"Promise." I smiled as she punched the air in victory. "I've never even heard of them, though."

"Of course you haven't! But you'll love them." Jess nodded vigorously with a huge grin. "Ask Marianne; she'll tell you all about them. It's so cool that she can date rock stars. You might start dating rock stars!"

I snorted. "Don't think so somehow."

"Well, if you keep snorting like that you certainly won't." Jess raised her eyebrows at me. "I bet you're going to meet some pretty amazing people. We're going to have to work on your conversation skills. You'll have to learn not to talk about Dog and Marvin comics so much in the presence of celebrities."

"Marvel. Not Marvin. Seriously, who is this Marvin person?"

Before Jess could answer, we were interrupted by two people suddenly standing by our table. I looked up to see Sophie and Josie smiling down at me. I immediately sat up straight. This was it. I braced myself for the onslaught of ridicule.

"Hey, Anna, sorry to disturb your lunch," Sophie began.

Jess was scowling so hard, I thought the waves of "go away" coming off her might knock Sophie and Josie off their far-too-high-for-school heels.

"I just wanted to say that we saw about your dad in the papers. That's really cool."

"It is?" I replied warily.

"Yeah, really cool. Anyway, my uncle remarried a few years ago, so I know what it's like to be in your position."

"Not quite the same thing," Jess muttered, picking up her fork and stabbing at a tomato.

Sophie ignored her. "If you ever wanted to talk about anything. Maybe fashion tips or . . . hairstyles." She eyed my head coolly. I was well aware that having been leaning on my folded arms for the majority of our lunch break I probably had a watch mark right in the middle of my forehead or something.

"Sophie has talked a lot with Brendan's mom about stuff like this," Josie said authoritatively. "So feel free to ask us any questions."

"How generous." Jess smiled sweetly up at them, like a viper would right before gobbling up a mouse.

"Um, yeah, thanks," I said, trying to elbow Jess.

"And listen, Anna." Josie took a deep breath. "The fire thing. It's forgotten. I know it was an accident. And you've clearly been under a lot of stress. It can't be easy being around people like Helena and Marianne when you're obviously not really . . . well, not that interested in their sort of things."

"Uh, right. Yeah. Thanks."

"Well, we'll catch up later," Sophie said, clearly blown away by how articulate and charismatic I was being now that I was in the papers. And looking satisfied, they both waltzed out of the cafeteria.

"Wow." Danny shook his head and pulled his focus back to the vegetables.

"They are so weird." Jess laughed.

"Everyone is acting very strangely today. Maybe they all ate shrimp."

"Why are you talking about shrimp? You know I hate shrimp. Queen Bee and her sidekick are obviously interested in the new celebrity in their grade," Jess argued. "Maybe Sophie figures being nice to you can't hurt her chances of getting more attention."

"You think? I thought they were just being nice."

"I don't think so." Jess frowned. "What do you think, Danny?"

Danny finished off his water and slammed his glass down. "Girls are weird." He then began munching his vegetables.

"Thanks for that golden nugget, Daniel." Jess sighed. "You're as genius with advice as you are with voice mails."

"Honestly, Anna." Danny looked at me seriously. "I think you're going to have to prepare yourself for a lot of change."

Jess nodded slowly in agreement. I glanced around at the other students looking curiously at me. I gulped. I had a feeling Danny was, as always, right. There was a lot of change coming my way.

And I didn't have the first clue what to do about it.

TEN REASONS WHY BEING IN the papers is not very fun: 1. Suddenly people look at you A LOT. This means that you have to try to not be yourself.

2. Because you are concentrating very hard on not being yourself, you do awkward things like walk into pillars and forget the entire English language when someone popular speaks to you.

3. You spend break times hiding in the prop closet of the drama department. This drawn-out solitary confinement leads to you slightly losing it and having a genuine conversation with a human-size sheaf of corn, last used in the school's production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

4. People expect you not to do stupid things. You do stupid things regardless. They laugh at you.

5. There are photographers outside your school waiting for you to do stupid things.

6. In detention people won't stop asking you about the reason you're in the papers, making the detention teacher Mr. Kenton get very angry at no one being quiet.

7. The detention teacher ends up spilling his coffee over his white shirt midway through shouting, giving you an evil glare as though it is all your fault.

8. At the end of detention someone actually asks for your autograph so that they can sell it on eBay.

9. When you say no, they call you a "grouch."

10. You will most likely lose the only two friends you have due to the odd things you start to do that will freak them out, like having conversations with a sheaf of corn prop. You will therefore be left with very little dignity and a yellow Labrador that will betray you for bacon.

I never thought I'd be grateful for detention, but it was nice to put off going home back to my dysfunctional family life for another hour. Sure, it was very annoying when people like Joe Winton in the grade above kept asking for Marianne Montaine's number-yeah, Joe, because a famous It Girl is going to want to date a thirteen-year-old who is currently in detention for disrupting assembly by pulling down a fellow student's pants-and I could have done without all the questions about why, now that I'm a celebrity, no one has "fixed" my hair yet.

But once everyone shut up, it was nice to get some work done. Not that Connor let me get away with it completely that first detention after it had been in the papers.

"It's funny," he'd said, leaning back in his chair, chewing a pen. "I don't remember seeing 'Become Britain's new It Girl' on your list of ambitions. . . ."

"It wasn't on the top of my list, no." I sighed, slumping into my chair next to him.

"Hey, Anastasia."

I knew that would come back to haunt me.

Max was a friend of Connor's who made frequent detention appearances too. "Yes, Maximillian?"

"If you ever need anyone to come with you to any of those celebrity parties where there are going to be supermodels and famous actresses looking for a fella to show them a good time, then I'm your man." He winked at me.

"Wow, Max, thanks. That's a pretty irresistible offer."

Connor snorted.

"Well, that's what the ladies tell me." Max grinned.

"His mom," Connor interjected under his breath. And for the first time since the newspaper article, I laughed out loud.

"That's what I was looking for, Spidey. Nice to see you smile today." He slid his sketchbook across to me. "Now, on to more important things. What do you think of this new character I've been working on? I'm not sure if he looks too obvious. You think I should tone down the muscles?"

It was my Mr. Kentonsupervised hour sanctuary of normalness. And it soon became my favorite part of the whole day.

Outside of detention everything was going wrong. Not only was school a catalog of embarrassing unIt Girl displays from me, Dad was paranoid about me leaving the house without him in case I got pounced on by rogue members of the press. It was getting out of hand. I was starting to feel like Frodo in Lord of the Rings when Sam wouldn't leave him alone. Except instead of being on a mission to return a ring, I was on a mission to keep my two remaining friends who in school saw me being ritually laughed at and outside of school didn't see me at all. And instead of an optimistic hobbit, who handily happened to be an excellent chef, following me around, I had a grumpy old man who insisted on saying things like "what is the world coming to" every five seconds and kept putting olives in pasta sauce.

Something had to be done.

It was a Wednesday afternoon, school had finished early-there was no detention that day, as Mr. Kenton had been struck down by the flu and no one could cover for him at such late notice. The sun was out, Dog was restless and, despite not having my usual refuge of detention, I was in a relatively good mood.

Jess and Danny were both busy, so I went home and decided to take advantage of the cloudless sky and take Dog for a walk. I picked up Dog's tennis ball and leash, and immediately Dad was standing in the doorway looking suspicious.

How come parents always know when you're thinking of doing something you shouldn't?

"Are we going on a walk?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Dog and I are going on a walk," I said firmly. "Once he stops running around the house."

Dog, having seen his mangled old tennis ball in my hand, had instantly sped off to do some laps of his territory in joy.

"I'm coming with you."

"No, Dad, you're not. You're smothering me." I sighed. "I don't want to have to start hiding your tea just to have some alone time."

Dad gave me a funny look.

"I wouldn't underestimate me," I stated matter-of-factly, shoving a set of keys in my pocket.

"What about the paparazzi? You know they might be out there."

"There are none out there. I checked through the window. I think they've gotten bored of the same photos of me going to school and coming back from school. Even the most imaginative journalists can't do much with those."

"I don't like you going on your own," Dad huffed.

"I won't be long. I'll just go to the park. I'll take my phone. Dog will be with me. I can always set him on some press members. I'll tell him they're squirrels in disguise."

Dad let out a long, tired sigh. "Fine. But I want you to take something with you just in case." He ran upstairs.

"Like what?" I called up after him. "I hope you're not expecting me to carry around your old baseball bat that's autographed by that dude no one has heard of?"

While Dad was rummaging around upstairs, I managed to tackle Dog midway through one of his circuits. I got the leash around him and then instructed him to sit. He decided instead to headbutt the telephone table. I left him to it.

Dad came trundling down the stairs holding what looked like a mini hollow wooden log. "Here," he said, holding it out to me. "It's a duck call from my hunting days. Just in case."

"Just in case of what?" I asked in utter amazement, looking at my father who had clearly lost his mind. "A duck has an emergency and needs to gather its far-flown family?"

"Don't joke, Anna. Put that in your pocket, and it could come in handy to whack someone in the head with. Self-defense."

"Dad. I mean this with kindness. I think you need to sit down and consider your state of mental health. You can't expect me to use a duck call as an assault weapon. I'm going to go now." I put the duck call in my pocket just to make him happy and then led Dog out of the house-or, rather, Dog enthusiastically pulled me out of the house-looking back to see my dad peering through the curtains.

Honestly, with a dad like mine, how can anyone expect me to be normal?

I hadn't been at the park long when I heard someone call my name. I turned around expecting to see one of the paparazzi who clearly hadn't got the "I'm boring" memo, but instead saw Brendan Dakers making his way toward me, wearing soccer gear and looking perfect as usual.

"Hey," he said, jogging up to me and pushing the hair out of his eyes. "I thought it was you standing there."

"Oh. Yeah. It's me. Standing here. Just with my dog."

GOOD ONE, ANNA. Please, God, let me become better at talking to boys before I hit old age, otherwise I'm going to be on my own for eternity.

"Yeah, I can see." He smiled at Dog. "How's things? Haven't had a chance to talk to you at school."

"Everything's okay. My dad is being weird, but that's about it."

"Yeah, my dad was weird when he remarried." Brendan rolled his eyes. "Kept trying to act half his age. It was bad."

"Yeah."

The conversation came to a bit of a standstill as I struggled for something interesting to say, and I imagine Brendan struggled to work out a way of getting out of talking to me for much longer.

"Your dog know any good tricks?" Brendan eventually asked, looking at Dog, who was sitting perfectly still, staring at the ball in my hand. Just as he had been doing the whole time we'd been talking.

"Pretty much just fetch. You want to throw it for him?" I asked.

Brendan looked at the mangled, slobbery tennis ball I was holding out to him and didn't look all that enthused, but he took it anyway. Then, with much more power than I could ever hope to achieve, he hurled it into the stretch of trees and bushes nearby. Dog zoomed off in pursuit, diving headfirst into the overgrowth.

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "Impressive throw."

"Maybe it was a bit far. Will he make his way back?" Brendan asked, looking concerned.

"Who, Dog? Please. He has incredible navigation. And fetch is pretty much his only talent. He'll be back before you know it," I assured him confidently.

Five minutes later, we were still standing quietly awaiting the return of Dog. I was getting a little anxious but didn't want to show it. Brendan was fidgeting next to me. I don't know why I couldn't think of anything to say. Normally with Jess and Danny the conversation flows freely. But with them I don't have to try to say something impressive. I was very aware that Brendan was regretting being polite and coming to talk to me in the first place, which didn't put me more at ease.

"He'll be back soon," I said for maybe the tenth time. We continued to stand there in silence. I put my hand in my pocket and felt the duck call.