Free The Boy from France by Hilary Freeman

giggling together, like old friends, and I’ve noticed that Manon is wearing one of Rosie’s favourite bracelets today. One that she
was even loathe to lend Sky, when she asked, a few weeks ago.
    I go straight home from school, even though Xavier won’t be there. He’s spending the evening with some of the other French boys and one of the parents is going to drop him back
later. Dad won’t be there either – he’s got a work dinner – so I’m cooking spaghetti bolognese for Mum. I wish I hadn’t promised her that now. I’ve got
tons of coursework to do (which I didn’t get around to at the weekend) and I don’t feel very hungry. There’s too much on my mind. I’ll give myself a tiny portion and hope
Mum doesn’t notice.
    She doesn’t. Or if she does, she doesn’t mention it. After dinner, I wash up as quickly as I can, then excuse myself and come up to my bedroom. I try to work, I really do, but after
half an hour sitting staring at my textbooks, getting nowhere, I give up and go on to Facebook instead.
    I need to talk to a good friend about everything. Ideally, I would chat to Sky, but she’s staying with her half-sister Katie tonight and I don’t want to interrupt their time
together. They haven’t known each other for long, but Sky’s been so much happier and so much more confident since they met. She’s stopped worrying about her stupid nose and
she’s got no time for the immature, rubbish boys, like Rich, who make her feel bad about herself. She’s even got a new hobby, DJing, and she’s getting pretty good at it.
    Sometimes, I like to imagine that I’ve got a long-lost sister out there somewhere too. I know there’s no way in a million years that my super straight dad has fathered a daughter he
doesn’t know about, but humour me. My sister wouldn’t be Camden cool like Katie. No. My sister – let’s call her Rachel (no reason, I just like the name) – would live
on a farm in the countryside, far, far away, with acres and acres of private land, where I could learn to drive her car. She’d have quad bikes too and there’d be a lake where I could
swim. And ponies. And dogs – great big, fluffy English sheepdogs. My friends could come to stay at weekends and we’d have picnics and camp out in the fields. Best of all, my sister
would be terribly wise, with a long history of relationships. We’d sit by her enormous, roaring fire, with mugs of hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows (and perhaps, croissants), and
I’d tell her all about Xavier and Rosie and Manon. She’d be able to tell me exactly what to do.
    Unfortunately, my imaginary sister doesn’t exist, which makes her worse than useless when it comes to giving advice. So, I do something I’ve never done before: I message Max to ask
his opinion on my personal life. Sometimes, I think, it’s good to get advice from a friend who’s not too close, for a more objective viewpoint. And, sometimes, it’s useful to hear
what a boy has to say. Especially if you’re asking for advice about a boy. Max and I have been good friends since the summer, when he came to stay at his brother’s house on my street.
People say that if he hadn’t gone out with Rosie (which was a whole big mess, as she didn’t really fancy him), something might have happened between us. I don’t know if
that’s true. Whatever might have been, he went back to boarding school and he has a new girlfriend. I’m happy being just mates and so is he.
    We catch up a little, on what he’s been doing at his wacky school, where the pupils make the rules and you can choose whether or not to go to lessons (weirdly, most people do). He asks how
Rosie and Sky are, and tells me his rock star brother Rufus will be home from tour in a few weeks, so I should pop round to see him. When he asks how I am, I skirt around the issue for a while
because I’m not sure where to start. If we were talking on the phone or face to face, I’d probably chicken out. In the