Free Love and Other Drama-Ramas! by Sarah Webb Page A

times, and they got on pretty well.”
    I smile. “Your mum’s easy to talk to. Did they talk? On the beach, I mean.”
    “No. He stayed in the water.”
    “It’s just so odd. Bailey’s—”
    He cuts me off. “Let’s talk about something else, Amy, OK? I don’t really care about Bailey Otis.” But I can tell from the look in his eyes that he does care — a lot. Seth’s eyes don’t lie. I know he feels hurt and let down. Seth doesn’t make friends easily — he can be quiet and shy with people he doesn’t know. It’s all such a shame.
    Mills is miserable too — which is understandable. First thing this morning, Annabelle told almost everyone about her “special” Golden Lions date with Bailey. So I made sure Nina Big-Mouth Pickering knew all about Mills’s starring stage role.
    Nina was astounded. “Are we talking about the same Mills? Miss Goody Two-shoes? On stage at a Golden Lions gig? No way!”
    I showed her the photos and video clip I’d taken on my iPhone as evidence.
    “Unbelievable,” she said. “Annabelle didn’t mention anything about that! She claims Mills saw them smooching in their box and was devastated at being dumped. But Mills hardly looks heartbroken here . . . Wait till I tell everyone that Annabelle’s lying through her teeth. Mills so obviously dumped
him
.” (Nina and Annabelle have a well documented love-hate relationship.)
    I smiled to myself as Nina ran off to deliver her breaking news. D4s are so easily duped.
    After school a girl in my class called Lucinda Carvery comes up to me and asks, “You looking for Mills? She’s in the top loo. She seems pretty upset.”
    “Thanks, Lucinda,” I say, dashing up the corridor.
    I shoulder open the door of the loos and call, “Mills? Mills?”
    Nothing.
    One of the cubicles is locked, and I press my ear against the wood.
    “Mills? It’s me, Amy.”
    There’s a loud sniff from inside.
    “Come on, Mills, open up. Don’t make me crawl under the door.”
    There’s no answer, so I get down on my hands and knees and twist my head sideways. I can see Mills’s scuffed ballet flats and sensible navy socks. “Mills,” I say again. “Open up, please. I’m not a circus contortionist — my neck is killing me.” Straightening up, I hit my head on the bottom of the door. “Ow!” I rub the lump.
    Mills clicks the latch, and the door swings back. I look at her. Her eyes are ringed with blotchy red circles, and her face is pale apart from a throbbing red nose. She’s rubbing at her eyes with a piece of balled-up toilet paper. She looks terrible.
    Squeezing into the cubicle beside her, I put my arm around her shoulders. “He’s not worth it, Mills, honestly.”
    “I feel so stupid,” she wails. “I don’t understand what I’ve done. It doesn’t make any sense. I can’t believe he’s hanging out with the D4s now. I’m so ashamed — being dumped for Annabelle! I bet everyone’s laughing at me.” She gives a raggedy sob and dabs her nose with the toilet paper. “I thought he liked me, Amy. I thought he really liked me.”
    “I know, hon, so did I. I’m so sorry. But you don’t need to worry about what people think. The story is that
you
broke up with
him,
right before your Golden Lions debut. OK? I have Nina convinced, and hopefully Bailey will keep his mouth shut. And no one believes a word Annabelle says about her love life anymore.” Luckily for Mills, Miss Hamilton is prone to exaggeration. There isn’t a movie star in the land Annabelle hasn’t “kissed” at a film premiere.
    I brush her hair off her face and smile gently. “Really, Big-Mouth Nina is bound to tell the whole school, so you have nothing to worry about there.”
    “Thanks, Amy,” she says, smiling through her tears. “But I miss him soooo much.”
    I hold her as she sobs her little heart out. God, I could kill Bailey Otis.

“Do you have any idea how many calories are in a tub of this stuff?” Clover holds up the Ben & Jerry’s carton