The Secret Place

‘Jo’s right,’ Gemma says lazily. She’s lying with her head in one of the guys’ lap, with her back arched so that her chest sticks up at him. The guy is desperately trying to look like he’s not trying to look down her top. ‘Andrew’s totally drooling over you.’

Orla squirms delightedly, bottom lip sucked in between her teeth.

‘He’s just too shy to tell you,’ Joanne says, sweet again. ‘That’s what Dara said. He doesn’t know what to do.’ To the tall brown-haired guy next to her: ‘Isn’t that right?’

The guy says, ‘Yeah. Totally,’ and hopes he’s getting it right. Joanne gives him a good-boy smile.

‘He thinks he hasn’t got a chance with you,’ Gemma says. ‘But he does, right?’

‘You do like him, don’t you?’

Orla makes some kind of mewing noise.

‘OMG, of course you do! It’s Andrew Moore!’

‘He’s, like, the biggest babe ever

!’

‘I’m into him.’

‘Me too.’ Joanne nudges Alison. ‘You are too, right, Ali?’

Alison blinks. ‘Um, yeah?’

‘See? I’m so jel.’

Even Becca knows who Andrew Moore is. Over on the other side of the fountain, he’s the centre of the Colm’s guys: blond head, rugby shoulders, loudest of all, shoving. Andrew Moore’s dad flew in Pixie Geldof to DJ at his sixteenth birthday party last month.

Orla manages to get out, ‘I guess I kind of like him. I mean-’

‘Course you do.’

‘Everyone does.’

‘You lucky cow.’

Orla’s grinning from ear to ear. ‘So can you…? OhmyGod. I mean, can you, like, tell Dara and then he can tell Andrew?’

Joanne shakes her head regretfully. ‘That wouldn’t work. He’s still going to be too shy to actually come over to you. You’re going to have to say something to him.’

That sends Orla into a paroxysm of wriggles and giggles, hands splayed over her face. ‘OhmyGod, I can’t! I just, like- OhmyGod!’

Joanne and Gemma are all earnestness, Alison looks confused, but the guys are jaw-clamping down sniggers. Holly, with her back to them, does an eye-widening Do you believe this? grimace.

‘Fuck me gently,’ Julia says to the M &Ms, too low for Joanne to hear. ‘With friends like those…’

It takes Becca a second. ‘You think they’re lying?’ Joanne has always been the kind of person who doesn’t even have to hate you to be horrible to you: she says vicious things out of nowhere, for no reason at all, and then smirks at your stunned face. But this is different. Orla is Joanne’s friend.

‘Hi. Welcome to the world. Of course they’re lying. You think Andrew Moore would go for that?’ Julia tilts her head at Orla, who is bright red and gummy with hysterical giggles and in fairness not looking her best.

‘That’s disgusting,’ Becca says. Her hand is clenched around the Skittles packet and her heart is thudding. ‘You can’t do that.’

‘Yeah? Watch them.’

‘They’re doing it to impress them,’ Holly says, and nods at the three guys. ‘Showing off.’

‘And they’re impressed? Like, they want

girls to do that? To their own friends?’

Holly shrugs. ‘If they thought it was so terrible, they’d say something.’

‘This is the perfect chance,’ Joanne says, throwing a private smirk to the tall guy. ‘Just go over and say to him, “Yes, I like you too.” That’s all you have to do.’

‘I can’t, ohmyGod, I soooo can’t-’

‘Course you can. Hello, it’s the twenty-first century? Like, girl power? We don’t have to wait for guys to ask us out any more. Just do it. Think about how happy he’ll be.’

‘Then he’ll take you back behind the Court,’ Gemma says, body moving languidly on the fountain-edge, ‘and he’ll put his arms around you, and he’ll start kissing you…’ Orla twists herself into a knot and snorts with giggles.

Julia says, ‘A fiver says she actually does it. Anyone on?’

Selena says quietly, glancing over at Andrew Moore, ‘If she does, he’s going to be horrible.’

‘A total dick,’ Julia agrees. She throws a couple of Mentos into her mouth, like she’s at the cinema, and watches with interest.

‘Let’s go,’ Becca says. ‘I don’t want to see this. This is awful.’

‘Tough. I do.’

‘Better hurry up,’ says Joanne, singsong, nudging Orla’s leg with her toe again. ‘He’s not going to wait forever, no matter how much he fancies you. If you don’t get in there fast, he’ll go off with someone else.’

‘I could use a fiver,’ Holly says. She turns around. ‘Hey! Orla!’ And when Orla unrolls herself enough to look over, red and grinning like an idiot: ‘They’re just messing with you. If Andrew Moore wants to be with someone, you think he’s too shy to chat her up? Seriously?’

‘Excuse me?’ Joanne snaps, sitting up straight and shooting Holly a vile look. ‘I don’t actually remember asking you what you think?’

‘Excuse me, you’re screaming in the middle of the Court. If I have to listen to it, I get to have an opinion about it. And my opinion is, he doesn’t even know Orla exists.’

‘And my opinion is that you’re an ugly skanger who should be in some community school where normal people wouldn’t have to listen to your stupid opinions.’

‘Whoa,’ says the guy with Gemma’s head in his lap. ‘Catfight.’

‘Ohhh yeah,’ says the tall guy, grinning. ‘Bring it on.’