Free Super Awkward by Beth Garrod

you in fifteen, lovely. Bye, daughter, bye, Rachel! YOLI!”
    Mum always liked to end phone calls with motivational thoughts. I found getting my mum off the phone motivational enough.
    A confused Rachel waved at my bum. My bum didn’t wave back.
    â€œEr, YOLI?”
    I was hoping she hadn’t noticed that.
    â€œDon’t ask. Mum’s going through a reincarnation phase. You Only Live Infinitely.”
    Rachel laughed but I wasn’t in the mood to find anything funny. Except maybe baby pandas sneezing.
    So that was that. One bum-move and my last night of holiday freedom had disappeared. I pulled on my jacket and shouted my goodbyes to Rach’s fam in the kitchen, accidentally yelling “Bye, HOB” at Dan, as I’m too used to referring to him as Hot Older Brother. He looked at me like I was saying an emotional goodbye to their cooker. Hurrying to the door, I got Rachel to agree to convince him I didn’t have feelings for appliances, and also to promise to urgently ask him about emigration laws for my potential relocation. I trudged home, thoughts of Luke, purple hats, kitchen appliances I
would
say goodbye to, and hot guys called Zac all swashing round my head.
    When I finally closed my bedroom door for the last time this holiday, I should have dealt with the homework I’d been putting off all week. But instead I used my last moments of freedom much more wisely, alphabetacalizing (new word, look it up in the alphabetacalized dictionary) my books, painting rainbow stripes on my toenails – and accidentally some carpet too – and re-reading some magazines. Time flies when you’re procrastinating.
    If only today had worked out differently, I could be reliving my second date with Zac, instead of wondering how on earth I could make up for my shameful sister summoning and subsequent disappearing act.
    But there was
one
thing I did still have. I opened up
PSSSST
. Wow, fifteen likes on my Jo comment! That was more than my picture of Mumbles dressed as a gherkin got on Instagram. What if one of the likes was from Zac?! I should post again. I racked my brains. It was a bit sad to realize I had way too many things to choose from.
    MY MUM BEGGED ME TO SHOW HER PHOTOS OF
    A BOY FROM UNI MY SISTER LIKES. SO I SET HER
    UP AN ACCOUNT, SEARCHED FOR THE GUY AND
    LEFT HER SCROLLING THOUGH THE PICS. I DIDN’T
    REALIZE SHE KEPT TAPPING AWAY, TRYING – AND
    FAILING – TO ZOOM IN. WHICH ENDED UP IN
    HER ACCIDENTALLY LIKING OVER FIFTY OF HIS
    PHOTOS. FROM THREE YEARS AGO. UNDER HER
    REAL NAME. MY SISTER IS YET TO FIND OUT.
    Jo was going to kill me for allowing this to happen. But it’s not my fault Mum can’t even use a phone and calls likes ‘hearting’.
    I scrolled through all the new
PSSSST
s, willing, hoping something to pop up on my timeline that I could trace back to Zac. Maybe he’d post about Jo’s totally embarrassing display yesterday? But there was nothing.
    Disappointed, I plugged my phone in to charge, and flicked on the torch under the covers. The inevitable had arrived – a long night of pretending to be asleep, while doing my homework under my sheets. But with what school was about to throw at me, beauty sleep was going to be the very least of my worries.

CHAPTER
    NINE
    Isn’t it weird that the second your alarm goes off for the first day back at school it feels like you were never not at school? Parents moan about going to work, but they’re obviously forgetting lessons are way worse – and we don’t even get paid for being there. If I could buy two hundred and fifty Toffee Crisps for every day I dragged myself to St Mary’s then it really would be much more worthwhile.
    Getting ready today also took way too long, as I wasted fifteen minutes pulling everything out of my wardrobe searching for my jumper only to discover it in the bottom of my school bag, along with two unsigned letters and a really miserable looking