by Melody James
Other books in the Signs of Love series:
Love Match
Stupid Cupid
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © HotHouse Fiction Limited 2013
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of Melody James to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor, 222 Gray’s Inn Road
London
WC1X 8HB
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-85707-326-6
eBook ISBN 978-0-85707-327-3
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
www.simonandschuster.co.uk
www.simonandschuster.com.au
www.signs-of-love.co.uk
With thanks to Kate Cary
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Oh là là. It’s French – the last lesson before lunch. I’m sitting at the back of class while Madame Papillon is trilling like a bird at the whiteboard. Savannah and Treacle are either side of me, ducking low and gossiping in whispers about their boyfriends.
‘I let Marcus choose the movie last night.’ Savannah’s pale eyes are shining. ‘And he chose the exact movie I wanted to see.’
‘Jeff watched the City match with me.’ Treacle tucks a long, glossy black strand of hair behind her ear. ‘We were jumping on the sofa like idiots when they scored the final goal.’
‘Que faisiez-vous le week-end?’ At the front of the class, Madame Papillon has stopped trilling and started grilling. Her Gallic gaze is toasting Ryan. He looks back at her blankly.
‘Je . . . suis . . . faire . . . un football?’ he says hopefully.
‘Non, non, non!’ Madame Papillon throws up her hands in despair.
Savannah leans closer to Treacle, her long chestnut hair wafting camomile and jasmine. ‘Marcus gave me the sweetest bracelet yesterday.’ She jiggles a glittery pink bangle on her slender wrist.
Treacle admires it. ‘Jeff gave me his old football boots. They’re my exact size and they’ve got screw-in studs.’ Her eyes glaze. ‘I’ve never had screw-in studs before.’
I bask in their happiness like the fairy godmother at Cinderella’s wedding. After all, it was me – or rather Jessica Jupiter – who brought these two happy couples together.
Jessica is my alter ego. Only Treacle and Cindy – the Ice Queen editor of the school webzine – know that I write horoscopes under the name Jessica Jupiter. It’s not the coolest name in the world and the job of horoscope writer isn’t exactly what I dreamed of when I signed up to work on the school webzine. I’d been planning to write exposés that would shoot me into my dream career as a world-famous journalist. In my imagination, I’ve already picked out my outfit for the Global Newspaper Awards – a sparkly gown that would shimmer in the spotlight as I give my acceptance speech for my Journalist of the Year Award.
But it hasn’t quite worked out yet. I came close last month when I helped Will Bold (the webzine’s features writer and self-proclaimed god) uncover a bent businessman in a piece that was picked up by the local paper. But Will hogged the limelight and Cindy put me back on horoscopes because I’m just a Year Nine (the rest of the webziners are strictly Year Ten) and therefore not safe to use sharp pencils. But I’m determined to make the most of my role as Jessica Jupiter.
Thanks to a few lucky predictions that actually came true, Jessica’s horoscope page has become wildly popular – she’s even been getting fan mail. So I’ve been using Jessica’s predictions to steer the love lives of my friends onto the Highway of Happiness. Savannah’s my latest success. While she was swooning over, shallow-as-spilled-milk, LJ Kennedy, I – or rather Jessica – was laying a trail of stardust that led her to Marcus Bainbridge, who is the sweetest, kindest boy in our class. Now she’s dating Marcus, LJ is just a sour memory, and Savannah is as happy as a kitten with buttered paws.
‘And then Marcus said that one day he’ll take me to Disneyland Paris’ Savannah sighs.
‘Where’s Jeff planning to take you?’ I tease Treacle. ‘Wembley?’
‘Gemma!’ Madame Papillon suddenly glares at me like an angry poodle. ‘Est-ce que vous m’écoutes?’
‘Oui.’ Pas exactement la vérité.’ I smile nervously, hoping she believes me.
‘Qu’est-ce que je viens de dire?’ Madame Papillon snaps.
Where’s Google Translate when you need it?
‘Je ne . . . je ne . . .’ I fumble for words. Treacle’s sitting up straight looking innocent.
Savannah pushes her hair away from her face. ‘Je suis désolée. Il est de ma faute. Je disais justement à Gemma—’
Madame Papillon butts in and cuts the French. ‘I don’t care whose fault it was, Savannah. Please stop talking. I’m trying to find out what Ryan did at the weekend.’
‘That’s easy.’ Chelsea’s chewing gum. She hooks a wad out on the tip of her finger. ‘He’ll have been girl-spotting at the shopping centre with Chris and Bilal, as usual.’
Ryan flushes. ‘I’ve got better things to do.’
‘Like what?’ Chelsea twirls her gummy finger.
‘City were playing,’ Bilal chimes in. ‘Football beats girls, any time.’
Chelsea sniffs. ‘Is cliché a French word, Madame Papillon?’
‘Absolument!’
I relax as Chelsea draws Madame Papillon’s fire.
My relief lasts about eight seconds. Suddenly Madame’s waving her arms and issuing orders. ‘I want you to split into pairs,’ she says, marching between desks playing pick and mix with the class. ‘Chelsea, you pair with Anila. Sally, you have Josh.’
Sally flashes a look of triumph at Chelsea and sashays across the classroom. As she slides in beside Josh, Chelsea shows her teeth, and not in a smiley way. She hates any girl getting close to her boyfriend.
I lean close to Treacle and whisper, ‘Josh should have Property of Chelsea tattooed on his forehead.’
Madame Papillon reaches our desk. ‘Treacle and Savannah, Zhang and Ryan, you pair up.’ She glowers at me. ‘And since you’re feeling so chatty today, Gemma, you can team up with Rupert.’
No! I silently scream.
Rupert’s new. It’s only his second week at Green Park High and I’ve already heard all of his dumb jokes twelve times, and they weren’t funny the first time. He doesn’t exactly fit in here. His super-posh voice and horse-snort laugh stand out like Victoria Beckham in Asda. Don’t get me wrong, Rupert’s a nice kid, but he’s trying too hard. If he’d stop auditioning for the role of class clown (Ryan’s got that covered) and just be himself, we might get a chance to like him.
‘Gemma.’ Rupert’s head is jerking at me like he’s summoning his butler.
Treacle squeezes my hand. ‘Good luck, Gem.’
‘Thanks,’ I hiss a
nd zigzag between desks.
‘I’m so glad I got you.’ Rupert smiles as I approach. He thrusts out a chair with his foot. It rams my shins.
‘Ow!’ My eyes water as I buckle and collapse onto it.
‘Sorry!’ Horrified, Rupert lurches forward and grabs my battered leg. ‘Are you OK? I was just offering you a seat.’
‘Next time, just throw it.’ I push him off and shift my chair as far away from Rupert as the desk will allow.
Madame Papillon is flapping at the head of the class. ‘Je veux que vous prétendez que vous n’avez jamais rencon-tré et se renseigner sur l’autre.’ She catches the glazed expressions on our faces. ‘I want you to pretend you have never met and find out about each other.’ She glances at the clock. ‘Keep practising until the bell goes for lunch.’
‘Après vous.’ Rupert looks at me hopefully.
My shins are burning where the chair cracked them and shrivelling where he touched. I rub where it hurts and blurt out the only French question whirling through my brain. ‘Tu always un idiot?’
A frown crinkles his eyebrows. ‘Je suis désolé.’
He looks so forlorn, I take pity. ‘Pas de problem.’ I think up a proper question. ‘As-tu des frères ou des soeurs?’
‘Non.’ Relief lights up his face. ‘And there’s no need to call me sir.’
I cringe. Pity was clearly a mistake. ‘Quels sports aimes-tu?’
‘Archery,’ he answers. ‘J’ai un perfect aim.’
‘Cut the jokes.’ My shins are throbbing. The bruises will be so big I’ll have to wear woolly tights for a week. ‘Let’s just get this over with.’ Up until now, I thought Will Bold was the most irritating boy in school. I’ve been sticking imaginary pins in his imaginary heart since he took all the glory for our article on Dave Wiggins – the dodgy businessman we exposed. We uncovered his stolen goods racket together, but Will wrote the story like he was the only one there. He didn’t even mention my name. Sam’s the only one on the webzine who knows how much I helped Will with the story.
Sam is the nicest Year Ten I know. Unlike Will or Cindy, he talks to me like I can understand long words. But he’s been quiet lately, which is odd because he asked me to go to a Spider Monkeys gig with him a couple of weeks ago. He’s in a band and is a total muso. I think he’s on a secret mission to convert everyone he knows to indie rock, which is probably why he took me to see the Spider Monkeys.
I guess I was secretly hoping there was something more to the invitation. I thought maybe he liked me. But even if he did, I think I managed to put him off. I had a streaming cold that night; I was sneezing so hard my corkscrew hair escaped every clip and pin I’d used to tame it and my nose was as red as a fire engine, so I looked more clown than babe.
Then Cindy turned up at the gig too and after half an hour of Cinders showing off her porcelain complexion and straighter-than-straight hair while I snuffled into a fistful of tissues, I decided to beat a retreat and head home. And from the way Sam’s attention has swivelled towards Cindy ever since, I guess I made the right decision. It’s pointless competing with Barbie when you’re Ronald McDonald.
Rupert crashes into my thoughts. ‘As-tu un animal à la maison?’ He’s grinning. I brace myself for another lame joke. ‘I bet your maison is amazing.’
I sigh inwardly, but his eager-to-please puppy-dog eyes remind me of my brother Ben when he’s trying to cheer me up, so I resist the urge to groan out loud. Instead, I say, ‘Oui’ and glance at the clock. The hand ticks to twelve thirty and the bell rings on cue.
‘Saved by the bell,’ Rupert quips predictably.
‘Yeah.’ I grab my bag and join the crowd hustling for the door.
The webzine deadline meeting starts in five minutes. Cindy has brought it forward from its usual after-school slot because she’s got an appointment. My guess is she’s probably going to get her lashes curled. Or her personality sharpened.
‘Are you coming to the dining hall?’ Treacle asks as she squeezes through the crush and pops out of the door beside me.
‘It’s the webzine meeting,’ I remind her. ‘I’ll probably eat my sandwiches there.’
Savannah scrambles out behind her. ‘Where?’
‘Webzine meeting,’ I tell her.
‘But Sal’s got important news.’ Sav stares at me pleadingly. ‘I promised we’d share a table so she can spill.’
Sally Moore is the biggest gossip in our class. Treacle always jokes that she’s got a great sense of rumour.
‘You’ll have to fill me in later,’ I tell Sav. ‘Cindy wants to check everyone’s submissions.’
Treacle’s gaze jerks down the corridor, past the students flooding from the classrooms. ‘Jeff!’
Jeff Simpson – Treacle’s dearly beloved and the web -zine’s sports writer – is striding towards the stairs. He stops and spins as he hears Treacle. ‘I’ll meet you on the pitch!’ he hollers over the sea of heads.
‘OK!’ Treacle’s yell blasts my ear.
I squeeze her arm. ‘See you in registration.’ I dive into the crowd. Slipping through it like a weasel in a ball pool, I race after Jeff, taking the stairs three at a time, and catch him at the top.
‘Have you finished your sports piece?’ I puff.
He nods. ‘Have you been testing products for Cindy again?’
‘Yep.’ Cindy is the beauty features writer and she uses me as her lab rat. It’s her way of disguising my secret role as horoscope writer. She’s given me tangerine eyeshadow this week, and a cream that’s meant to shrink freckles. My freckles thrived on it. I swear I have twice as many as last week and the tangerine shadow turned my eyelids into orange peel.
Jeff opens the door to the storeroom and lets me through. This is the webzine’s HQ. The friendly janitor cleared out most of the junk and set up six PCs on six ancient desks. There are still shelves of ageing textbooks and glue pots lining the walls, and dust drifts down from an ancient lampshade hanging from a cracked ceiling, but I love the smell of crumbling wood and old paper. It’s kind of romantic. Like being in one of the old movies Mum watches when she gets a spare moment.
Cindy and Barbara are already here. Best friends since playgroup, they look like before-and-after photos – Barbara dresses like a maths teacher and Cindy is cutting edge, sleek as the cover of Vogue.
‘Hi, Gemma.’ Barbara smiles at me warmly and I feel instantly guilty for my internal bitch fest. Barbara’s actually really nice and, even though she writes the world’s most boring feature articles while I’m stuck shrinking freckles for Cindy (Barbara’s last offering: School Uniform – Why Smarter is Better), she never apologizes for being exactly who she is and I really admire that.
‘Hi, Barbara.’ I give her a small wave, feeling contrite, and shuffle behind a desk.
As I’m sliding into my seat, David and Phil Senior arrive. They’re twins and they’re OK. Kinda geek without the chic, but nice. They review gadgets and computer games for the webzine and they’re mad about ‘graphic novels’ (which I always thought were just comics, but apparently I’m wrong). Straight away they’re showing one to Jeff, flipping through pages to show him the latest thrilling instalment of Cosmic Man, or Blasto Boy or whatever.
The door swings open and Will blows in, the buckles on his leather jacket swinging. He sweeps his mop of dark brown hair away from his face and his smooth jaw and chiselled cheekbones catch the light. He’s a good-looking package, but he should wear a warning sign: CONTENTS MAY OFFEND.
‘Hi, Will.’ Cindy barely looks up from her clipboard. ‘Have you got another scoop for us?’ She’s using her couldn’t-care-less voice.
‘I’m working on it.’ Will slouches into the seat behind his favourite PC – it’s got the fastest processor in the room and he’s unofficially made it his own. I silently stick another imaginary pin in his imaginary heart and wait for him to clutch his chest and fall off his chair. He doesn’t. Instead, he drops his book bag on the floor and stretches his long legs under the desk so his feet stick
out the front.
Cindy glances at his size twelve biker boots. ‘Health and safety, Will,’ she chides.
‘Don’t worry, Cinders,’ Will says acidly. ‘If you trip, I promise I’ll catch you before you hit the floor.’
‘I’d rather hit the floor.’
‘I’m not sure the floor could handle it.’
Cindy meets his eye. ‘And you could?’
‘Bickering again?’ Sam’s voice makes me jump. He’s standing in the doorway, watching Will and Cindy fight. There’s a strange gleam in his eye. Is he jealous of the sparks crackling between them?
He dumps his bag on the desk beside Cindy’s and sits down. ‘Don’t stop for me.’ He glances at Cindy from under his shaggy blond fringe. ‘I don’t want to interrupt.’
‘You’re not interrupting, Sam,’ Cindy tells him sweetly. ‘We were just waiting for you so we could start the meeting.’
I roll my eyes. Cindy’s been buzzing round Sam since the webzine started. And now it looks like he’s finally getting a taste for her honey.
‘Thanks, Cindy,’ he mumbles and stares at his hands.
She taps her clipboard with her pen and looks brightly round the room. ‘Once again, it was lovely to see my inbox full.’
‘I’ll bet,’ Will mutters.
‘You’ve all submitted your articles, which I absolutely love.’ She’s not looking at me even though my horoscopes are one of the most popular features in the webzine. ‘Why don’t we quickly go over them in case I’ve missed something and then we can all go to lunch?’
David shoots up his hand. ‘Was it OK to make our whole feature about Call of Duty tips and tricks?’
Sam shakes his hair out of his eyes. ‘That’s fine by me. I can do with the help.’
Cindy cracks a wide smile. ‘Of course it is, David. I totally trust your judgement.’
Barbara slides David a look that takes me by surprise. There’s a gooeyness in her gaze I’ve never seen before.
‘Barbara.’ Cindy turns her laser-beam attention-ray onto her best friend. ‘Thank you for submitting another fabulous article.’
Will slouches lower in his chair. ‘What’s this week’s revelation?’