“No, we’re fine.” I said, slightly confused. And we were, more than fine in fact. Everything with Harry was going smoothly. We hadn’t kissed since that night, but he was being so sweet for me and we were going on our first real date tomorrow night. “Oh.” Niall said, avoiding eye contact. “Ni?” I asked, softly. He turned to look at me. I didn’t know what I was going to say, but now I really couldn’t make any sounds at all. We both stopped walking, his gaze locked on mine. He took a step forward. “Yes?” I felt Niall’s warm breath touching my face. I could feel people in the hall pushing past us, the bell had just rung. Someone gave me a shove and I bumped against Niall’s chest. This was way too intimate. I tried to get away as fast as possible. “Oh- um sorry, I’ve got to get to my lesson now. Sorry, see you later Niall!” I shoved him slightly off me readjusted the strap of my backpack and hurtled out of there without a second glance. My cheeks were glowing but by the time I got to Math I wasn’t sure if it was from what had just happened or from the running. In any case, nobody else would know any different. I sat in my usual spot, next to Harry who smiled at me and winked. “You look all hot and bothered.” He whispered in my ear as I was getting my books out. I shot him a not-right-now look and he shrugged with a grin before turning to look at the teacher. I studied him for a while, he noticed, like always, and kept winking every time he caught me looking. This made me blush all the time, which my teacher seemed to think was down to him, because he kept giving me these pleased looks. Ha! He wished. Harry couldn’t stop laughing when I tried to hide my face in shame, I think Mr Turner finally figured out my red cheeks weren’t because of his excellent teaching and good looks- excuse me but he is a 50-ish year old man with a greying beard and a rather big belly, ew!- and gave us an angry look. “I think some of the students in this class don’t realize the full extent of knowledge this class will give you if they pay,” he paused and whipped out a ruler from nowhere and smacked it on my desk, “attention.” He finished. My astonished face at the skills of the teacher –akin to the skills of a ninja- must have been the reason for Harry’s explosion of laughter because everyone else in the room was being totally serious. Suck-ups. The next thing I knew he was being pushed out of the class by Mr Turner and I was on my own in the boring lesson. At least I was smart enough to shut my mouth and just try to survive the remainder of the lesson. It wasn’t as easy with Harry gone, whom I could endlessly stare at. At least Mr Turner had become less agitated when he’d left.
“Hey.” Luna had come up to me for the first time since we had our falling out. “Hi.” I answered, smiling. “So, do you have any plans for tonight?” She asked. I suppressed a massive grin. “No, but I do need to work out an outfit for my date with Harry tomorrow. And otherwise we could just hang out?” I was getting a bit overexcited at the prospects of hanging out with Luna, she was finally being normal to me again. “Both sounds good to me.” She smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Okay!” I would ask her about it later, I didn’t want to spoil the fun before it had begun. We walked out of school together after I made a quick pit stop at the toilet. Before going to my house we went to the grocery store and the DVD-rent place near it. Ice-cream, bananas, chocolate, nuts, whipped cream, popcorn, Jammie Dodgers, and The Rebound were all we needed for a perfect night. When we got to my house I unlocked the door and we trudged in with all our shopping bags. Mum was sitting at the kitchen bar when we walked in. She looked surprised to see me with a friend. “Oh, hi!” She said trying to hide her surprise by smiling instead. “Hello.” Luna replied, shyly. “Mum, this is Luna. The first friend I made at school. Luna, this is my mother.” I introduced them, Luna blushed and took my mother’s hand in hers. “Call me Celeste, please.” My mother said. I rolled my eyes, she was NOT stealing my friend. Remembering we had bought ice-cream I hurriedly shoved it in the freezer. “We’re going to watch The Rebound I said to my mum, trying to make her see sense and leave. She didn’t. “Oh, well I love that film!” she practically shouted. Way to make it unbearably awkward, mum. “Uh, right.” I said, trying to think of a way to break this easily to her. I think her penny dropped right there and then. “But I have a lot to do, so enjoy the film girls! And are you eating dinner here Luna?” She asked before she left. “Yeah, she is. Can we order pizza?” I said, Luna nodded smiling when I looked at her. “Sure, when you do get me the fungi okay?” I nodded and kissed my mum on the cheek before she left as a sort of thanks. “Right! Banana-splits during or after the film?” I asked Luna. She shrugged so I thought I would take the lead. “During.” I said, starting to take out the things we needed.
We were just finishing off our pizzas when Luna’s phone went off. She looked at the screen, swallowed and answered. “Ye-es?” She answered softly. I could see tears forming in her eyes as the person on the other end talked to her. I was worried alright. I could vaguely hear someone shouting at her. “What’s up, Luna?” She was silent as she listened to the person on the other end. When a whimper left her mouth I snatched the phone from her. “Hello, who is this?” The person on the other end stopped ranting. “Jenna?” The guy’s voice responded.
