by Beth Garrod
To Gemma – who makes dreams become
books, and strangers become friends.
CONTENTS
Cover
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Acknowledgements
Back Ads
Copyright
CHAPTER
ONE
The correct name for “study leave” should really be “inventing-novel-ways-not-to-study leave”. I was only in week one and had already managed to become an expert at identifying rare breeds of dogs (who knew the Norwegian Lundehund has six toes on each foot?! Well … me, now I’d scrolled through every Instagram picture of them ever tagged) and had found thirteen legit reasons (2.17 a day) to go to my corner shop. Yesterday the owner asked me if I was “having problems at home”. She looked unimpressed when I replied, “Yes, the problem of it currently not containing any Wotsits.” I then went home, sat in the back garden and wasted another hour of study leave actually studying leaves.
“Erm, not entirely sure my mum’s going to love seeing your bum-ghost when she’s having her morning coffee, Bells.”
Rach looked accusingly at the spot where I’d just been leaning – the one black wall in her otherwise gleamingly white kitchen. Her parents had recently painted it with blackboard paint so they could write family memos to one another. Sadly their chalk “Home is Where the True Heart Is” now looked a whole heap more like “Home is Where the T art Is” thanks to a smudge mark in the undeniable shape of my leg cushions.
“Ah. Yes. Sorry…” I tried to rub the words back together but made it even worse – the T now looked dangerously like an F. “…And that is officially even worse.” Rach laughed and threw a tea towel at me so I could wipe the whole thing off. But all she did was give me an open goal for my favourite joke.
“What’s the most common owl in the UK…?”
Tegan smiled and rolled her eyes. “We know…” and together they both finished it off. “THE TEAT OWL. There’s one in every home.”
I grinned, still enjoying it ten years since Mum first told me. But the way Tegan kept looking at me for a millisecond after our laughing stopped reminded me of our conversation earlier. She was worried about me. And not just ’cos of my appreciation for dishcloth jokes, or because she’d seen my dog-based internet history. She knew revision wasn’t going well. Or more to the point, that my exams weren’t. I just couldn’t seem to get stuff to stay in my head (except things like corgi is Welsh for “dwarf dog”, but I don’t recall that being a major part of any syllabus). And the pressure was on – I’d messed up my mocks, so the grades I needed to get into Worcestershire College were way higher than the ones Rach and Tegan required. If the three of us were going to stay together into sixth form, I HAD to nail these exams. Everyone was counting on me.
I flumped down on to one of the bar stools, pretending not to notice Tegan clocking my change of mood, or her quick-do-something look at Rach.
“OK. How about this for a plan.” Rach slid past us, using her socks as floor skis. “Quick snack break, saaaaay thirty minutes?”
“Twenty,” Tegan jumped in.
“Twenty-five?” Rach bargained.
“Deal,” I interjected, happy to be the middle ground between my two best mates.
“Then we do an hour’s SOLID work. As in no chat. No phones. Not even a sneaky spot-squeeze break in the bathroom.” I swear Rach gave me a knowing look. “Just high-level geography achievement.” She stared out the window, all pensive romantic heroine. “Just think… This time tomorrow, the exam will be over, and we’ll never need to look at a geography book or a map everrrrrr again.”
I wasn’t quite sure how she was intending to find her way round in the future, but neither Tegan or I wanted to burst her bubble. Happily humming away, Rach set the break timer and started to froth some milk. Yes, it might be one of the hottest days of the year but our hot chocolate consumption didn’t play by the rules. Teeg clunked a capsule into the posh hot drink machine and I fished out the jar of mini marshmallows. Sure, we’d all grown up together, but Rach’s home life was one of an ever-stocked supply of luxury hot drink accessories – mine was one with a mum who had texted me (more than once) to ask me to nab some school toilet paper ’cos she’d forgotten to get any in, yet again.
Teeg put her arm round me.
“C’mon, you. In three weeks this’ll all be over.”
Oh yes. I’d temporarily forgotten my real-life exam hell. I gave her my best doomed-zombie look.
“And my fate will be seeeealed.”
She nodded firmly. “Yup – sealed that we’ll all be off to sixth form together. You know your photography portfolio is a-maze.”
An unauthorized half-smile popped out. Trust Tegan to be able to make me feel a bit better. She never said stuff she didn’t mean just to fluff people’s egos – she was too honest for that.
I’d spent weeks, months pulling my portfolio together – our art teacher, Mr Lutas, had gone out of his way to help me with it. They didn’t offer Photography GCSE at my school, so he knew that getting on the college photography course all depended on me proving it’s what I loved doing – and that I was any good at it. Goodness knows why I’d gone and made life even harder with my other subject choices. I blame watching Planet Earth the night before I chose them – and the resulting urge to become a professional photographer of penguins (and six-toed dogs). So one small tick of a form, and I’d added the small matter of also needing As in maths and science, to get on to the environmental science and biology courses I’d chosen. Thanks, Sir David Attenborough.
BLAM.
Rach, distracted by a message that had just come through, plonked down our drinks and caused a tiny table tidal wave of hot chocolate.
“Say what?!”
The more she read, the more her jaw fell (revealing she’d snuck in some extracurricular marshmallow eating). “OK… Right.” She gulped as if swallowing this new information. “Ignore the fact my dad still thinks texts are proper letters…” She held her screen out for us to read, which felt like an optician’s test due to her hand wobbling with excitement.
Hello, Rachel. How are you?
I’ve been so impressed with your revision that as a treat I purchased two tickets for RebelRocks festival.
Enjoy yourself! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!
(Joke.) See you when I get back from the U-S-of-A.
Love, Dad xx
&n
bsp; Whoa.
Now I got it.
Rach had the same eye-glazed look she got watching the surprises on Saturday Night Takeaway.
“We’ve got t-tickets… Actual tickets.”
We’d been talking about RebelRocks for ages. It was the first proper festival that had ever come to our town, and was happening the weekend our exams finished. aka, The Actual Dream. Music, talks, making stuff. New bands we’d had stuck on repeat all year, cool talks from some of our life crushes, even a headline slot from The Session – Rach’s favourite ever band. (They’d only had two albums out, but she was ob-sessed. At Christmas her mum had taken her to London just so she could get a glimpse of them turning on some shopping centre lights. We didn’t talk about the fact she then went viral for a bit as “Wavy Crowd Girl” in some video they posted – seems the world wasn’t ready for her 110 waves per minute [wpm] technique.)
So if there was one thing we knew, it was that RebelRocks was going to be BEYOND awesome.
And if there was another, it was that EVERYONE was going.
Well … everyone except us. Because despite a major campaign of parental begging, all I’d got was a big “no”. I’d even washed the dishes six days running (Mum disputed that throwing away a takeaway pizza box counted towards this, but I argued it’s the thought that counts). But the timing couldn’t have been worse. Mum was looking for a more central location for her dog-ice-cream business, Give A Dog A Cone, and money was tight while she saved. And Tegan had put all her allowance towards some new gymnastics kit, so was flat broke too.
But Rach’s text? This changed everything. And we all knew it.
But I also knew we were all thinking the same. Two tickets. Three people.
“Bells.” Tegan was uber-calm. “I’ll probs have training that weekend, so you should deffo take it.” She was lying to make it easier for all of us. I couldn’t let her do that.
“I… I might have to help out at the shop,” I lied back. Rach’s face fell. “Not that I wouldn’t LOVE to come.”
But it was too late. The damage was done.
“So, lemme get this straight…” Rach raised an eyebrow. “I have a spare ticket, to the festival we’ve been dying to go to – and no one wants to come with me?”
Well, this had backfired.
I panicked. “AS IF, Rach?! We’d both love to – right?” Tegan nodded so hard in agreement she looked like she was being fast-forwarded. “I mean … why don’t I ask my mum again if she’ll lend me the money to buy one?” I had an idea. “Or Teeg and I could try and go halfsies on the third?”
“Deffo – I’ll ask tonight!” Tegan was also trying to stick an enthusiasm plaster over the awkward, but Rach was deflated.
“It’s OK… I think we all know it’ll be a ‘no’, right? It’s not like you haven’t asked one zillion times already.”
She had a point. And none of us knew what to say next. So, to help deal with the silence, I did the wisest thing I could – slurped my hot chocolate really loudly.
“GUYS.” Rach suddenly sprang up, pushing her stool back with a loud scrape, a look of determination on her face. “Panic no more! I KNOW what we should do. And I won’t take no for an answer.” It was harder to take her seriously when she had a pink/white marshmallow goop moustache, but now wasn’t the time to point it out. “I’m going to give my spare ticket to …” She paused. Wait! Was she about to choose her favourite friend? This could change the world as we knew it! “… my brother. His boyf can have mine.”
Sorry, what?!
“But, Rach?” I was actually spluttering. And not just because she’d mentioned HOB (aka Hot Older Brother). “You HAVE to go? The. Actual. Session will be there.”
Tegan backed me right up. “Seriously – don’t do this. You two go – it’ll be amazing. I’d rather have FOMO than FAMO any day.” Rach looked as puzzled as me. “Friends Are Missing Out.” I nodded, knowing just how she felt, but Rach shook her head.
“Nope. It’s the three of us or nothing.” She was speaking extra quick to stop us getting a word in. “So instead, I reckon we throw our own fest.” She looked around her. “HOUSEFEST! We can put tents up in my garden, play music and light one of those tiny BBQs you can get from the garage for a fiver. It’ll be ace.” She paused. “Although the name might need work.”
“But…” I started to protest.
“But nothing, Bella.” I’d never heard Rach so serious. Except the time she realized that it wasn’t thin cows that made skimmed milk and larger ones that made full fat. “It’s agreed.”
And, as if it knew it was being symbolic, the timer buzzed. Rachel smiled sweetly. “End of discussion – the timer says so. So back to the plan – revision only.”
A deal’s a deal, so we sat down, putting our phones in the middle of the table for a phone amnesty – phamnesty – and opened our textbooks.
Quarter of an hour later, when Tegan ducked out to go to the loo, Rach banged her head on to her book.
“Bells – I think my brain might have shrivelled into a raisin.”
“Same,” I said with a wide-eyed stare back. “But mine’s a dried pea. All I’ve learnt so far is that on page thirty-nine there’s a chocolate stain shaped like…” I tried to think of a country. None came to mind. Not a good sign my geography revision was going well.
“Can we talk about something else? Something the opposite of this torture?” Rach pleaded.
A smile crept across my face. A naughty, happy, life-is-instantly-better smile that I had zero control over. Rach grinned. “Say no more. Your booooyfriend.” She said it in the drawn-out, OTT way I deserved given the lame grin on my face at just the thought of Adam.
Boyfriend. Boyfriend. It had been seven months, but the word still felt funny. Could you have imposter syndrome in your own relationship? But it had been SO good. Adam had gone from massively awesome to even more awesome. Mawsome. Sure, there had been all the obvious amazing things about him at the start – his stone cold hottie-ness, the way he made everyone around him laugh, his forearms when he drummed – but as we spent more time together and I got to know the more secret bits, the things that he only shared with me – I liked him even more. I loved how he really cared what exam results he got. And what his future looked like. How he loved his younger brother. And how he had a weird Wednesday hobby of baking bread. As in real, actual pre-toast. With his own hands (well, with an oven).
The only thing that didn’t feel so great was that even though my mum was a fully fledged member (potential president) of the Adam Douglas Fan Club, he’d never even asked me to meet his parents. Were they really always busy? Or, as I was beginning to suspect, was he more worried about what they’d think of me?
EURGH. Thinking about it again made me feel sick. Not sick enough to not drink my second hot chocolate (I’m a trouper), but sick enough to know that even the thought of him not liking me as much as I liked him was the scariest thing in the world. And these last few weeks, it just wouldn’t stop niggling at me. Because – as much as I tried to ignore the evidence – he had gone off the radar a bit recently. Was it really just exams? I’d only seen him properly once in the last three weeks.
EURGH EURGH. How was I meant to concentrate on this revision if I was at risk of becoming so heartbroken I could never leave my house (most specifically kitchen) again?!
Tegan walked back into the room, looking her usual wise self. Hmmm… Maybe it was time to call in reinforcements.
“Teeeeg. Rach.” I needed to get some cold, hard facts on my situation from my best friends (aka, totally biased advice based solely on what I needed to hear to make me feel better). “Before we get back to it, please can I get some advice?” I looked at Tegan. “I swear it will liberate my brain to extra-achieve proper revision after.”
Teeg smiled. “Well, in that case…” As if she would have ever said no.
So, with them pulling up stools to watch, I divided the remaining space on the black wall into three huge columns to help us figure things ou
t.
“OK, first one.” I stretched up to write. “Reasons Adam and Bella…”
Rach heckled, “Adabella.”
“OK, Reasons Adabella are the Best Thing Ever. Then –” I moved to the middle column “– Things That Are Causing Me to Freak Out a Bit/Lot. And finally, on the right – Reassuring Things to Convince Me I Should Probably Stop Freaking Out.”
That one took a bit longer to write, as however I spelt “reassuring”, it didn’t look right. As I corrected it, Tegan interrupted.
“We’ll fill that one in, right, Rach?”
I grinned at them. “Legends. In that case, I’ll start on the easiest one. Reasons Adabella are great.”
Without having to try, I began scribbling away.
•Adam is so hot I’d follow him on Instagram even if I didn’t know him.
• When we snog, it’s so good sometimes I can only speak in vowels for 5 mins after.
• He makes me laugh. ALL THE TIME.
NOTE TO SELF: Maybe this is most hot thing of all?? I put two stars beside it to give it extra importance.
•He pats ALL dogs. Especially Mumbles.
•He insists we make up names for each other when we get a takeaway hot drink and can never let on they’re not real (he didn’t even crack when they shouted “Anita Shour”).
Before I realized, I’d written ten more. (We have the same order of favourite songs on the 1975’s debut album! He introduced me to cheese-and-marmite toasties!) Rach then pointed out we only had a couple of minutes before we’d have to get back to revising, so we should crack on with the middle column.
But my chalk seemed to not want to move, like committing my innermost worries to written words would make them more real.
“C’mon, Bells,” Tegan said gently, “you’ve got this.”
Slowly I began to write.
•Has he been avoiding me?
•Why doesn’t want me to meet his parents? Is it me????
•He’s so laid back, but I freak out when I’m within 20 metres of him, like I’m only just learning social skills. Is this normal?? (OR DOES THIS MEAN HE’S JUST NOT INTO ME??? DISCUSS!!!!)
But before I could get any further, Rach’s alarm for the end of break part two went. ARGH. I hadn’t even got to the good bit yet (i.e. the bit where Rach and Tegan tell me it will all be OK). All I’d done was create a life-sized worry cliffhanger.
