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

then something propelled Bree to lean her face towards him. He hesitated but didn’t stop her, so she leaned in further and closed her eyes. Her lips touched his, very, very gently. He didn’t move. But his lips stayed there a second or two longer. When he pulled back, her lips felt cold.
    â€œYou’re right,” he said. And he coughed, looking embarrassed. “Let’s get back inside.”
    It should have been a beautiful moment Bree could always look back on. But no. Her dad had discovered her plans to move schools and taken a sudden ferocious interest in her future. She was forbidden from leaving Queen’s and forced to return that autumn – loaded with fresh teasing-material as the girl who did an Irish jig at the ball.
    Mr Fellows’s face had gone rigid with shock when she’d entered her first English lesson. Since then, he’d refused to talk about it, wouldn’t speak with her the way he used to, and now he was denying their kiss to her face.
    Bree was, once again, an embarrassment. And with most people it didn’t bother her, but this was Mr Fellows. And he was different. And now he felt about her just like everybody else did.
    He put her coursework back into his desk and the tone of his voice changed – all calm and authoritarian.
    â€œLook, I don’t think we’re getting anywhere. I’m sorry your manuscript was rejected again. I do think you should take on board what I’ve said. Try and make yourself, your life, a bit more interesting, and the interesting writing will follow. Stop shutting everyone out.”
    Without another word, Bree ran from the room, humiliated. She streamed along the corridors and bashed through the door to the girls’ toilets. She locked herself into a cubicle, pulled down her tights and sat on the loo seat, willing her eyes to stop prickling.
    The bathroom door opened. People came in.
    â€œOkay. I completely and utterly have to redo this mascara. It looks like a spider hijacked my face.”
    It was Jassmine and her posse of perfects. Checking up on their make-up. Of course.
    Bree stayed still, fighting the urge to sniff and accidently give away her lurking location.
    â€œYou don’t look like that. Your lashes look fab.” That was Gemma. Sucking up as usual.
    â€œYou reckon? You don’t think falsies are too much for school? I thought I’d try it out today.”
    â€œNah. They look amazing.”
    Bree heard the clattering of a make-up bag being emptied into a sink.
    â€œI’m trying to look my best at the moment. Hugo keeps messing me about and I think it’s easier to deal with all that stuff if you look nice, you know?”
    â€œTotally. What’s he done now?”
    â€œI dunno.” Jassmine sighed. “Just some rumours going round that he was all over some single-sex-slut at that party over the weekend.”
    Bree leaned forward on the toilet so she could hear better. She’d heard Hugo talking about that girl this morning.
    â€œYou believe the rumours?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWhy do you do it to yourself? If he makes you feel insecure?”
    Jassmine? Insecure? Bree almost snorted and gave herself away.
    â€œI don’t know. You’re right. We’re technically broken up right now…but maybe I should finish it for good.”
    Bree almost gasped.
    â€œNot before his massive eighteenth though?”
    Jassmine laughed. A gorgeous discreet titter. “Of course not. It’s going to be the event of the year. I’ve already got about ten outfits on standby.”
    â€œWell then, just make him behave until then.”
    â€œYep.” The sound of lips being smacked together echoed round the tiled walls. “This new lipstick should help. Anyway…maybe I’ve not been behaving myself either.”
    A gasp.
    â€œJassmine? Seriously?”
    â€œShh. Anyway, we are ‘on a break’.”
    â€œWho? Who is