Super Awkward Read online

  To my family, old and new.

  And to everyone who has ever felt super awkward.

  You rock.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Eighteen B

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  So. It’s official. My life sucks. I’d always thought it, but this whole caravan trip has confirmed it. I, Bella Fisher, am on a one-way road to Loserdom. And it’s not even the kind of road where you can pop into a petrol station and buy Haribo to make yourself feel better.

  Is it normal to have such a high embarrassment-todays-alive ratio? I’ve only been around for fifteen-and-a-half years, and four of those I can’t even remember (except for that hour when I was three and a half and got my tongue stuck to a box of Calippos in Sainsbury’s, but that doesn’t count) and already I’ve ticked off way too much stuff on the cringe list. Going to school with a pair of pants stuck in my sock – check. Calling our deranged geography teacher ‘Mum’ by accident – done. Twice. And he’s a man. Getting hit in the face by a rounders ball which bruised my chin and made me look like I had a beard – achieved, the day before our school fashion show.

  Why do these things happen to me? Every. Single. Time. Yes, it’s entertaining for everyone else, but imagine being me. The world’s a terrifying place. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day I opened the drawer under the kitchen sink – the one that Mum stuffs with old birthday cards, half-burnt joss sticks and dead batteries – to find some weird life contract that she’d signed me up to:

  Dear Ms Fisher, I appreciate that birth is

  a tricky business, but within the first thirty

  seconds of life, your daughter managed to hit

  me, an incredibly esteemed doctor, in the eye

  with a jet-like urine stream. It is still watering

  now. So, I have no choice but to issue you with

  the following rules that her life must adhere to.

  Many thanks,

  An Important Doctor

  Bella’s Life Rules:

  •Bella shall emit a weird smell that any vaguely fit boy can detect, causing them to treat her with deep suspicion. It will probably smell a bit like the farty waft at the end of a packet of salt and vinegar crisps.

  •Bella will accompany every laugh with a snort. And in extreme cases, hic-burps.

  •Whenever there is a party that literally everyone is going to, Bella must be otherwise engaged on a dreary family holiday. Suggested ‘holidays’ could be long stints in slightly damp caravan parks, interspersed with Mum lectures about the benefits of pelvic floor exercises.

  •Bella will be a geek. And not in a geek-chic kind of way, but in a secretly-caring-about-failing-maths-and-science way.

  •Bella will always fail maths and science.

  •Finally, whatever Bella does or says to try and impress anyone will always, ALWAYS, backfire.

  Urgh, it all seems so very possible. Must check that drawer as a matter of urgency. On the plus side, it would mean none of my life-tragicness was technically my fault. It was just destiny, and Mum says you can’t argue with that (although she does use red biro to change bits of her horoscopes she doesn’t agree with).

  If Mum was just one shade less unhinged, we’d have been spared this horror in the first place. My mum + the internet = worse combination than tuna ice cream.

  Last year she bid on a model of Benny from Abba for her band memorabilia collection. She never wondered why the postage cost was so high for a 1.8 centimetre cardboard model. It never crossed her mind it would be 1.8 METRES. Now whenever my sister, Jo, and I go to the downstairs loo, we’re eyeball-to-eyeball (or eyeball to pant-region, depending what stage of the weeing we’re at) with a life-sized model of a bearded Swedish man. Mum only moves him when she gets him to answer the door to freak out salespeople, or to scare off potential burglars.

  Her favourite lecture to me is not to talk to strangers on the internet. If only she’d done the same then right now we wouldn’t be travelling miles to a fun-sponge of a place on the advice of some randomer called MysticBabs, who she met on a forum called HippyAndHappy. Alarm bells, anyone? Mum said Babs is ‘a deeply spiritual guru’ – I think she’s a twelve-year-old boy having a right laugh. She (or he, depending on whose side you’re on) persuaded my mum that the answer to inner bliss wasn’t a Saturday night spent perving on the tight-trousered-mum-magnet Dermot O’Leary, but realigning her chakras (or Shakiras as Mum calls them). One dubious internet search later and Jo and I have been bundled into the car on the way to spending our last bit of half-term holiday freedom being dragged to Black Bay Caravan Park for a ‘Meditat-YAY-tion’ retreat.

  I still can’t accept we’re going. Not even now as our brown Mini that’s older than Jo (Mum says ‘vintage’, we say ‘health hazard’) is pulling off our drive (I’ve already seen one neighbour peeking to check the sound wasn’t actually an aeroplane taking off). I have to give it one last try.

  “Mum, I know the state of your chakras are on the line, but can’t you go without us? Pleeeeeease. . .” She cranked up ‘Dark Pipe of The Moon’ – her Pink Floyd panpipes cover album – to show her mind was made up.

  “And what would you get up to, Bells? Tell me what marvellous reason you’ve got to make me break the law and leave you on your own?” She checked her bright pink lipstick in the rear-view mirror. Turns out she didn’t think ‘being at extreme risk of actual death from boredom (DFB)’ was a marvellous reason. “Wave to Benny, girls!”

  I shoved my hands under my bum in anti-waving protest.

  “Jo’ll look after me . . . WON’T YOU, JO?! She’s got that uni athletics trip she needs to get ready for. I bet she’s got loads to pack. And, er, shorts to iron, and, er . . . trainers to lace?” The world of voluntary sport was a mystery to me. “RIGHT, JO?” Jo’s vertical bun wobbled as I kneed the back of her seat trying to vibrate the right answer out of her. She always got the front seat. Way to make my short legs feel even worse about themselves. As usual, Jo leapt to my un-defence.

  “Have you got enough room there? You seem to be accidentally, repeatedly kicking me.” Sister loyalty means nothing to her. “Oh, how weird, it’s stopped. Anyway, I’m all packed, thanks for asking. I did it days ago – you know I like to be prepared. Means you don’t forget stuff. Talking of which, did you remember to bring all that homework you were trying to get me to help you out with?”

  Eye. Roll. Jo was my age once, but I swear Mum’s alternative carob birthday cake turned her thirty on her thirteenth birthday and she’s been stuck there ever since. Sure, I was going to have a terrible time on this holiday, but there was NO WAY I was going to make it productive as well. I’m not a total idiot.

  “I’ve done it all already, actually, thanks for asking. What do you think I was doing in my room all of yesterday?�
�� 1–0 to me.

  “Sorting your nail varnishes into rainbow order, spending hours taking selfies that look as if you’ve done them spontaneously, and making a collage of quotes from Anna Kendrick movies?” Game, set, match to Jo. That was entirely what I’d been doing.

  “Stalker,” I hissed through the headrest.

  “Loser,” she hissed back, and flicked her long brown hair in my face.

  “Come on, girls.” Mum wasn’t having any of it. “We’ve got a four-hour drive ahead of us. Apparently Black Bay is like the St Tropez of Wales, so I don’t want to hear another word about it, OK? Loads of people would love to be in your position.”

  I disagreed.

  “Name one person, Mum, one person.”

  She thought. “Well. . . Benedict Cumberbatch is a massive fan.”

  “WAIT. You’re telling me Sherlock is a Black Bay regular?!”

  “Well, the person that works in his dry cleaners is, and apparently they’ve got very similar tastes in trousers. And probably holidays too.”

  There was no point in arguing.

  Seven hours and three wee stops later, we arrived in the dead of night. The only thing still lit up was their proud welcome sign, ‘BLACK BAY CARAVAN PARK, WHERE WE PARTY LIKE IT’S 1999’. First impressions were that it did indeed resemble St Tropez – if St Tropez was less golden French yacht paradise, and more one hundred per cent muddy British field. Our tiny caravan had more shades of orange and brown in it than a fancy dress night where the theme is otters eating fish fingers. It was everything I’d worried about – with added floral.

  How on earth was I going to make it through the next five days? Isn’t there some sort of government committee to prevent massive misuse of school holidays that could rescue me? But unable to find enough phone signal to check/send urgent request for help, I gave in to Mum’s demands for us to unpack.

  Turns out my definition of unpacking – keep my clothes accessible by emptying everything out of my suitcase in a heap, while rummaging for a ring I hadn’t actually packed – is way less mum-friendly than Jo’s traditional ‘coat hanger’ method. So, surprise surprise, suck-up sis got rewarded with the sofa bed and I got left with one that spent daylight hours folded up into a coffee table.

  By the time I’d flipped it out, Mum was already asleep, snoring.

  I wriggled my way between the sheets, trying to ignore that my pillow smelt of ham (the linen cupboard doubled up as our food cupboard), and plugged in my headphones that I’d hidden in my pants. But even 5 Seconds of Summer and the 1975 couldn’t cheer me up. Because being trapped in a human tin full of mum-snores, fragranced with Eau De Piglette, wasn’t even the worse thing. Something far worse was looming. The most awful thing since Mum accidentally posted her camera roll to my Instagram.

  Being stuck at Black Bay for the rest of the week meant missing Saturday. The event of the year. My best friend’s sixteenth birthday party. Mum couldn’t see what the big deal was, as the day before we left, on Rach’s actual bday, the three of us had spent an awesome day together, completing her fifteenth year bucket list by having pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But Saturday was The Big One. An epic night, complete with parentless house, a playlist that’s been six months in the making, the most Ben and Jerry’s ever seen in one freezer – and absolutely, completely zero me.

  I pulled my duvet further over my head to hide the glow of my phone as I tried to load Maps again. Even if I’d started walking home this second, I wouldn’t make it back till two days after the party finished. And that was without time to sleep, eat or share pics of my epic journey (while probably doing impressions of Frodo Baggins). My fate was sealed. Half term was officially now barf term. So instead of adventuring across hill and dale, I ventured across rug and small pile of my pants to retrieve the sock full of caramel Digestives I’d smuggled out from the house. As silently as I could, I munched my way through four toes’ worth of biscuits, wondering just how bad party FOMO was going to be.

  But little did I know that at that very same moment someone else was thinking about the party. And their perfect plan to make it the biggest disaster of my life.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  Can weather laugh at you? Because as if this holiday, or more precisely hell-iday, hasn’t been bad enough, it’s been raining for four days solid. NOT FUNNY, CLOUDS. You’ve turned my bob into head pubes.

  Why couldn’t Black Bay be one of those parks that Lou (a girl in our year that got boobs two years before anyone else) goes to every summer that sound like a real-life version of Hollyoaks (but in a good way, without the sporadic multiple-murders). I’m the youngest person here, except for children (and they don’t count, as I’m not hanging out with anyone who eats nose-morsels). Eurgh. I swear the best entertainment here has been the daily food-poisoning gamble of eating the buffet. Still, on the bright side, I did an excellent job of getting out of the life drawing class that Mum and Jo are at. I pleaded that I needed to work on my fancy dress outfit for tonight. It sounded slightly more dignified than, ‘AS IF I’M GOING TO SAY YES TO SEEING MY FIRST EVER MAN-DANGLE IRL IN THE COMPANY OF YOU TWO?!’

  I stabbed at the cardboard cereal boxes I was using for my costume, as if they were to blame for this evening. We’ve been looking forward to Rachel’s sixteenth ever since I met her. Which was basically birth.

  Rachel, AKA Rach, is one half of my two best friends, Tegan and Rach. (She’s obvs the Rach half). Three’s an odd number, but so what? It works for us. They’re my person-equivalent of breathing and have kept me sane since for ever. I sometimes wonder if I know more about them than I do about myself. Like, Tegan is so on-it and brilliant, she’ll probably run the country one day. And she can do the splits both ways. Not that she’d do that if she was Prime Minister – she only does it when she’s competing with her gymnastics team. And she wears socks that have days of the week on them (she sews on the days herself, but never wears the same day on each foot).

  Rachel is always happy and always smiling (and always looking like a search result for #lifegoals) and she makes us laugh every single day. She’s constantly doing dead arty things, like painting pictures of dogs, but only using triangles. Our art teacher saw one and put it forward for an award, which it won, even though they hung it upside down. When Rach isn’t sketching, or painting, she’ll be curled up with her head in a book, which is weird because for all the words that go in, some really nonsensical ones come out. She also has an extreme phobia of when fork prongs get stuck together in cutlery drawers, and can’t walk past squirrels (she says she was once bitten by one, but her dad insists it was their neighbour’s hamster gone wild).

  Rachel has The Best parties too, and that’s when they’re just normal ones. This one’s been a full year in the planning. She’s got an insanely great house, and her mega-loaded parents will make sure it’s the kind of evening Kendall and Kylie would turn up to. I’d die for parents like that, instead of a mum who thinks the height of hospitality is splashing out on upgrading to non-supermarket brand cheese puffs. Eurgh. It’s more gutting than a fishmongers’ convention.

  I checked my phone. No pre-party update from either of them. I put it back on the floor, trying to will it into action with threatening glances. Mum reckons I’m chained to my phone, but it’s not my fault no one had invented interesting technology in her day. She just had wood and washing machines and kettles and boring stuff like that.

  I chopped open another cereal box. If Tegan and Rach were here, we’d have found a way to make Black Bay fun. Props to Jo for trying. She’s in on tonight’s Project: Survive The Evening, and once she gets back from her class she’s taking me to the campsite’s Pop-Swop Night to take my mind off the party. It’s fancy dress karaoke, which isn’t exactly an amazing house party with all my friends, or the X Factor tour at Wembley, but it’ll do. It’s not as if anyone else has to ever find out; what happens at Black Bay Caravan Park stays in Black Bay Caravan Park.

  Must. Not. Look. At. Phone. It’s so
hard, though; my eyes are magnetically drawn to it. Lucky they’re attached, or they might fly out and cling to it, like some sort of freaky all-seeing iron filings. It’s not even a phone any more, just a ticking torture device. Last time I looked it was 8.28 p.m. – if I can just hold off looking till 10 p.m. then I’ll have made it through the first third of the party. Based on pre-party gossip (Mikey told Rach who told Tegan who told me), Luke’s probably going to cop off with Lou, the school trophy snog. Bothered? Me? Well, yes, obvs, but I’m not going to admit that to anyone. I wish I wasn’t even admitting it to myself, but I’m hard to lie to.

  I can’t believe I used to go out with Luke. He puts the ‘ex’ in ‘extreme idiot’. That doucheball was my first actual proper boyfriend. I’d been so excited to get together with him, but turns out he’s a total disaster that should only be available to girls who have successfully passed the level five boy-handling exam. I haven’t even graduated from level one, which is just the basics of non-sweaty hand-holding, and understanding the appeal of cricket. I am a boyfriend first-baser, and Luke is the sort of boy Taylor Swift could get at least three songs out of.

  Luke and I haven’t spoken since just before Christmas when he’d responded to my suggestion that maybe we needed to see each other a bit less, by laughing in my face and telling me I’d been a joke to him all along. Word soon got round, and I ended up getting actual high-fives in the corridor for being the first girl ever to turn the tables and dump him. I was so fuming at Luke, I never bothered to correct them. Eurgh. I would like to Ctrl-Z his whole existence please.

  8.30 p.m. DammitIlooked. I’m so rubbish at keeping promises to myself. I must promise to do better in future.

  I wonder what was already happening? Was Lou already functioning as a human mirrorball in one of her trademark glittery boob tubes? Was Mikey finally going to tell Tegan how he felt? Had Rach already accidentally broken someone’s heart? It’s not that she means to be mean, she couldn’t be mean if she tried, it’s just what happens when you look like a walking version of a Disney princess. Her hair looks like it’s blowing in the wind, even when she’s indoors. Although she’d get a U for common sense. She once said to me, ‘I know April Fool’s Day is the first day of a month, but I can never remember which one?’