"Anna? It's your mom. I've been on the phone with your dad all morning, and he says you won't come and speak to him. Look, I know it seems awful now, but really, it's going to be okay, darling. Of course I'm going to kill your father on your behalf when I see him. There was once a series of pictures of me in the papers when I was accused of dating an elderly politician. It was, unfortunately, not true, but I got a flurry of freelance jobs from it. You see? It could be a blessing in disguise. Call me when you feel ready, always here for you. Lots of love, darling, bye."

Hello! It's Anna here. Leave a message. Okay, bye!

*BEEP*

"Anna, it's Jess. I've been trying to reach you all day. Look, it's not that bad, honest. They didn't even seem to notice-that much-that you'd spilled your dinner down yourself. Again. Come over, will you? Or let us come to you? Danny's got a brand new experiment that he wants to try out. Something to do with balloons and mayonnaise. Either way, it sounds entertaining. It will take your mind off things maybe. Call me!"

Hello! It's Anna here. Leave a message. Okay, bye!

*BEEP*

"Hey, Anna, Danny here. Hope you're all right. Anyway, I'm no good at voice mails. Never know what to say. Ha. Okay. Bye."

Hello! It's Anna here. Leave a message. Okay, bye!

*BEEP*

"Jess again. Okay, guilty-I tried to get Danny to call you to see if his calming tones might help lure you out of your solitude. Turns out he's useless at leaving messages. Seriously, save that one so we can tease him about it later in his life. Look, I know you're probably lying on your bed thinking about weird things like moving to Bora Bora or something random like that, but it might make you feel better to have some normal time with your friends. Here if you need us."

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, it's me. I don't want to speak to you right now or come out of my room, so if you could just leave my lunch outside my door, that would be great. Thanks."

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*

"Oh also, if you've made that pasta with that mascarpone sauce again, which, judging by the smell coming from the kitchen, you have, can you make sure you don't put any olives in mine? If you've already put them in, can you pick them out? And be thorough? Last time you left one in there and I ate it by accident and it was gross. Thanks, 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*

"You should know that I heard your reaction when you just listened to your voice mails, and I don't appreciate your tone of voice, even if you were talking to yourself. Stop knocking on my door; you'll break it-I've moved my dresser in front of it. And I think I pulled a muscle doing that, which is all your fault, because if you let me have a lock on my door I wouldn't have to go to such drastic measures. If you wish to communicate, you can leave me a voice mail as I do not wish to speak to you directly through any medium. That's why I keep hanging up whenever you pick up the phone. I would appreciate it if you let it go to voice mail for the time being.

Hello! It's Anna here. Leave a message. Okay, bye!

*BEEP*

"Anastasia Huntley, if you leave one more voice mail message on my phone, I will start getting extremely annoyed. I realize you're upset, but let's try to be mature about this. I'll leave you alone to have your space, and then you can come talk to me when you're ready. You're going to have to come out some time, and you're certainly going to have to come out when you go to school. I hope you're not going to be childish about that."

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*

"I no longer wish to discuss this any further. Just leave the pasta and go. And, excuse me, I am not childish. I realize that I will, unfortunately, have to return to the lion pit that is school. Have some faith in your daughter. What do you expect me to do, purposefully injure myself or something so I can get out of going to school? Honestly, Dad, I'm not a baby."

OKAY, SO I PURPOSEFULLY TRIED to injure myself to get out of school. This is actually a lot more difficult than you would think. Plus I have a very low pain threshold.

It made sense that if I was mortally wounded I wouldn't have to go in on Monday and thus could avoid the torment of my peers awaiting me. On Sunday I tried rolling off the bed a few times in the hope of breaking an arm, but first of all, it hurt too much, and secondly, I guess the recurring thud of me falling to the floor made Dad concerned, as he came and banged on the door with his fist to find out what was going on.

"Nothing, Dad," I'd said innocently, after I had moved the dresser and opened the door to peek out at him. "But now that you're here, I actually wanted to ask you something. Where do we keep the hammer?"

This was an obvious joke, but he went crazy after that and then insisted on sitting in my room with his laptop working for the rest of the day so he could "keep an eye" on me. I tried to get rid of him by putting on some loud R & B and dancing around him in the hope he would give up and return to his study. Instead he typed away furiously and then suddenly yanked my speakers' plug out and threw the cable out of the window.

Dog didn't even get his walk on Sunday. He was so distressed by the missed opportunity to chase squirrels, his mortal nemeses, that he tried to climb into the washing machine in protest. Luckily, Dad pulled him out when he only had his head and front legs in there.

There had been a few photographers lurking outside our front door on Saturday and Sunday, but on Monday morning there were only a couple left. Helena's place, on the other hand, was apparently swarming with photographers. She too had decided the best thing to do was to lay low.

Marianne, however, had refused to let the public revelation of her mother's sudden engagement keep her from her social life. On Sunday there were several photos of her heading to a nightclub in central London posted online. In all of the pictures she was smiling broadly, looking very relaxed, and occasionally even giving a wave to the photographers. How does she do this? How can anyone seem so cool in this circumstance? And how can she look so good in a fedora?

After seeing the pictures I sneaked into my dad's room and tried on one of his fedoras, just to see if I should be donning something like that on Monday when I had to face the press. I did not look cool like Marianne. I looked like I was an extra in Bugsy Malone. I put the fedora back.

So the more determined members of the paparazzi still waiting outside our door weren't given anything particularly exciting on Monday morning, just boring me in my regulation school uniform and Dad with his arm protectively around my shoulders. I tried to block out their cries of "Anna! How do you feel about your dad's impending wedding?" and "Anna, are you going to be able to cope with your newfound celebrity?"

When we got to the front of the school building on Monday morning, Dad gave me this bizarre war-film-type "inspirational" talk about character building and how Huntleys always show strength in the face of adversity blah blah blah. I wasn't really listening. Instead I was staring at the school thinking of ways to get out of actually going in there. Dad was on to me though. He stayed by the car the whole time until I was in the building to make sure I didn't run in the opposite direction as soon as he'd turned the corner. Which of course had been plan B, after wounding myself.

Under his hawk-eye gaze, I slowly went up the school steps, my head down. I discovered that if I bent my head enough, my hair fell over my face. That way, people might not notice it was me; you know, I could be any old student.

This trick didn't quite go as planned as it was very difficult to see anything in front of me. As I went into the building, I tried to move as quickly as possible, roughly guessing the right direction to my locker. At first it worked perfectly-no one was looking in my direction as I made my way past the huddles.

But then I walked into a pillar.

My books went flying everywhere, and I landed unceremoniously on my butt. Everyone turned to look at the commotion, and immediately there was whispering, pointing, and, I believe, some snorts of laughter. I lay on the ground with my eyes shut, wishing I could sink into a black hole.

Eventually I sensed someone standing over me. Please be Jess or Danny, please be Jess or Danny, I pleaded in my head, my eyes still shut tight.

"You okay?"

It wasn't Jess or Danny. Please don't let it be who I thought it was.

I blinked up into Brendan Dakers's deep brown eyes. "Hey there, Anna, you okay?" He stretched out his hand to help me up. I closed my eyes again.

"Anna?"

I opened one eye just to check and then shut it quickly. Yep, it was definitely Brendan Dakers. "Is everyone staring?"

"Um . . ." He hesitated. "Yes."

"Ah."

"It wasn't that bad."

"You're lying." I opened my eyes.

"No, really." He grinned. "I do that all the time. That pillar is a safety hazard."

"Can you tell people to stop staring? They'll listen to you."

Brendan smiled. "Come on, let me help you up."

I took his hand in a daze, and he pulled me to my feet. I was about to get out of his way and move on with my head down once more when he started talking to me again.

"Were you heading to your locker?"

"Um, yes. It's over there. You know, with all the . . . other lockers."

Seriously, WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BRAIN?

"Right, cool. I'm walking that way too." He smiled and gestured for me to walk alongside him. This was my chance to say something funny and clever. Instead I walked beside Brendan Dakers with my mouth open. And everyone watching.

"Geez, people at this school are so unsubtle." He sighed, shaking his head at a particularly loud-whispering huddle of girls. They immediately went bright red and dispersed. "Ignore all of them," he warned.

As we reached my locker, he gave a salute. "See you later, Anna."

I stood in shock for at least two minutes, watching him walk away down the hall, before realizing that if I didn't stop staring I'd look like a bit of a stalker.

Brendan Dakers had spoken to me. ME! He had even been nice to me. The whole way through class that morning I sat dazed, reflecting on the morning's events. I decided that the reason for Brendan Dakers noticing and talking to me could be any of the following: 1. He mistook me for someone cool and popular. By the time he realized that I was actually one of the big nerds that he's not supposed to socialize with, it was too late and he had to see the conversation through to the end (unlikely because he found me on my butt).

2. He ate some bad shrimp or something and was sick and disorientated.

3. He took pity on the fact that I fell on my butt.

4. He likes Marianne-who does not fall on her butt-and wants me to introduce him to her.

5. He's just a nice person?

6. He believes that I actually am an It Girl.

Points 3 and 4 seemed the most likely. I asked Jess and Danny their opinion at lunch as we sat at our table, desperately trying to ignore the pointed looks of everyone around us. "Maybe he was just being human." Danny shrugged, moving his vegetables around his plate. "People like Brendan Dakers do have the ability to be nice."

"But then why does he hang out with Sophie Parker and Josie Graham?" Jess asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at their table.

"He did stick up for me that time in class when Sophie was yelling at me about setting Josie on fire," I added.

"He said it was funny," Jess pointed out. "Not exactly backing you up. I don't know; it seems a bit odd to me that the day he decides to talk to you happens to be two days after your celebrity status appears in the papers."

"Or it just happens to be the day I walk into a pillar right in front of him. If it had been anyone else, he still would have helped them up, right?"

"Maybe." Jess shrugged. "It's not like Brendan Dakers has ever been horrible. He just chooses to spend his time with people who are. Maybe he thought you were someone else at first?"

"Yeah, I thought that." I nodded.

"I think you're both thinking about it way too much," Danny said, looking at us in exasperation. "Does it even matter?"

"Um . . . yes?" Jess and I chorused.

"It's not every day the most popular and best-looking boy in school talks to me, Danny." I sighed. "Normally I would be very happy right now. Sadly, my dad has ruined my life, so occurrences like Brendan Dakers talking to me are kind of overshadowed by the likelihood that everyone is going to be wetting their pants laughing at the fact that the papers suggested I might be the next newsworthy socialite. I bet Sophie and Josie are on their way to humiliate me right now."

"Um, first of all, Anna," Jess jumped in. "Just let Ms. Queen Bee and her evil minion try it. They'll have me to answer to."

"Yeah, me too!" Danny chimed in. "What?!" he asked, outraged at Jess's look of disbelieving pity.

I gave him what I hoped was a sympathetic and supportive smile.

"And secondly," Jess carried on, "it's not that bad. Being an It Girl could be very cool. Couldn't it, Danny?"

"Please don't call me an It Girl," I groaned, resting my forehead on my arms in front of me.

"It's, um, very cool," Danny mumbled through his lunch, looking at Jess perplexed. "Yeah, think of all the great things about it."

"Like what?" I muffled, not raising my head.

"Uh . . . ," Danny began, looking at the ceiling for inspiration.

"First, you're probably going to get lots of free stuff," Jess interrupted, poking Danny. "Celebrities always get free stuff. Clothes, shoes, accessories."

"You can say important stuff to the press!" Danny said desperately, scowling at Jess and rubbing his ribs. "You could speak out for those in need and bring attention to important charities."

"Like going to Africa and handing out rice?" I asked, lifting my head.

"Um. Sure?" Danny gave me an odd look. "I'm sure there's a charity out there that . . . goes to Africa and hands out rice."

"Danny," Jess said, sighing, "focus on the important things here. What about all the events she's going to get invited to. Premieres, black-tie galas, shop openings, fashion shows. That's the best thing about being a celebrity."

"Oh no," I whined, returning my head to my arms. "I'm going to have to learn how to walk like a normal person."

"Yes," I heard Danny say solemnly. "Yes, you are."

"Oh my God!" Jess suddenly gasped, reaching forward and shaking my arm so that I was forced to look up at her. "If you get tickets to On the Rox, you have to invite me. Marianne is definitely having a thing with the lead singer. I saw it online a couple of weeks ago."

"On the who?"

"On the Rox! They're my favorite band. Being Marianne's sister, you're bound to get free tickets."

"Stepsister," I corrected.

"Anna, who cares? Please, promise me you'll take me if you get tickets to see On the Rox. I would be the happiest person in the world."