Plan B

Chapter Thirty-one

The latest outbreak of celebrity gossip caused complete havoc.  By Wednesday lunchtime, Fran was no longer able to move around school freely by herself due to crowds of students blocking her way, either to harangue her over Brookie or to take photos and declare themselves as her new best friend.  There had been a veritable explosion of Brookie-related fan fictions quite literally overnight, and the prospect of facing his fan mail and virtually being house imprisoned due to fans on the rampage was sending Brookie’s will to cope with anything down the drain.

He’d managed to escape back to the boarding house without being seen until he got in the door, but it wasn’t enough to put his mind at ease.

Make sure Frankie’s okay, he texted to Mathilda as he opened the door to his room.  The fans are bound to be a nuisance.

There was no reply, but Brookie had a suspicion that it might be because Mathilda was pulling out a few taekwondo moves on anybody who tried to get close to Fran.

His email inbox pinged three times in quick succession, making him jump.  He had forgotten that he’d left his laptop on.  Hurrying over to his side of the room, he dragged up his desk chair and sat down to look.

One was from his parents, which he opened and read briefly.  The top one was spam, so he deleted it, but the second one was from the gmail address that he’d given to Freddie.

I think Miden is a total idiot, read the subject line.  Biting his lip, Brookie brought up the full email.

What the hell is with all this stuff in the news?  She can’t afford to have any photos taken of her or put on the web because she might be recognised, let alone be put in a spot where attention is constantly drawn to her!  How on earth is she supposed to go safely to ground over half term if all your fans are out searching for her?

Also, if you kiss her again, I’m going to hunt you down.

“Wow, he sure doesn’t beat about the bush when expressing his feelings,” Brookie muttered.  “‘If you kiss her again, I’m going to hunt you down’?  I’ll be lucky to be alive to kiss her after she finds out exactly how many photos there are of her on the web.”

He hit the reply button and began to type a response.

Afternoon lessons were intolerable.  Fran had to suffer through the sniggers, pointing, whispers and stares of the rest of her classmates, and fending off questions such as “is your boyfriend a good pull?” was trying her patience to the limit.

“I’ve never kissed him,” she explained for the billionth time, fighting the urge to slam her chemistry experiment on Megan’s head.  “And he’s never kissed me.  He’s also not my boyfriend, so how would I know?”

“Aw, he’s in denial!” squealed one of the girls.  “How adorable!”

Mathilda managed to snatch the Bunsen burner out of Fran’s reach before Fran’s hand could close around it.

“Would your boyfriend like it if he knew that you’re just denying everything to do with him?” demanded another of the other girls snidely.  “I’d be furious if I was him.”

“Were him,” Mathilda corrected out of habit.

“Well, you’re not him,” Fran snapped, turning away.  “And I actually know him a whole lot better than you, so I think I have a better chance of judging what his reaction would be.”

The bell rang, signalling the end of class, although everybody had long since ceased to work and their teacher had given up on them quite a while back.  Mathilda busied herself with clearing up their experiment before Fran lost her cool and started throwing the equipment at people.  Besieged with questions from the inane to the infuriating, Fran shoved her books into the bag that she’d for once thought to bring and heaved it onto her shoulder.  Then she grabbed her crutch and headed for the door.  Mathilda scurried after her.