Secrets of a Teenage Heiress by Katy Birchall (14)

Ella was driving me nuts.

Since her party, she hadn’t SHUT UP about Olly and his ‘amazing dark eyes and long delicate eyelashes’ for one second. Delicate? Really? If anyone else in our group used that word to describe their boyfriend’s eyelashes, Ella would scrap them right off her sleepover guest list.

He was, she reminded us at every possible moment, the best-looking boy in the whole school. And, yeah, I’m not going to say Olly is bad-looking because, let’s face it, he wouldn’t look out of place standing next to One Direction and I was happy to note that he had moved on from sleeveless vests for his band performances, and was sporting more tasteful T-shirts that still did a good job of showing off his muscly arms. But it’s not like he’s Ethan Duke. I was actually looking forward to not seeing Ella during half-term next week and getting a break from her and her gooey stories.

‘She’s being so selfish,’ I complained to Grace as we strolled towards the cafeteria together one lunchtime. ‘She hasn’t asked me one question about Ethan or Sky and, no offence, they’re more interesting than your brother.’

‘Why don’t you just tell her you want to talk about them?’ Grace offered, going through the lunch trays and passing me a dry one.

‘I can’t do that. She should want to know.’

‘I think her brain is a bit fogged up at the moment with Olly.’ She pulled a face. ‘He’s all she talks about.’

‘There they are now.’ I sighed, gesturing to a table in the middle of the room where Olly was talking enthusiastically to the friend opposite him, while Ella sat next to him listening patiently. ‘Do they ever spend a second apart?’

‘Actually,’ Grace began, coming to stand next to me and look over at their cringe display, ‘he was saying that he finds her a bit . . . much.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, he said he wished he had got to know her a bit more before you know –’ she grimaced – ‘all the smooching.’

‘Don’t use the word “smooching”, Grace. People might hear you.’

‘Sorry. Don’t tell Ella,’ she pleaded.

‘I won’t, she’d never let you sit at her table if she knew you called it “smooching”. You’re lucky I’m so lenient.’

‘I mean, about what Olly said. I don’t want her to hate me.’

‘She wouldn’t hate you, Grace,’ I said impatiently, taking a plate of lasagne. ‘It’s not you who said it, it’s Olly.’

‘Yeah, but I think he’s the only reason she’s friends with me.’

I tore my eyes away from Ella stroking Olly’s arm and looked curiously at Grace. She was obviously right. But I didn’t know she knew that.

‘It’s OK,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t really mind.’

She suddenly looked very small and hunched, and I felt a wave of sympathy for her. Ella had a way of making people feel very small, especially people like Grace who just let her walk all over them.

‘You should mind,’ I heard myself saying. ‘You should have more confidence. Stand up for yourself a bit.’

‘I know.’ She nodded, but she said it in a way that didn’t sound like she believed it.

‘Look,’ I began sternly, ‘she wouldn’t keep hanging out with you if she didn’t like you.’

It was a lie, but at least it would stop her from looking so sad.

‘You think?’ She blinked up at me gratefully.

‘Yeah. Now, let’s go. I’m starving.’

She followed me across the cafeteria and we slid our trays on to Ella and Olly’s table. They all looked up to say hey when Grace and I sat down, before Olly and his friend, Liam, returned to their heated debate about a book I hadn’t read, while Ella concentrated on lapping up every word that came out of Olly’s mouth. I let my mind dreamily drift off to Ethan and appearing on his vlog, which annoyingly sparked a string of nervous thoughts, thanks to something stupid Cal had said.

I hadn’t told him about appearing on Ethan’s vlog on purpose. He had overheard the conversation I was having with Matthew and Fritz, and had found the whole concept hilarious.

‘What is so funny?’ I’d said grumpily, as he came round the back of the reception desk, where I was sitting with Fritz on my lap. The silver tag had fallen off his favourite collar and I had taken it to Matthew to see if it was fixable or if I’d have to ring up Tiffany’s and ask them to send him another.

‘You going on Ethan Duke’s vlog,’ Cal said, rummaging through his bag, which he’d left with his dad behind the counter, and pulling out a bag of crisps.

‘I think it sounds interesting,’ Matthew said, fiddling with the delicate clasp of the dog tag.

‘Thank you, Matthew,’ I replied, tickling Fritz’s belly until he heard the rustle of the crisp bag and flew off my lap to go and paw innocently at Cal’s leg.

‘What are you going to talk about? How you can’t even make a bed without getting stuck in the sheets?’ Cal asked, shoving several crisps into his mouth at one time, ignoring the pool of drool from Fritz forming at his feet.

‘I will be talking about my life.’

‘Aren’t you saving that intriguing topic of conversation for your own vlogs, which are yet to make an appearance?’ Cal snorted.

I narrowed my eyes at him as Matthew smiled to himself.

‘I’ll use Ethan’s vlog appearance to launch my OWN vlog. It will be like . . . a teaser.’

Cal let out a loud ‘HA’ causing bits of crisp to fly everywhere.

‘Ew! Matthew, look! We’ll have to bleach the desk now.’

Matthew sighed. ‘Go and eat those somewhere else, please, Callum.’

‘Yes, Callum,’ I sneered.

‘Fine by me.’ He smiled, offering Fritz a crisp and almost losing his fingers in the process.

‘When are you going to train this mutt?’

‘He’s perfectly trained,’ I said defensively, as Fritz took Cal’s shoelaces in his feet and started pulling them. ‘And don’t call him a mutt.’

‘He’s the worst-trained dog I’ve ever met.’

‘And you’re an expert, are you?’ I folded my arms. Cal scrunched up his empty crisp packet, lobbed it into the bin and then picked up Fritz and tickled his chin.

‘I might not be an expert, but I do know that dogs shouldn’t pee behind the reception desk.’

Matthew’s head jerked up.

‘WHAT?’

‘Cal! ’ I hissed.

‘See you guys later,’ Cal laughed, grabbing his bag and dropping Fritz into my lap as he breezed out of the reception hall and through the hotel doors.

After about five minutes of explaining to Matthew that it had only happened on one occasion, when Fritz was a puppy, I was let off the hook and allowed to escape back to my room, where I spent the next few hours googling Ethan Duke and going through all his videos. Cal’s stupid comments had made me feel a bit nervous about what I was actually going to talk about, so I wanted to check the vibe of other guests. Most of them were able to talk about their recent films or music releases. What was I going to say?

Would announcing the launch of my vlogging channel be an interesting enough topic? Would Ethan find me as much of a laughing stock as Cal did? And what was I going to talk about on my own vlogs anyway? I wasn’t sure I’d thought this whole thing through. All these thoughts were starting to give me a headache.

Who knew that vlogging was such hard work?

‘She really is in her own world. Flick? Helloooooooo.’

I broke out of my daze and saw everyone around the table watching me expectantly.

‘Welcome back to Earth.’ Olly laughed. ‘Penny for your thoughts?’

‘I was just telling everyone about how, on the last Saturday of half-term, my parents are taking me for a really posh lunch,’ Ella boasted, before I had the chance to answer Olly, ‘and then I’m going to Olly’s house in the evening.’

‘Everyone’s invited,’ Olly added.

‘Our parents have set up a projector in the basement,’ Grace enthused. ‘And we’ve made it really cosy in there, so we’re going to have a movie night.’

‘I’m going to do the popcorn challenge,’ Liam said proudly. ‘How much popcorn I can fit in my mouth at once. Got to beat Tom’s record.’

‘Sounds . . . interesting.’

‘Are you going to come?’ Olly asked.

‘I can’t, I’m still grounded.’

‘That sucks.’ Everyone else nodded in agreement with him.

‘It’s OK.’ I shrugged, seizing an opportunity. ‘I need to prepare for Ethan’s vlog.’

Grace dropped her fork with a clang. ‘What?’

‘Oh,’ I said innocently. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Ethan’s asked me to do a guest vlog.’

Whispers of excitement satisfactorily spread down the table. Of course, Ella then had to go and open her big mouth and ruin it all.

‘You?’ She laughed. ‘But why would you be on Ethan Duke’s vlog?’

‘Why wouldn’t she be on it?’ Olly enquired, catching my eye.

‘I just mean, what would she talk about?’ Ella said, flustered, dropping her hand from where it had been permanently resting on his arm. ‘It’s not like she’s famous.’

‘She’s been on all the fashion websites since the Lewis Blume show,’ Grace said hurriedly.

My stomach tightened at Ella’s sharp words. Would everyone else think that? But if Ethan thinks I’m good enough then it doesn’t matter – he knows what he’s talking about so who cares what Ella says?

Except, I hadn’t heard from Ethan in a few days. Maybe he had changed his mind and he didn’t want me on it any more and now the whole school would know that he had dropped me . . .

‘It’s not a big deal, just a bit of fun,’ I said, standing up quickly before anyone could say anything else. ‘Anyway, I’m sad to miss out on the popcorn challenge.’

‘Right on.’ Liam nodded, holding up his hand for me to high-five. ‘It will be epic.’

‘Where are you going?’ Grace asked.

‘I’ve got to make a phone call,’ I lied, shoving my tray on the rack. ‘I’ll see you in a bit.’

I got outside, wrapped my coat tighter around me and sat down on a bench, looking out across the schoolyard – thanks to the cold weather, I had the place to myself. I turned my phone off and on again, to check that my messages weren’t playing up and Ethan hadn’t been texting me all this time begging me to let him know when we could schedule in a date for filming. I stared at it as the home screen refreshed. No new messages.

After a few minutes of pretending not to be cold, I admitted to myself that my hands were about to fall off and I should head back inside. I heard footsteps behind me and thought that maybe Ella had come to apologise for saying that I wasn’t famous enough to be on the vlog. I got ready with my superior ‘I-may-or-may-not-forgive-you’ face. But it wasn’t her.

‘You all right?’

I spun round to see Olly, hunched over in the cold with his hands shoved in his pockets. He came to sit down next to me.

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ I held up my phone. ‘Just finished my call so was about to come inside.’

‘Who was it?’

‘Oh . . . Ethan Duke. Yeah. We were brainstorming some ideas.’

‘I just wanted to come out here and check . . .’ He paused and met my eyes with his. ‘I wanted to make sure you weren’t upset about what Ella said. About the famous thing.’

I laughed, a little more high-pitched than normal. ‘Pah! I’m not upset.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You went a bit pale when she said it.’

‘No I didn’t. I don’t care. She’s just jealous, as usual.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’re OK,’ he said, cupping his hands together and breathing into them.

We sat in silence until I felt a bit uncomfortable. It felt as though he had something more to say and, considering it was really cold and I’d already spent ages out here pretending to be on the phone, I thought I’d help him out and cut to the chase.

‘Did you come out here to ask me if I’ll ask Ethan to have your band on his vlog or something? Because I don’t think that he –’

‘What?’ Olly looked taken aback. ‘No. I came out to check you were all right.’

‘Oh. Right, it just seemed like –’

‘Whatever, I’ll leave you to it.’ He stood up abruptly and stomped back towards school.

If anyone else had been so touchy and stormed off over a tiny comment like that, I would have left them to get over themselves, but Olly had defended me at lunch when his girlfriend had taken a swipe at me, so I thought I should probably catch up with him and make amends. Boys are so high maintenance.

‘Sorry.’ I tried to catch his eye as I fell into step with him but he was staring straight ahead.

‘It’s OK,’ he said sharply.

‘I thought –’

‘I know what you thought,’ he interrupted, stopping at the door and turning to look me straight in the eye. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit sad that when someone is trying to be nice, you think that they want something from you?’

I opened my mouth to reply but the door swung open and a load of sixth-form girls huddled out, breaking us apart, and when they spotted me they launched into a bunch of questions about Lewis Blume’s fashion show, blocking Olly from view. When I was finally able to grapple my way through them back into the warmth, he had gone inside and was standing with Ella, Grace and Liam, staring at his feet, while the others laughed politely at something Ella was droning on about.

As I got close to them, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Cal standing in front of me, his headphones round his neck and a pile of books in his arms. It was literally like he went out of his way to look like a stereotypical nerd.

‘What?’ I asked, maybe a little harsher than I should have. Ella fell silent and, even though I had my back turned to the group, I knew they were watching.

‘I just wanted to check we were still on for Saturday.’

I glanced over my shoulder. Ella looked repulsed. Yep, they had heard.

‘Yes, fine. See you then,’ I whispered, trying to tell him to go away with my eyes.

His eyes drifted over my shoulder to our judging audience, and a mischievous grin formed on his face. I’d seen that look before many times. Right before he played a big joke on someone.

Oh no.

‘I’m SO looking forward to our date, babe,’ he said loudly enough for the whole corridor to stop what they were doing and look at us. I froze in shock while he lifted his headphones back over his ears, winked at me and sauntered off down the hall.

Ella’s mouth dropped open. ‘What did Cal Weston just say to you?’