The Manifesto on How to be Interesting Read Online Free PDF Page A

hers – had been at a teenage creative-writing weekend. It was one of Bree’s most painful and psychologically-damaging memories. On the last night, someone had smuggled in a bottle of wine. Eight of them drank it and pretended to be pissed. They’d played Spin the Bottle, but the bottle kept not landing on Bree. She’d merely watched while everyone kissed each other – some a tentative peck, some of the more attractive people really going for it. There was this one guy, Dylan…he looked like Perfection mixed with Godliness and wrote actual poetry. And just when she thought she’d never get kissed, Dylan spun the bottle and it landed on her. She could’ve squealed with delight. Trying to appear nonchalant, she’d straightened her back, and tucked a strand of hair away from her face.
    Dylan was less subtle.
    His face fell when he saw who he’d landed on. He sneered. And said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Bree? I don’t really have to kiss Bree, do I?”
    Bree? I don’t really have to kiss Bree, do I?
    Bree? I don’t really have to kiss Bree, do I?
    Bree? I don’t really have to kiss Bree, do I?
    How those words haunted her at 3 a.m. when she couldn’t sleep.
    Her heart had broken to the soundtrack of gleeful laughter.
    Dylan had leaned over and pecked her, just next to her lips. With a wrinkle of his nose and an overdramatic wiping of his mouth (more laughter), he erased fifteen years of Bree’s romantic fantasy of her first-kiss moment and replaced it with a painful reality.
    But her second kiss had been different.
    It had been like she’d always thought it could be.
    Last year, she and Mr Fellows had set up a creative-writing group for the younger students. Social suicide, but since when did Bree care? It wasn’t like she had much social life to lose. Two lunchtimes a week, they helped Year Sevens write and produce a booklet of their poetry and short stories. After each session, Mr Fellows read her first manuscripts and gave his feedback. In return she listened to tales of his unhappy marriage, his rebellious youth, and how, he too, yearned to be a writer. They always had something to say to one another. He was a dreamer, a creative, someone who understood her urge to put the world into words as a way of understanding why bad things happen. He made her feel warm, like a friend. It wasn’t too strange, Bree figured. He was only thirty, after all. (He’d let it slip once while warning her not to marry too young.)
    By the end of term, Bree had made a decision. She’d secretly applied to the state school down the road without telling her parents. There were horror stories about there being over thirty students in each class, no help with coursework and disruption in lessons. But she figured she was smart enough to do well anywhere and longed to be somewhere different. Somewhere she could be herself and be accepted. Her label of “weird loner girl” was so entrenched at Queen’s Hall, she would be shackled to it for ever there.
    She’d accepted her place and told Mr Fellows just before the end of term. He’d looked sad and said, “I’m going to miss you.” She’d miss him too. She’d started thinking about him before she went to sleep.
    On the supposedly last night of her private-school career, she and Holdo risked an evening of being blatantly ignored and went to the Year Eleven Leaving Ball. Silly name really, as nobody left Queen’s. She probably would have been the first. Bree had actually worn a dress – a champagne-coloured clingy number that didn’t quite fit properly and her mum had winced at. While Jassmine, Hugo and their minions twirled and bitched and ruled in their tailor-made suits and two-grand dresses, Bree and Holdo spent the night sat alone at a table in the corner…watching them have fun and thinking maybe coming to the ball hadn’t been the best idea after