You've turned it off, right?

From: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk To: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk Subject: (no subject) Anna? ANNA? Did you get my last e-mail???

That's it. I'm coming over. Don't build any forts this time.

J x Hi, you have reached Nick Huntley's phone. Please leave your name, number, and any message, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you.

*BEEP*

"Hi, Dad! Yeah, it's me. I know you're out and about, but I thought I'd call and say hi! And also tell you that I've decided to watch that Psycho movie you're always talking about. You know, the one by that director Hitchcock you're always giving long and boring speeches about. It was in the DVD player already, and Dog has settled right down so I know he approves. I hope this is entertaining. Enjoy your evening. Okay, bye."

Hi, you have reached Nick Huntley's phone. Please leave your name, number, and any message, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you.

*BEEP*

"DAD! Dad, it's me. Dad, something awful has happened! Dad, she got stabbed. IN THE SHOWER. I can't BELIEVE that you let me watch something like that, that you actually ENCOURAGED me to watch that film. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? I hope you know what this means. I WILL NEVER SHOWER AGAIN."

Hi, you have reached Nick Huntley's phone. Please leave your name, number, and any message, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you.

*BEEP*

"Hey, Dad, so I was thinking. Maybe you could come home soon? Just quickly, you wouldn't have to miss anything. You could just come home, check the house for murderers, and then go back on out. Think about it. Okay, bye. OH MY GOD. THE DOORBELL JUST RANG. DAD, DAD, YOU HAVE TO COME HOME."

Hi, you have reached Nick Huntley's phone. Please leave your name, number, and any message, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you.

*BEEP*

"Um, Mr. Huntley? Uh yeah, hi, this is Jess. You know, Anna's friend from school. Just to let you know that you can ignore all those messages she left you. I came over and found her in the closet, hiding behind the vacuum, holding your golf club. She's a bit better now though, so you don't need to worry. Lucky I know where your spare key is, hey? Anyway, hope you enjoy your evening. Uh yeah, bye."

JESS WAS WAITING BY MY locker when I came into school the next day.

"Morning, sunshine. How are you feeling?"

"Um," I replied, trying to ignore the glares of everyone passing us. "Not brilliant."

"I thought you might say that, which is why I bought you some of these." She reached into her bag and pulled out some gummy bears.

"Thanks, but I'm not sure even gummy bears can help this time."

"Look, don't worry about these guys," she said, gesturing to a group of sixth graders who giggled as they walked past. It looked like the whole school knew. "It will all blow over."

"I don't think it will somehow. I'm destined to be the girl who set Josie Graham on fire for the rest of my school career."

"Don't be silly. It was an accident; everyone knows that." Jess shrugged.

"Really?"

"Of course. Danny said he overheard Brendan Dakers saying it was an accident."

"What?" I said in utter shock. "Brendan Dakers said that? Are you sure?"

"Yes. Try not to swoon too much. It'll probably work in your favor, considering for some unknown reason people in this school tend to hang on his every word." She rolled her eyes. "Apparently he also said it was hilarious to watch."

"Something tells me that Josie won't have found it so funny." The first bell rang, and I sighed. "I wish I didn't have to go to class."

"Just laugh about it-no one was hurt." Jess gave me a friendly nudge. "It's like I said last night."

"Speaking of which, Dad wanted me to thank you again for coming over and rescuing me. Who knows how long I would have been in that closet for."

"No worries. Right, I better go, otherwise I'm going to be late, and I've already been given a warning about my tardiness." Jess swung her bag over her shoulder.

"Jess, you can't leave me. Sophie Parker is in this class. She's going to kill me. You don't get away with setting fire to her best friend lightly."

"How could she kill you? She doesn't have any weapons."

"I'm not sure that would stop her."

"I think her sister had a black belt. She used to go to school here. She might have taught Sophie how to karate-chop you."

"A lot of saliva is building up in my mouth right now."

"Calm down. Sophie is not going to kill you. And if she was, then she would definitely wait until after school so as not to make it look suspicious."

"Great. Thanks for that."

"I hope she doesn't kill you."

"You're a good friend."

Jess gave me a cheerful wave and walked off into the direction of her class.

I stood there wishing I could be more like Jess. She's beautiful, super cool and confident, and never seems to worry about anything. She has long, blond dip-dyed hair and always paints her nails loads of different colors. She's good at every sport she plays and captain of the volleyball team, which made Sophie Parker really mad.

Sophie expected to be captain since she is pretty much in charge of everything else that goes on, being the most popular girl in our grade. Apparently her sister was the most popular girl in this school when she was here and was captain of all the sports teams. When Sophie wasn't appointed captain of the volleyball team, her parents were very upset about it and came in to speak to our PE teacher, while Sophie cried behind them.

Dad has never had this sort of problem with me. I peaked in physical education when I was eight and was forced to join a soccer activity at school. I was distracted by a pigeon, the ball came my way, deflected off my butt, and bounced into the goal. My sporting career has gone downhill ever since.

Anyway, Sophie dragging in her parents didn't faze our PE teacher, who stuck to her guns and told them Jess was captain, fair and square. Upsetting the most popular girl in our grade didn't exactly do much for Jess's popularity, but Jess got over that pretty quickly.

Our friendship was actually born that day, right after Sophie and her parents stormed out of the gym having not got their way. Jess was waiting for her best friend, Danny, and I was waiting for Dad to come to get me to pick up Mom from the airport (who came to stay for a week to see the new house and ask me unending questions about my first week at the new school).

We were standing in silence a few feet apart, and I noticed she looked pretty down. I guess because Sophie and her sidekick, Josie, had made it clear what they thought about Jess being made captain. I offered her a cookie, but she just shook her head in a "stop bugging me" way. I nodded, and we stood in silence again.

"You had a bad day?" I asked after a few minutes.

"Yeah." She sighed, folding her arms. "Pretty bad."

I was thoughtful for a moment. "Want me to do a tap dance for you?"

She blinked at me. "What?"

"To cheer you up. Here." I put my bag down and launched into what was not really a tap dance, because I've never done tap dancing and I wasn't wearing tap shoes. But it always made my dad laugh when I attempted it in our living room, so I thought it might go down well.

Jess watched me, baffled. And when Danny came along to walk home with her, I stopped. She didn't say anything but threw me a big smile over her shoulder as they left. The next day when I arrived at school, preparing for yet another terrifying morning of being the new girl no one was interested in, they both came over to me and asked if I needed showing around the place.

Ever since then Jess and Danny have really taken care of me at school. They showed me the ropes, like where to stand in assembly so you don't get spat on by over-enthusiastic teachers during announcements, and how to get the lunch ladies to give you second helpings.

Jess even picks me to be on her team in PE despite knowing I'm completely useless. I did tell her last semester that she didn't have to do that, and I wouldn't be insulted as I know I'm one of the worst.

"Whatever, Anna," she'd replied breezily. "It's not a pity thing. I like having you on my team. It's more of a challenge to win that way. And you know I love a challenge. Plus you provide excellent comic relief."

She can say what she likes-I know she picks me because she doesn't want me to be last.

Yep, it definitely would have been good right now to be Jess, but I wasn't. I was me. It stank. I walked into class apprehensively, noticed that the room hushed, and went to sit down in my chair. Immediately a shadow fell over my desk, and I blinked up to see Sophie Parker staring down at me with her arms folded, her light gray eyes narrowing at me, and her glossy highlighted hair falling neatly around her shoulders.

"Hannah, isn't it?" she said.

"Um. Anna."

"Right. Jess Delby's best friend."

Uh-oh.

"So I heard about what happened yesterday, obviously. What you tried to do to my best friend. What is wrong with you? You could have really hurt her."

"Don't exaggerate, Sophie. Josie had her hair singed and that was it," a voice piped up from the corner.

Sophie spun around to see who had dared defy her, and Connor Lawrence, leaning back in his chair looking very pleased with himself, stared right back at her mischievously through his dark bangs.

Great. I groaned inwardly. Of all the people to come to my defense, it had to be someone like Connor Lawrence. He has fewer friends than me. And I only have two. (Three if you count Dog, but Jess and Danny say that I can't, which personally I find unreasonable.) "Um, who even are you?"

My heart sank as Connor ignored Sophie entirely and went on. "If Josie had any brains, she would have just turned on the faucet right next to where she was sitting and shoved her big head under it."

There was a nervous titter around the classroom, and I felt the tension rising rapidly as Sophie inhaled sharply at the insult to her sidekick. I sat awkwardly, wishing that Connor would just leave it alone.

"Ugh. Don't even bother speaking to me. No one asked you your opinion, weirdo!" Sophie spat angrily before turning toward me again. "Did you set fires at your last school? Is that why you don't have any friends?"

"No, no, of course not. It was-"

"Sit down, Sophie. It was an accident."

I turned in shock because this time it wasn't just anyone speaking up. Too cool to even look up from his phone while speaking, it was Brendan Dakers. Brendan Dakers. The most popular and best-looking boy in my class, possibly in the entire school. And captain of the soccer and rugby teams. He is also really smart and always gets the best grades. Basically, he's the perfect male specimen. Every time I look at him, my feet go tingly.

I've never really spoken to him. He's way too popular. Of course, Sophie Parker and Josie Graham are always hanging around him. In fact Sophie and Brendan are sort of an unofficial couple. They aren't actually together, but they should be. Everyone knows it's going to happen one day. Probably at the dance.

They're both really beautiful. If they ever reproduced (ew), their children would be another level of human-superhuman. Jess disagrees with me on this and says that if they ever had children, they might get Brendan's looks and Sophie's personality, which would make them vampires.

I'm not sure of the logic in this, but I'm not sure that Jess's brain works in a logical way.

I don't know how either Jess or Sophie manage to remain collected in his presence. If Brendan Dakers ever spoke to me, I would be so ecstatic I would probably die. Which would be an excellent way to go.

Sadly, the chances of Brendan speaking to me are nil for the following reasons: 1. When I first saw him I choked on my own spit.

2. When he once walked past our volleyball lesson and waved to Sophie, I had a moment of complete deliriousness and thought he was waving at me. When I waved back, he looked puzzled. Probably because we had never spoken before, and I don't think he even knew I was in his grade at that point. I'm not even sure he realizes that now.

3. When I mistakenly waved back at Brendan Dakers in volleyball, Josie Graham said really loudly to Sophie, "That is so mortifying for her!" and they both burst out laughing. He witnessed this.

4. I set his friend Josie on fire.

Reflecting on this list has made me wonder how I even have two friends.

"Brendan, Josie's hair went up in flames," Sophie snapped.

"Relax," Brendan said, looking up from his phone briefly. "It was funny."

And with that, he went back to playing on his phone. The room silently watched Sophie's reaction. Her cheeks flushed with anger, and she gave me one last dramatic huff before pulling her shoulders back and stalking to her desk.

Someone snorted from the back of the classroom. It sounded like Connor. To my great relief Sophie didn't appear to have heard and flung herself into her chair, pulling out her fluffy purple pencil case just as Mr. Avery strolled in with his coffee and asked us to turn to page fifty-six.

I was so caught up in replaying Brendan Dakers sticking up for me-sort of-over and over in my head that I didn't even hear the bell ring. It was only when I noticed people actually walking out of the classroom that I realized it was time for the next class and started to pack up my things in a hurry.

Brendan finding Josie being set on fire funny still didn't mean that Sophie had decided to let it go with me. As I got up, I accidentally nudged Sophie, who had been walking toward the door.

"Urgh!" she exhaled in exasperation, probably at the idea of me touching her, and looked at me in disgust as I hurriedly got out of her way.

Then she shook her head, swished back her perfect hair, and practically skipped toward Brendan, who, unlike me, clearly had been forgiven for the classroom standoff and was waiting for her by the door.

I finished packing up my stuff and began to make my way out too.

"Chin up, Ms. Huntley," Mr. Avery said cheerily as he took time out from wiping the board to look at me with sympathy. "You'll make friends here eventually. Sometimes it takes a while to find your feet. I remember having no friends whatsoever for a good few semesters at my middle school."

"Oh, well"-I stopped by the door-"thanks but I do have some friends here."

"Do you?" he said, looking surprised. "Splendid!"

Then he got back to wiping the board.

Sometimes I really wish I was a hermit. Not only do they not have to deal with people in general, but they're also usually very wise. I can only aspire to that state of being.