The Manifesto on How to be Interesting (38 page)

Jassmine's lip wobbled. “I…I…”

The bell went, signalling the end of break, but no one moved.

And Bree… Speaking on behalf of every single girl who'd ever had an awful time at school. Every girl who didn't get invited to dances when people like Jassmine did. Every girl who had, at least once, cried in a school toilet cubicle about her sad excuse for a life. For every girl who couldn't wear tight jeans and look good in them, who didn't know how to speak to boys, who overheard nasty rumours or names about themselves spread through the corridors like wildfire… Bree said: “Don't you see? How stupid all this is? How pointless it is worrying all the time what people think of us?”

The bell rang again and Ms Masoon entered the crowd, clapping her hands, breaking the trance.

“What are you all doing here? Get to class. Come on, everybody. NOW!”

The perfects and Bree stared at each other as people pushed past. Gemma was crying the hardest still; all her make-up had run off. She looked quite nice actually.

Then she heard, “Bree, BREE.”

Holdo ran straight to her. Dodging and weaving through the dispersing mob until he was right in front of her. And he collected her into the biggest bear hug known to man.

“Bree,” he said.

In an instant, Jassmine was forgotten. The last ten minutes were forgotten. All there was was unadulterated joy that her old friend was hugging her, just like old friends do.

She hugged him back with every molecule of her body.

“We need to talk,” he said, grabbing her hand and tearing her away from the drama.

“But what about class?”

“Screw class. Bree, do you have any idea what's going on?”

“No. What's going on?” The hallways were emptying quicker by the minute, the hum of excited whispers dulled by the closing of classroom doors.

“You're an internet sensation.”

“I am?”

“How can you not already know this?”

He took her round the edge of the school and they ducked out the side entrance, unseen. It was freezing cold but Bree didn't even put her coat on. Her brain was a blur.

“Where are we going?”

“To mine. I need a computer.”

“Holdo, stop.”

He did, and turned to look at her. It was weird – they hadn't looked at each other in so long. He'd had a new outbreak of spots, but his hair was longer and it suited him.

“What?”

“Why are you talking to me again? I thought you hated me.”

“I did hate you.”

“Oh.”

“I really hated you.”

“Oh great. Rub in some salt, why don't you? It's not like my life isn't some massive gaping wound right now.”

“Your life is not a gaping wound, trust me.”

“Why?”

“Bree. The Manifesto on How to be Interesting, is it really you?”

It was so surreal having her blog title said back to her.

“It…it might be.”

“So you becoming a shallow idiotic twat, swanning round school like you're the best thing in the world, before getting your – no offence but – kinda just desserts, was all for the blog?”

She smiled weakly. “Well, I've
always
thought I was the best thing in the world, you know that.”

Her smile was returned. Then downturned.

“Mr Fellows? Was that all true? Did he really just leave?”

Bree's eye went a bit wet. “Yes.”

“That must've been awful.”

“It was.”

Holdo hugged her again, squeezing the air out of her lungs. It felt so good. She clamped back as hard as she could. Her friend was hugging her because a guy had broken her heart and screwed her over. That was what friends did. Finally she had one again.

Then everything that'd just happened rushed back.

“Hang on…” She broke the hug. “How does everyone know it's me? What's going on?”

“This”, Holdo said, “is why we need my computer.”

His house was empty as he led her up to his room. It had been so long since she'd been there and yet it looked – and smelled – exactly the same. Boy-blue wallpaper, art-house movie posters, the stale whiff of boy hormones and God-knows-what-else.

Holdo powered up his huge computer. “Have you not been checking internet stats for your blog?”

She pulled up a beanbag and plopped onto it, a little scared of what was about to happen.

“No. I didn't think anyone was reading it.”

“Then why do it?”

She shrugged. “Dunno. For me, I guess?”

“But why go to all that trouble? Why ruin who you are? Just for you?”

Bree wasn't sure if she really had ruined who she was, but now was not the time to argue.

“Here it is.” Holdo pulled up the blog.

Bree gasped. She'd never seen it from a user point of view before. Only the back end when she was uploading posts and posting the occasional photo with the faces blurred out.

It looked…quite good actually. Her hosting platform must've done fancy stuff on her behalf.

“Wow, it's actually real.”

Holdo gave her a weird look. “Hang on, I'm just downloading some web-analytic software.”

“Hmmm, yeah.”

Bree grabbed the mouse and scrolled through the blog. Wow – she'd written so much. Her eyes scanned a few posts. Her writing wasn't actually half bad. And there were loads of comments underneath each one.

Comments? She didn't even realize she'd got commenting enabled on the thing. She saw she'd ticked the “Enable All” box, so they must've gone straight through to the front end of the blog; the bit she never looked at. How could she have been so dim?

She clicked on the post about Logan's leaving letter – there was all sorts underneath it. Written by perfect strangers.

What. A. Tosser. Honey, don't worry. He's not worth it. You're the coolest (virtual) gal I know. Your blog has MADE my year.

Three words. Get him arrested.

Are you okay, Miss Manifesto? My heart is all smashed up after reading that, and it didn't even happen to me.

Tell someone! Seriously. This guy is a predatory jerk. This is so much more common than people think.

Comment after comment after comment. All of them wishing her well. All of them on her side.

No one had ever been on Bree's side.

“Who are these people?” she asked, clicking on another post and finding just as many comments.

“Your fans, Bree.”

“Fans? Bloggers get fans?”

“You still don't get it, do you? Brilliant, it's downloaded, I'll pull up some stats.”

He took the mouse, which pissed her off a bit. She wanted to keep reading all the nice bits. Then he did his fast typing and clicking, and she couldn't keep up until loads of small graphs littered the page.

Holdo let out a whistle. “Holy hell, Bree, this blog is getting over two million unique user hits a month!”

“Huh?”

“That means people. Over two million people are reading The Manifesto on How to be Interesting.”

Everything went hazy, like the words weren't real.

She had only one question. “Why?”

Holdo looked almost sorry for her. “Bree, you've done something everyone wants to do but nobody else has the guts for. Do you have any idea how many people have a rough time at school and feel utterly alone, but no one's reaching out to them? Or how many people wish they could change things but they don't have the tenacity at the time? Except you. You've done it. You've reached them. And you've written about it so honestly, it's like they've done it too.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“But I don't think that's what I meant to do.”

“What did you mean to do?”

“I just…wanted to become more interesting. I just wanted to become a better writer.”

“Well, you've definitely done that.”

“But it's been horrible. You hate me. Everyone hates me.”

“Because I didn't know this was why you were being such a doofus. Why didn't you tell me, Bree?”

She wasn't sure. “How has everyone at school figured it out? I've changed all the names. I've pixelated all the photos.”

“It must've grown so big that someone at Queen's read it and put everything together. I mean, teenagehood is pretty generic, but I don't think in every school some random girl rises to the top of the social ladder, has sex with the most popular guy in school, who films it, and then makes a teacher leave the school.”

He was talking about her life like it was a synopsis. A blurb on a book cover. Which could be fine if things were fictional, but this was her life. Her misery. Her loss. And yet he was too worked up for her to shut him up.

“Look at these charts,” he said, clicking on random bits. “It's been gaining popularity week on week. Must've been a word-of-mouther. How have you not realized this? Haven't you got emails from people?”

“Emails?”

“Yeah. From readers?”

Bree hadn't got one email from anyone. She would know, she checked all the time just in case some friends appeared out of nowhere and saved her from her inane loneliness. She thought back to that first night, when she'd started the blog.

“I got a different email address for it. One to match the blogging platform.”

“And you've not checked it?”

“It's not my usual address. And I never thought I'd get emails…”

“Do you know the password?”

“Maybe.”

She'd been drunk when she'd set it up, but drunk Bree obviously used the same password as normal Bree. She logged in without any effort, and was greeted with:

You have 45,597 new messages.

“Woooooah,” Holdo said.

She opened one at random. It was from a severely-depressed fifteen year old. A self-harmer. Apparently Bree's post had really helped her feel not alone. And could they be pen pals?

She clicked on another.

Email after email after email. The room melted away. Holdo, though he was reading alongside her, hazed into nothingness.

It didn't seem real.

Bree let out a weird howling sound and finally, finally, six years of repressed tears exploded out of her heart and drained from her eyes. She held Holdo close to her and sobbed. He stroked her hair and clicked through the emails, reading them to her, as his shoulder got wetter and wetter and wetter.

And then – because February the fifteenth wasn't just a big day for Queen's Hall – Bree found the sort of email that changes one's life.

Buried on page nine.

From Brookland publishing house.

Holdo began wheezing.

“Oh my God, Bree, Brookland! Brookland? You have to ring them, you have to ring them now!”

She could hardly read the email through her tears.

“They want to meet you. Look, there's a number at the bottom. They sent this almost a month ago. Do you think they want to turn it into a book? Ring them, Bree. Where's your phone? Oh my God, I'm so happy for you.”

His voice faded to white noise as she got out her phone, her hands shaking, her tears sploshing onto the screen.

She dialled and waited for it to ring.

Holdo grinned at her inanely as she waited for her call to be answered. He looked so lovely when he smiled.

“Hello?” a gruff voice echoed on the other line. And Bree erupted into a fresh wave of hysteria.

“Hello? Hello?”

Through sobs, she managed to get out… “Dad, it's me. Can you come home?”

Holdo walked her to her front door, letting her stop and cry along the way. Not asking questions. He was so good at knowing when she didn't want questions.

The shock on her mum's face when she opened the door to them. “What's going on?”

“Mum!” Bree threw herself at her and fresh hysteria rose again. “Mum, I love you. I'm so sorry. I love you so much. Please, please know how much I love you and how sorry I am.”

“Honey. Jesus, what's wrong, is she in trouble?”

Holdo left quietly as Bree wept all down her mother's jumper, staining it with salt. Her mum's grip got tighter and tighter.

“Mum, I love you. I'm so, so sorry.”

“Shh, honey, there's nothing to be sorry about.”

She gently steered Bree to the living room and got her to the sofa. Bree started choking, she was crying so hard. Her mum thumped her back, stroked her hair, and sang to her.

Her dad arrived soon, flinging his briefcase to the floor and – without talking – joined them on the sofa. Hugging Bree tight, hugging her mum tight, rocking them, making “shhh” sounds.

Time passed. Bree eventually stopped crying so hard.

Sensing her change, they both crouched on the carpet and looked at her.

“Bree, are you okay?”

Bree shook her head so hard her brain rattled.

“No, no, I'm really not okay. I want help… I need help.”

And then Bree began to talk.

Slowly, she told them everything.

This is my last blog post.

I want to tell you what I've learned so you can get closure or whatever.

I can't have done all this and not learned something profound, can I? That won't do at all.

So you've read it now, my tale. We've done it together.

Oh, how far we've come, eh?

I guess you want to know what happened.

Well, it took a while to mend me, much as I realized I needed to be mended. Many hours were spent with Dr Thomas, crying loads into tissues, putting me back together again.

And, as a part of this mending, I have to include my apologies…

Holdo. Wonderful sweet Holdo, I cannot say sorry enough.

My beautiful parents, you will never be shut out again.

I suppose, Jass, you need one…