Plan B

Epilogue

A loud cheer went up as the chief invigilator announced that time was up for the final exam, GCSE maths.  Invigilators and teachers scurried here and there, protesting that silence had to be kept until everybody was out of the exam hall, but nobody listened and it was about all they could do to prevent the stream of students leaving the place from turning into a veritable stampede.

Somehow, Fran managed to find Mathilda and Philippa in the crush.  Phil was looking around nervously, and Fran suspected that the girl was trying to avoid Megan.

"How do you think it went?" Fran asked.

Mathilda nudged her glasses further up her nose.  "Oh, not too bad.  Question seven was a little evil, though."

"Oh, shut up," Phil told her.  "Everybody knows you probably got a hundred percent."

"It won't be a hundred percent," said Mathilda.  "I think I might have got question nine part B wrong, so at most—"

"Okay, okay," Fran interrupted hastily, putting her hand over Mathilda's mouth to shut her up.  "Can we not go over what the answers were and just focus on the fact that all this torture is over?  What are you doing between now and tonight?"

Mathilda's mood suddenly darkened and she removed Fran's hand.  "Brookie's insisting I go over to his to make sure the dress fits for Stonehelm's red carpet tonight."

The other two laughed.

"He is quite particular about that kind of thing," Fran agreed.

"He just wants everybody to see you looking your best," Philippa said.  "I think it's adorable."

Mathilda grumbled to herself, clearly annoyed that the other two weren't taking her side.  She displayed a vehement dislike towards dresses that nearly rivalled her dislike for some of Brookie's more rabid fan girls, although many of them had the sense to keep their distance after a group of students had complained too loudly in Mathilda's hearing that Brookie shouldn't be interesting himself in a bespectacled, widely-acclaimed nerd.  Mathilda had hospitalised fifteen of them without receiving a single scratch herself.  After that, even the media had gone oddly quiet on her emerging relationship with Brookie, although there were still one or two journalists who said it was a pity Brookie hadn't hooked up with Fran.

The notion that Brookie and Fran ought to be in love amused them both.  The question had first come up when Arthur and Piers had persuaded Fran to go on TV for an interview about her time in hiding (which had shot her to international fame quite literally overnight) and one of the reporters had eagerly asked if the rumours of romance during that time had been true.  Fran had choked so hard that she couldn't breathe.  It was some time before she was composed enough to respond.

"I owe him my life," she had replied, "beyond all doubt.  Once he found out who I was, I actually couldn't stop him from making sure I had everything I'd ever want.  And he won't stop doing it, either.  As soon as some new electronic gadget appears on the market, a version of it arrives in the post.  I'm kind of worried I'm going to become a techoholic."

This had sparked laughter from the audience, but the reporter was persistent in his question.

"No, there's absolutely nothing between us," Fran told him, resisting the urge to put him down more firmly.  "He's a brother to me.  I'm his..." she had to count on her fingers, "tenth sister, I think?  Something like that.  It would be weird if anything romantic happened."

Brookie still received similarly tedious questions, and Fran had made a point of getting herself and Bruno tickets to the premier through Brookie's agent so that he would be plagued by them again.  She and Bruno both found it hilarious watching him trying to keep his temper and explain that he had a girlfriend.