About this book
Ellie’s spending the summer holidays doing work experience at top teen magazine, Heart. It should be a dream come true for a wannabe journalist. But she’s fallen out with her best friend, and an interview with the son of a rock star is a disaster. Nothing seems to be going right until she meets a gorgeous boy who puts the fun and friendship back into Ellie’s summer…
Contents
1 Best friends
2 Questions! Questions!
3 Ellie’s big idea
4 Plaits and personalities
5 Sophie’s help
6 Joe Steel
7 Unmasked
8 Rescue plan
9 Connor needs help
10 Boy missing
11 A very strange day
12 The real Joe Steel
13 Sorting it out
14 At the airport
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Ellie stared at her best friend. “But Hannah! Don’t you see? I can’t possibly come!”
Hannah folded her arms and tapped her foot impatiently. There was hardly anything that Ellie didn’t like about Hannah, but she’d always hated it when she did that.
“I can’t believe you don’t want to come, Ellie. It’s a chance for us both to have a cool holiday together! I know it’s last minute, but how can you possibly say no? It’s brilliant that my sister suddenly wants to swan off with her uni friends instead of having a family holiday. We’ll have a great time! Besides,” Hannah was really piling on the pressure now, “I told Mum you’d jump at the chance to come to Spain with us. The room, flight, everything is booked. All we have to do is change the names. If you don’t come, Mum will never offer to let me take a friend again.”
Hannah’s voice was beginning to sound a bit whiny. “Instead of me sharing with my sister we’ll be together. It’ll be so much fun! You know you want to say yes!”
At any other time Ellie would have jumped at the chance. If only she’d known about this much earlier! Yes, it would be wonderful to spend a holiday in the sun with her best friend. She couldn’t think of anything better…except…except. Ellie had had her summer all planned out for weeks…no, months before the end of the summer term, and it didn’t include a beach holiday with Hannah. It would have done, if she’d known in time, but now, it was simply too late. She was working at her fave teen magazine, Heart. She’d replied with a thrilled YES, when she’d had the offer, and she’d already had an amazing time tracking down a reclusive author to interview. Nothing, but nothing would make her leave the job early. If she did, it would be very unprofessional. Besides, if she left, she might never be asked back again.
Ellie hated having to choose. Hannah knew how much this work meant to her friend. Ellie wanted to be a journalist more than anything, and she couldn’t just abandon this amazing job. But Hannah was her best friend, and so Ellie hesitated in spite of herself. Then Hannah tried a different approach. “Come on,” she said. “Don’t be horrible. Be a proper friend.”
Ellie was stung. “Don’t say that! Of course I’m a proper friend. But this summer is my chance to make a real impression at Heart.” She shook the copy she was holding in Hannah’s face and Hannah stepped back, pushing it away. “I’ve already agreed to work all summer,” Ellie went on in a rush. “I can’t suddenly change my mind now. You know I have a list of celebrities to try and set up interviews with!”
“It’s only a couple of weeks out of your precious six,” said Hannah in a sulk.
Ellie glared at her. “You’re just not listening, are you? Working at Heart is really important to me. It could change my whole life.”
Hannah laughed bitterly. “More important than me? Okay, maybe it’s quite glamorous, but it’s just a holiday job. They don’t even pay you anything. And I thought I was doing you a favour by inviting you to Spain. I thought you’d jump at the chance. It’s not as if you’ve had many proper holidays, is it?”
The room suddenly went very quiet. Hannah looked as if she wished she could take the words back, but it was too late for that. Ellie felt ready to explode. Instead, she walked deliberately over to her friend’s bedroom door and opened it. Her heart was thumping. She wanted to fling the door wide until it crashed against Hannah’s wardrobe. She wanted to sweep all the china ornaments her friend had collected when she was little to the floor, but she didn’t. She was so furious she was shaking, but she took a deep breath, and with great difficulty controlled herself.
How dare Hannah hint about Ellie’s mum’s difficulties? Having no dad had certainly made things hard for Georgia, Ellie’s mum, but Ellie had almost never felt she was missing out. They’d had lots of fun on holidays at home, and it wasn’t her mum’s fault they couldn’t often afford to go abroad.
Ellie turned to look at Hannah, her hand still on the door handle. She wanted to make a clever and wounding parting shot, but she was trembling too much to think of anything to say. She just stared mutely at her best friend for a few seconds, and when she felt angry tears begin to fill her eyes she looked away. Somehow she found her way downstairs and out of the front door, all the time expecting Hannah to run after her, or at least call, but there was silence. They had both gone too far. Their argument was too hurtful to make up easily, and where that left their friendship was anyone’s guess.
For the next few days Ellie kept opening her phone to text Hannah, but when it came to it she couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to be the first to apologize, and there were too many angry words between them for her to simply ignore them and move on. Something had to be said, but what? Maybe Hannah would do the apologizing, and then they could make up, but Ellie’s phone stubbornly refused to ring, and no texts arrived.
The more time passed the harder it became. Soon there were only a couple of days to go before Hannah flew out to Spain. Ellie’s mum, Georgia, had noticed that something was wrong, but she couldn’t put things right.
“Have you and Hannah fallen out?” she asked one evening after work. “She hasn’t been round for days.”
“She’s busy,” mumbled Ellie unconvincingly. “Getting ready to go away. And she’s annoyed that I can’t go with her.”
“Well, it is a shame she didn’t know her sister was pulling out before you’d accepted the job at Heart,” said Georgia. “You won’t even be able to come with me to drop them off at the airport because you’ll be working. But I know how much the job means to you, and I’m sure Hannah will get over it.”
It didn’t seem very likely, but there wasn’t a lot Ellie could do. And she didn’t feel like forgiving her friend too quickly for the remarks she’d made about Ellie’s lack of foreign holidays. She certainly wasn’t about to tell her mum what Hannah had said. Hannah had also implied she was being selfish not to go. Had Ellie been selfish to forego a foreign holiday? A big part of Ellie wished she could go. How could denying yourself something be selfish? It was all such a muddle.
It wasn’t until the day Hannah was due to go off on holiday that Ellie finally made a move. She still hadn’t heard from her friend, but on the bus that morning, on the way to work, Ellie finally sent a text.
Have a great holiday!
She wondered about adding, See you when you get back, but what if Hannah didn’t want to see her again? Adding that would make Ellie feel too vulnerable, so she didn’t. She toyed with the idea of removing the exclamation mark as well. Her finger hovered over the delete button, but in the end she sighed and pressed send instead. For better or worse she’d made the first move. Now it was up to Hannah. The flight wasn’t for another couple of hours, so she had plenty of time to pick up the text before she got on the plane and had
to turn off her phone.
As the bus chugged along, stopping and starting on the congested road, Ellie thought about Hannah, sitting in the departure lounge with her parents. Hannah’s parents were nice. It would have been fun to be together, but Ellie still hadn’t changed her mind. Heart was the magazine to die for, and she was committed to working there. If she’d been able to holiday and not let Heart down…well that would have been perfect! But Ellie was discovering that life was seldom perfect. This was just one of those occasions when you had to make the best of it. Besides, an idea had just popped into her head, and she couldn’t wait to test it out on Francesca, the Deputy Editor.
Ellie loved the journey to work. It was exciting catching the buses that took her right into the middle of the city. Once there, she felt she belonged with these sophisticated people, who hurried purposefully into shiny, steel and glass office buildings that rose high into the air on both sides of the streets. In her bag was a pen and her beloved notebook, the one her father had written brief phrases in, shortly before he’d died while on a foreign assignment. That had been before Ellie was born, so she had never met her dad. But having his notebook made her feel close to him, and every day, as she went to work, she thought about the first phrase in the book, You can do this! It had become the mantra by which she tried to live her life. It made her feel strong, and capable, and that’s what she intended to be.
The bus juddered to a halt at her stop, and Ellie fought her way to the exit. The Heart building was only a few metres along the pavement, so she was there within seconds. She paused to gather her thoughts, gazing at the imposing office block with its glass doors. Then she pushed the enormous stainless steel handle and went in, her heart thumping with excitement. She’d been coming here every weekday since school had broken up, but it was still a huge thrill. Heart shared this office building with other magazines owned by the same company, and the spacious lobby was busy with workers making their way to the lifts, the women’s high heels tapping noisily on the marble floor.
Ellie hurried to join them. She never knew, from one day to the next, what she might be asked to do, and that all added to the excitement. She really hoped Francesca would love her idea. Heart was the coolest magazine ever, and the more of an impact she could make, the more Ellie would be right in the middle of it!
She was the same age as most of Heart’s readers, and had been a fan for ages. Angel Makepiece, the Editor in Chief hadn’t taken long to realize how useful it could be to have Ellie on board. Not only would they be able to ask her opinion, the readers would love to know that someone their own age was actually on the staff, even though they couldn’t pay Ellie until she was older.
Ellie had already interviewed a couple of very famous stars, and had seen her articles in print. The celebrity list that she was working her way through was full of the biggest names in music, fashion and film, but some of them were too busy to be interviewed, which was why Ellie hoped that Francesca would like the idea she’d just come up with. She intended though to wait for the right moment to mention it. Francesca would have to love her idea to give Ellie permission to go ahead, and Ellie wanted it to have the best chance of being accepted. So, for now, she hugged it to herself until the perfect opportunity came up.
As she went up in the lift, Ellie checked her phone before she switched it to silent. Angel absolutely hated mobile phones going off, and anyone who forgot to switch to silent was in big trouble.
There was no text from Hannah, but her plane wouldn’t have left yet. There was still plenty of time to hear from her, so Ellie refused to feel sad. Instead, she put the phone away in her bag, and smoothed down her skirt and top. Now she was ready for anything!
Heart’s editorial office was on the third floor. Ellie was greeted by a cheerful smile from Debbie Wu, the receptionist, and a scowl from Piano, Angel’s PA, who had never tried to pretend that she liked Ellie. That was probably because Ellie’s Uncle Patrick had got her the work experience in the first place. Ellie had long ago decided to stop taking any notice of Piano’s hang-ups, especially the way she tried to insist that everyone pronounce her name Pea-Are-No. Ellie had discovered that it didn’t matter how friendly she was, Piano was never nice back, so there was no point in worrying about it.
Francesca Mosse was much more pleasant than Piano, although she was almost as exacting as Angel. Neither of them would allow anything to weaken Heart’s place as the top teen magazine, but while Angel seemed to see the worst in everyone, Francesca managed to coax the best out of all the staff by being kind as well as firm. She smiled as Ellie went to her desk and sat down.
“Good morning, Ellie.”
“Morning,” said Ellie, returning her smile, opening her laptop, and logging on to the system. Now wasn’t the right time to mention the idea…maybe later, when Francesca took a coffee break.
“Do you fancy having a go at compiling a quiz for the next issue?” asked the Deputy Editor.
That sounded fun. Ellie smiled eagerly. “Yes please!” Then she paused, and glanced at Piano. “But doesn’t Piano usually do them?”
“Yes,” said Francesca. “But Piano is quite busy researching an article, so it would really help if you’d be willing to give it a go. I’ve emailed you the template. You can access all the questions, and pick a selection of those for your quiz.”
Ellie was puzzled. “You mean the quiz questions aren’t made up especially for each issue?”
Francesca smiled. “Well, the most popular subjects for quizzes are friends, fashion sense and boys. There’s a limit to the number of different questions you can sensibly ask about them, so, instead of starting from scratch every time, we work from a pool of standard questions and update them as necessary.”
“Oh,” said Ellie, not sure how she felt about that.
“If you think about it,” said Francesca, seeing Ellie’s expression, “the questions will probably be brand new for most readers because they’ll have been too young to read the magazine the first time the questions came around.”
“And they’ll most likely have moved on to a magazine designed for adults like Soul, our sister magazine, by the time the questions come around again,” mused Ellie.
“You’ve got it,” said Francesca. “You’ll find you have to update them. That’s your main job really, to make them sound fresh. The original questions were compiled under the guidance of a psychologist, and it’s important to stick to her template. These quizzes are supposed to be fun, and it’s important that we don’t upset readers by making them too harsh, or by giving bad advice.” She smiled at Ellie. “Don’t worry. It sounds more complicated than it is. The psychologist has done all the hard work for you. All you have to do is bring them up to date. They will be new by the time you’ve tinkered with them.”
“Okay,” said Ellie.
“If you come horribly unstuck I’m sure Piano could find a bit of time to give you a few pointers, but I think you’ll find everything you need in the file.” Francesca turned back to her screen.
Piano looked at Ellie. It was clear from her expression that she didn’t consider Ellie capable of coping unaided with one question, let alone the usual ten they had in their quizzes.
But Ellie had always loved the quizzes in Heart. As a reader, before she’d had any hopes of working for the magazine, she and Hannah had totally enjoyed each one, and sometimes they’d even made up their own fun questions for each other. Ellie was determined not to let Francesca down.
Ellie looked at her email inbox and found a new message from Francesca labelled “Quiz”. She opened it eagerly. New challenges were great! But when she read the email, Ellie wasn’t quite so sure.
What sort of friend are you?
Ellie stared at the question at the top of her screen. Almost any other subject would have been fine, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to examine friendship at the moment. It was a bit too close to what she was going through with Hannah. She rummaged in her bag and checked her phone. No messages, and unless the f
light had been held up, Hannah would certainly be airborne by now.
She picked up the pencil next to her laptop and sucked the end of it. If the quiz had been about clothes, or make-up, animals, music…anything else would have been fun. But this…still, she couldn’t back out now. She put the pencil down again and read what was on her screen.
To follow the Heart magazine template she had to choose ten questions. There would be three possible answers to each question, and in the end, the readers should be able to tell if they were:
A. Real Softies
B. Well Balanced
C. Tough Cookies
Could she do this without ending up feeling really down? Of course no one was supposed to take these quizzes too seriously. They were supposed to be fun, to be done over lunch with a gaggle of friends. But her friend wasn’t around to giggle with, and Ellie felt sure that compiling this particular quiz was going to make her feel uncomfortable and force her to re-examine her own behaviour. But then she remembered her mantra, and told herself not to be such a wimp. She simply needed to swallow her personal feelings and get on with it!
She took a deep breath, opened the folder of questions and clicked on the “Friends” file. There were loads of questions and answers, so all she had to do was choose ten, and rephrase them. She picked one and studied it. You and your best friend have applied for tickets for your fave TV programme. She gets one but you don’t. What do you say to her? That was easy. She freshened it up by making it tickets for a sell-out gig instead. And it was simple to fiddle with the answers to make them work. It was going to be okay.
“Don’t make a mess of updating. It would be just like you,” said Piano.
Ellie looked towards her crossly. “I won’t!”
Piano didn’t sound convinced. “Only, loads of our readers turn to the quiz page first. I don’t want you ruining the magazine for them by making it too childish.”
Francesca didn’t look up from her desk, but she must have been listening. “Give Ellie a break, Piano,” she said mildly.
Best Friends Rock! Page 1