‘Like it,’ Mr Hunter says. ‘What else?’
‘Cover Story?’
‘Write On?’
‘Cool?’
‘I know,’ Shannon says. ‘How about School?’
‘School?’ Mr Hunter frowns. ‘Maybe that’s a bit too simple…’
She laughs. ‘No, no, what if we wrote it this way?’ She grabs a marker pen and writes her suggestion on the whiteboard.
‘S’cool…’
Mr Hunter nods. ‘That’s good. Clever, snappy, funny…’
‘I like it,’ Josh Jones says.
‘Wicked,’ Jas agrees.
We decide by majority vote to call the mag S’cool. Mr Hunter tells us to go home and make a start on our features, and the class file out, Shannon, Emily and me at the back.
‘Sir… Steve…’ Shannon hangs back at the last moment, letting Emily and me go ahead. We wait in the corridor, watching. ‘I wanted to thank you for making me editor,’ Shannon tells Mr Hunter, in a little-girl voice. ‘It’s a big job, though, and I don’t want to make a mess of it, let you down…’
Mr Hunter just laughs. ‘You won’t make a mess of it, Shannon,’ he says. ‘You’ll be fine. But if you have any worries… well, I’m always here to help. You can come and talk to me at any time.’
‘Oh, Steve, thank you!’ Shannon breathes. ‘I will!’
She sweeps out of the classroom, with a wiggle in her walk and a glint in her eye. Poor Mr Hunter. He doesn’t stand a chance.
Saturday’s sleepover at my house turns into a mini-meeting for S’cool. Shannon arrives first, laden down with mysterious bags of fabric and a sketchbook full of designs.
‘What time will Emily be here?’ she asks, and suddenly I taste jealousy, a sad, sour flavour that’s hard to swallow. Last week, having Emily at our sleepover was a novelty. This week, asking her was automatic – and for Shannon, it’s obvious that the evening can’t start until she arrives.
‘How should I know?’ I sulk.
Shannon pulls a face. ‘What’s up? I thought you liked her?’
‘I do,’ I say. ‘It’s just – well, it’s never just the two of us any more, is it? Emily’s always hanging around too.’
Even as I say it, I know it sounds mean and spiteful and bitter, but I don’t care. It’s how I feel.
‘She’s my second-in-command on the mag, isn’t she?’ Shannon says. ‘We can’t just dump her now.’
‘I wasn’t saying we should dump her. I just thought that this whole threesome thing was temporary, that’s all. You know, like the injured bird you rescued, or the fake Barbie from when you were little.’
‘This is different,’ Shannon says. ‘We did a great job on the makeover – Emily looks amazing. She’s just like one of us now!’
‘I know,’ I say miserably.
Emily has caused quite a stir. She’s like a butterfly, stepping neatly out of her cocoon and spreading her wings wide, the way I once did. I should be pleased for her, I know. Her caterpillar days are gone, and the kids at school can’t quite believe the transformation. Plain, geeky Emily Croft is suddenly cool and popular, and you know what? It’s all thanks to me.
‘This whole thing was your idea,’ Shannon reminds me. ‘You were the one who wanted to get involved.’
Well, that’s one thing I’m not likely to forget in a hurry.
I’m not cut out for this agony aunt stuff. Agony aunts are meant to be kind and sensitive and caring, not mean and resentful. Emily Croft has definitely got me wrong.
Besides, there is nothing glamorous or exciting about a problem page. Right now, I am making a postbox for the school foyer. Shannon thought it’d be a good way for kids to send their problems to the mag without having to hand them direct to me. A postbox makes it less scary, more confidential.
I imagined that all three of us would work on it together, but Shannon announced that I could make the postbox while she and Emily started on the fashion spread. I’m stuck in the corner of my bedroom with a cardboard box and a pair of scissors, wondering why I feel so left out when this is my house, my bedroom, my sleepover.
The other two stretch out on the carpet, side by side, studying Shannon’s designs. Fashion has always been her strong point – the sketches show how our existing school uniform can be chopped up, chilled out, turned into something cool. There is a sketch of a miniskirt made of school ties stitched together, another of black drainpipe jeans with the school badge sewn on to each knee, one of a tiny black sweatshirt cut down into a belly top.
‘These are great… I love the skirt!’ Emily says. She looks over, trying to include me, grinning. ‘How’s the postbox?’
I shrug. ‘OK, I guess. Do you think I’ll get any problems?’
‘Sure,’ Shannon chips in. ‘Kinnerton High is full of people who need help. You’d be surprised. Dear Ginger, I have just joined Year Eight and there’s this girl I really like. I am trying to impress her with my collection of embarrassing hats and my saxophone skills, but she doesn’t seem interested. What can I do? Loser Boy.’
My cheeks flame.
‘Dear Loser Boy,’ she continues. ‘Dump the hats and the sax, learn to tie your laces and get a pair of jeans with no graffiti on them. Girls don’t like weirdos. Love, Ginger.’
Emily looks at me, as if expecting me to stick up for Sam, but what am I meant to say? That he might be weird, but he’s also pretty cool and really good company? That I play lead harmonica in his imaginary band? I don’t think so. Shannon would be furious… maybe furious enough to ditch me completely, in favour of the new, improved, cute-and-cool Emily. Jealousy twists inside me again, sharp and sour.
I don’t think she’d actually go that far. Would she?
‘Sometimes,’ Shannon grins, ‘you have to be cruel to be kind.’
‘I think that might be a bit too cruel,’ Emily says. ‘Sam’s OK.’
How come she’s brave enough to stand up to Shannon when I’m not? Emily is bright-eyed and stylish in her skinny jeans and T-shirt. Her hair is perfectly straightened, her eyes lined with emerald green. She looks the part, but under the cool exterior the real Emily hasn’t changed one bit. She is still super-smart, peachy-keen, eager to please. She is also painfully honest. Somehow, those things don’t seem so geeky any more.
Shannon just shrugs and pulls a handful of school ties out of a carrier bag like a clutch of silky, stripy snakes. ‘Miss Bennett said I could take these from the lost property box… there’s loads of unwanted stuff in there.’
She fishes out pins and dressmaking scissors and chops into the ties, pinning them carefully to an unchopped tie that serves as the waistband.
‘Two layers,’ she says. ‘And a net underskirt, so it’s not too rude!’ She wraps the pinned-together skirt round her and does a little twirl, so that the stripy ties fly out around her. It looks amazing. Shannon grins, her eyes shining, and I bite back my bad mood and fix a smile to my face.
‘Wait till Mr Hunter sees this,’ I say. ‘He’ll be so impressed!’
‘Steve, you mean,’ she corrects me.
‘I’m not calling him Steve. It doesn’t feel right.’
Shannon laughs. ‘Honestly, Ginger, don’t be so uptight! He’s only a few years older than us… he understands us, right? He knows what it’s like to be young, he knows what we’re into. He doesn’t want to be some boring old authority figure, like the rest of the fossils at Kinnerton High. He wants to be one of us!’
I frown, alarm bells ringing in the back of my mind. ‘He’s not, though, is he?’ I tell Shannon. ‘He’s a teacher.’
‘Well, obviously,’ she says. ‘I know that.’
I’m not so sure. Plenty of girls are crushing on Mr Hunter, but of course Shannon’s braver than most. He may be a teacher, but that won’t stop her from flirting, fussing and fluttering her lashes at him whenever she gets the chance.
‘Anyway, he asked me to call him Steve,’ Shannon points out.
‘He asked us,’ I say.
Shannon just smiles,
as if she knows something we don’t.
As sleepovers go, it’s not one of the best. Shannon giggles and whispers with Emily, but barely even speaks to me. She picks at the food, says the DVD is lame, then turns the music up so loud my dad has to stick his head round the door at midnight to ask us to keep it down a bit. ‘Sorry, Mr Brown,’ Shannon says, wide-eyed and innocent. ‘I did try to tell them it was a bit loud…’
She rolls her eyes as he closes the door, and says we might as well have an early night because there’s obviously nothing better to do. Emily says she’s had a brilliant time, and she’s tired anyway, no worries. That just makes me feel worse than ever. If she was mean, she’d be a whole lot easier to hate.
I lie awake in the darkness, wishing I’d never heard of Emily Croft. It’s not like it’s her fault, exactly, but if I hadn’t heard her crying, or turned back to help her, I wouldn’t be in this fix now. I thought I’d reinvented myself, walked away from my past, but I guess I really haven’t – and I never will, while Emily is hanging around.
Underneath the cool-girl exterior, it still feels like I’m sitting on the sidelines, watching everyone else have fun.
On Sunday, after Shannon and Emily have gone home, I corner my big sister Cassia. ‘What would you do,’ I ask, ‘if you thought your best friend was going off you?’
Cass frowns. ‘Is this about Shannon?’ she wants to know. ‘She’s kind of hard work, isn’t she?’
‘It’s not about Shannon,’ I bluff. ‘Just in general. For the S’cool problem page.’
Cass says that people change as they grow up, and friendships evolve and it’s just the way life is, like it or not.
‘I know, I know,’ I say. ‘But what would you do?’
‘Just be yourself,’ Cass shrugs.
That’s the one thing I really can’t be, of course. The real me is long gone, buried beneath the layers of fake-it-till-you-make-it confidence, the bright smile, the don’t-care attitude, the lipgloss and eyeliner.
I’ve never been myself with Shannon, not really. I’ve never dared.
On Monday morning, I put the S’cool postbox in front of the office, and Miss Bennett tells everyone about it in assembly. When I walk past at break I give it a little shake, and sure enough, there are letters inside already. In English, Sarah Mills, our art editor, helps us produce a bunch of posters asking What’s S’cool? We stick them up in classrooms, corridors, everywhere we can think of.
By lunchtime, the school is buzzing. Faiza Rehman and Lisa Snow are interviewing pupils about spag bol, sponge pudding and whether fizzy drinks should be banned or not. Jas Kapoor trails behind, taking photos. ‘Isn’t it great?’ Shannon asks, biting into her quiche. ‘English has never been this much fun before. Mr Hunter is the coolest teacher ever. He loved my fashion designs… he reckons the tie-skirt could end up on the cover of S’cool!’
‘We have to get it finished first,’ Emily points out.
‘And photographed,’ I add. ‘Are you gonna risk using Jas Kapoor?’
Shannon shrugs. ‘He might be better than we think,’ she says. ‘Everyone has a skill, even Jas. I’ll talk to him, check out his work. The main thing, now, is finding the models…’
‘Any ideas?’ Emily asks.
‘Well, we have a whole school to pick from,’ Shannon says. ‘I want the kind of models kids will go out and buy the mag just to look at.’
‘Like?’
‘Like Andy Collins and Abi Carroll,’ Shannon says.
My eyes open wide. Andy Collins is a Year Nine pin-up and footy team hero, and Abi Carroll is a sparkly-eyed Year Ten who once appeared on a TV ad for fish fingers, back when she was eleven. They are probably the coolest, glammest kids in the school.
‘Whoa,’ I say. ‘Nice one, Shannon. Those two will sell magazines all right… if you can get them to agree. Are you really going to ask them?’
‘Of course,’ Shannon says. ‘And trust me, I can be very persuasive…’
She scans the canteen and spots Andy, sitting at a corner table with his mates. She scoops up her folder of designs and stands up, flicking her hair back. ‘Now’s as good a time as any, I guess…’ She marches up to Andy while Emily and I hover anxiously in the background.
Andy is definitely the cutest boy in Year Nine. He has dirty-blond mussed-up hair and blue eyes and the kind of smile that could melt chocolate, but boy does he know it. He looks up as Shannon approaches. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Sharon, isn’t it?’
‘Shannon,’ she says.
‘Right. Shannon.’
‘Andy, you’ll have heard Miss Bennett telling everyone in assembly about the new school magazine, S’cool. You’ll have seen the posters, noticed kids with cameras and clipboards…’
‘Yeah?’ he says.
‘Well, this is your chance to be a part of it,’ Shannon tells him. ‘Be on the cover, even, maybe. I’ve designed a range of clothes and I’m shooting a fashion spread. I need the best models I can find to help me. There are quite a few people interested, obviously, but… well, I was wondering if you and Abi Carrol might like to try out.’
Emily digs me in the ribs. You have to admire Shannon for the way she’s taken control of this, the way she’s made it seem like she’d be doing Andy a favour to let him get involved. Already he’s sitting up straighter, smiling, giving Shannon his full attention.
‘Hey, model-boy!’ one of Andy’s friends says. Andy tells him to shut up.
‘Have you had any modelling experience?’ Shannon asks.
‘Um… not exactly…’
‘Ah. I was really looking for someone who knew what they were doing, who was at ease in front of the camera…’ She half turns away, and Andy catches her arm, pulling her back.
‘I can do it,’ he says. ‘It might be fun. When would we be shooting?’ Shannon sits down on the tabletop, opens up her folder of designs and the two of them start to talk about clothes and cameras and settings.
‘He seems really interested,’ Emily says.
‘In what?’ I ask. ‘The fashion shoot, or Shannon?’
‘Both, I think,’ Emily says.
By the end of lunchtime, Shannon has signed up Andy Collins to model her designs. Result! ‘Did he ask you out?’ I want to know.
‘Ginger! This is strictly business!’ Shannon huffs. ‘OK, we might be meeting up after school on Wednesday…’
Emily and I dissolve into giggles.
‘But that’s just so we can suss out a few locations and stuff.’
‘Yeah, right!’
‘Seriously,’ Shannon insists. ‘My heart belongs to Mr Hunter. But Andy has lots of ideas…’
I roll my eyes. ‘I bet he does.’
You wouldn’t think it, but being an agony aunt is kind of addictive. Letters pile up, day by day, and I pick out the best to go into the magazine. There are so many problems out there… and the answers aren’t really that difficult to find.
Other people’s problems… how come they’re so much simpler than your own?
Dear S’cool,
A boy in my class is picking on me. He calls me names and threatens me and says that if I tell anyone what’s happening, he’ll beat me up. What should I do?
Scared, Year Seven
Dear Scared,
Don’t let this lowlife chip away at your self-esteem. You are as good as anyone. Tell a teacher what’s going on – staying silent just allows him to go on bullying you. Get some adult help – today.
Ginger x
Dear S’cool,
My best friend has started smoking. She wants me to try it too. I don’t want to, but I’m scared that if I don’t, I’ll lose her.
White Stripes Fan, Year Eight
Dear White Stripes Fan,
Don’t be pressured into smoking – it’s a dangerous, addictive habit that will ruin your looks, health and finances. A true friend would never push you into something like this – stand up to her.
Ginger x
Dear S’cool,
My
girlfriend won’t tell her friends she’s seeing me, because she thinks they won’t approve. I still like her, but I can’t help feeling like she’s ashamed of me, and that hurts.
Sax Fiend, Year Eight
Dear Sam,
You know that’s not the reason. She’s got problems of her own, and she’s just not ready for a relationship right now. Give her time – she likes you much more than she’s letting on.
Ginger x
PS: Don’t call yourself Sax Fiend, it’s seriously dodgy.
I’m not going to use that last one, obviously.
Shannon is working like crazy to get the clothes finished for her school uniform fashion shoot, and that means that Emily and I are working like crazy too.
We shred shirts, slice into blazers, unpick school badges and chop up cardigans. Sweatshirt arms are turned into leg warmers, trousers into hot pants, netball bibs into cool little book bags. Shannon makes a necklace from old biros and pencil sharpeners, a bracelet from paper clips.
Slowly, the sketches come to life.
Shannon collars Jas Kapoor and gets him to load a whole bunch of his paparazzi photos on to a computer in Room 17. We crowd around as shot after shot fills the screen. Jas has uncovered a few school secrets, for sure.
There’s a shot of Miss Bennett behind her big oak desk, reading a confiscated copy of Mizz magazine, a picture of the school nurse getting into her car with a ciggy dangling from her lip, and a classic shot of the cook, creator of our healthy organic school dinners, with a takeaway McDonald’s Happy Meal. The photos are clever, sneaky and cool, but better than that, they are really good. They are sharp and well-composed… it looks like Jas Kapoor has a hidden talent after all.
‘OK,’ Shannon tells him, ‘I suppose you can take the pictures for the fashion shoot. I’ve put a lot of work into this, and I have top-class models lined up, so you’d better not let me down.’ She smiles at Jas, sliding an arm round his neck, and leans in close as he turns an attractive shade of crimson. ‘Stuff it up and I’ll break both your legs,’ she whispers.
Jas swallows, hard, and Shannon just laughs and walks away.
No threats are needed to keep Andy Collins in line. Shannon has him dangling on a string. He has fallen at her feet, the way boys often do, and Shannon just smiles and shrugs and steps right over him, carrying on her own sweet way. You can tell that Andy Collins isn’t used to that.
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