Oh God. Had he told? What had he done?

  “POTATOES,” Seth yelled and the whole class erupted in laughter.

  The whole class minus Bree.

  “Enough of that,�
�� Mr Phillips said, before launching into a lecture about revising over Christmas.

  Bree didn’t hear a word he said. She was rationalizing for all she was worth. Was it about Mr Fellows? Surely Hugo wouldn’t have told everyone about that? It was just an empty threat, something to lure her back into that crusty bed of his. If he’d told, she’d be in the headmistress’s office, frantically making up lies. Had he told about what had happened at his party? She shook her head to herself… No…it wouldn’t make sense. He would lose Jassmine, and he liked having her for his own screwed-up reasons. Plus, would anyone really believe him? Everyone knew Bree wouldn’t do that to Jassmine… Well, everyone thought that, anyway. So what was it? Potatoes?

  She came to the conclusion that he’d just made up some silly joke rumour about her as punishment for her outburst. She’d find out from the girls at lunch and laugh it off, just in time for Christmas.

  That had to be it…

  She didn’t bother talking to the guys after leaving the form room. They kept saying “potatoes” anyway, again and again – each time seemingly more hysterical than the last. She got to Latin super-fast – funny how easy that is, when a whole school parts in the corridor for you. She was getting impatient and double Latin didn’t really help matters. The clock hands trudged wearily from second to second, apparently stopping at scenic pubs on the way to have a pint. Time dawdled and backtracked its way to lunch, while Bree tapped her foot so hard she almost wore a hole in the carpet.

  Finally, FINALLY, the bell went. Bree shot out of her chair like a bullet covered in olive oil and jogged to the usual bathroom. The girls would be in here. They always were. She’d finally know what was going on.

  The moment she pushed open the door she could hear wailing from the end cubicle.

  “How could she do this?”

  “I don’t know, honey. Please stop crying, they’re not worth it.”

  “She’s such a slut.”

  “She is, and everyone knows that now.”

  “But how…”

  Bree’s breath caught. It was them. Jassmine was crying.

  He’d told. The sonofabitch had actually told.