Sweet, Sweet Custard.

She was looking at me. I could see she was looking at me, trying to figure out what was wrong with my uniform – but she couldn’t point out, what exactly, was wrong with it. I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it: it looks totally better on me than everyone else, because it appeared that this uniform, was designed to make people look bad.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I’m a super model or anything. I just made a few...adjustments on it. Making it fit right, and making it so it did not make my butt look like that elephant’s on the discovery channel. Big. Which is what every other girl’s butts – even the pretty, popular ones – looked like in it.

“Penelope...” she said, looking at me, her lip twitching. “You’re the new girl, I presume?”

“Yes ma’am.” I said, sticking my hand out to her with a friendly smile. This year was going to be totally different than any other year – this year; I was going to be popular. My dad moved for a reason, and it wasn’t only just so he could get a bigger pay check every year (okay, it was, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t take advantage of it). “How do you do?”

“I do good.” She said, warily. My new principle was in a permanent state of wariness, brought on by years of teaching little children at the primary school and then, not thinking that it could get any worse, changed to teaching high school students. She was wrong. She shifted through some papers and handed me a little slip, “it has your locker number on it, did you bring a lock?” I nodded. “Good, and it also has your time table. Have a nice day, Miss Davis.”

“Have a nice day, Mrs Carmichael.” I said, and walked out of class to go find my locker, where I bumped into about ten feet of male hotness. Okay, it was more around six – but I, being on the kind of short size, thought it mattered not, because he was still way taller than me.

His sunglasses had bumped off his head and were dangling around his chin, letting me look into his warm baby blues. He was wearing the school uniform (white long sleeved shirt, grey pinstripe vest and black slacks), and he looked good in it. It was saying a lot, but it was probably because I could so imagine what was going on underneath the uniform, if the way he filled it out was any clue.

But what really got me was his shoes. I’m serious, we were allowed to pick shoes here – and shoes only, and he had to pick the coolest ones ever. I mean, what the old me would think were the coolest, anyway. He had on these converse hi-tops with goldfish on them, swimming around in all this seaweed in an ocean of blue background.

“Hey, Red,” he said smiling down at me. “Watch where you’re going.”

My hands touched my hair subconsciously. I knew I should have dyed it blonde, I knew it. I tried not to glare at him, and put up a fake front, smiling at him – which actually wasn’t too hard, considering the way he looks. “I’m sorry; I’ll watch where I’m going next time.”

I sidestepped him and was about to walk ahead when he stepped right back in front of me. My nose bumped with his chest, and I was able to prove that yes, indeed, he did fill out his shirt quite well, and without any aid (unlike myself, but we’ll get to that in a moment).

“Hey, Blondie,” I said. “Watch where you’re going.”

“Oh,” he said, and then shrugged at me. “Nevermind, I just thought you’d like to know something.”

“What?” I said, preparing myself for a pick up line. I wondered which one he was going to use. You’ve been running through my mind all night. Or, maybe, is there a mirror in those pants? Because I can practically see myself in them! I hadn’t received a pick up line before, but my older sister, Jennifer, says they’re quite repetitive and really annoying – but that she accepts them when they’re coming from a cute guy.

“Your boobs are leaking.” He gestured towards my front. “What is that, anyway? Is that, is that custard?” He stuck a finger out and scraped it across my shirt, and then stuck his mouth. “It is custard.”

I realised now why the principle was staring at me. Not because I looked better in the uniform than any other girl at school, or previously, actually, seeing as my boobs were kind of deflating – all over my new school t-shirt.

“Dude, and I thought my sisters were bad – with all those tissues, but you,” he looked down at the custard covered button on my shirt, that proclaimed my name, “Penelope, take the cake.”

Take the cake! Take the cake! My boobs were covered in custard! He didn’t even bat an eyelash, I mean – look at them! He licked them! Or, atleast, my fake ones! Oh my God! I’m going to kill Jen! I knew this was a bad idea!

Okay, okay. Calm down, freaking out is not going to help the situation – you know what? I’m just going to go to the bathroom, stuff my bra with toilet paper, and clean all the custard off. That’s what I’m going to do. What was I doing, filling balloons with custard, anyway? I mean, it was totally unconventional. Even if slightly more realistic than toilet paper.

I’ll also have to put my school blazer on, to cover up the custard stains. Yes, that was what I was going to do. If he told, who was going to believe him anyway? I mean I was the pretty, well-dressed new girl – he was the guy wearing goldfish shoes. Who were they going to believe, me, or him?

I pulled my other fake boob out of my bra, and handed it to him “Here, happy birthday.” before running off to the girls toilets.

The school had a population of, what was it? A thousand kids, or something? He was totally never going to see me again, anyway. What were the odds?

A thousand to one, I reassured myself. A thousand to one.

But I could assure myself all I liked, because soon enough I’d find out that all those freaking odds were against me.

I stumbled into assembly, late, all because of my fake boobs. And everyone, in the whole school, turned around and stared as they heard footsteps in the otherwise quiet assembly. I suppose it was what I wanted, in a way. I just hope they didn’t notice the custard stains.

The guy up the front, speaking, cleared his throat and sent me a look, “It appears one of our new students – whom, actually, I was going to introduce to you guys. Is late, please welcome Penelope and Jennifer Davis. Come up to the stage, girls.”

Jennifer got up from her seat and joined me as we went up the aisles. “Hey,” she hissed in my ear quietly as we walked along, “everyone is looking at you. With those fake boobs, Pen, you’re attracting them like flypaper. And why are you late, by the way?”

“It’s because of these fake boobs I’m late.” I hissed back at her, feeling uncomfortable about the staring. I mean, I had been wrong this morning, about the principle staring at my outfit because I looked good in it – and not because I was leaking custard from the chest area. Were the custard stains really that noticeable?

“What? Really?” Jennifer said, seeming surprised. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you later.” I said, shifting my coat closer around me as I walked up the stairs to whisper in the guy’s ear. “Sorry I’m late, womanly problems, you know? On the first day, too. I’m so sorry.”

The guy nodded rather quickly as if trying to shake what I said out of his head. It was, technically, true. I mean, I was having womanly problems – with my fake boobs, though. Not what he thought I was talking about, although, it could be equally disturbing.

Jennifer stood beside me as the guy, regaining his composure, smiled into the microphone, “These two girls were born and bred right in a foreign country called – Ireland!” We were not born in Ireland. I looked at my sister, and she just shrugged. “As you can see from their red hair and green eyes.”

I was not born in Ireland. I was born here, in Australia, in a hospital – like most people in this country. Had the period thing really upset him that much? “Haha. Nice joke, Mister.” I said, elbowing him in the ribs to play along. “We aren’t Irish.”

“Yes you are.” He said, not putting the microphone down. “You’re Irish.”

“No.” I said, shaking my head. “No I’m not Irish.

“You are.” He said, shaking his head at me. “It said so on the stuff we received from your last school.”

“It said we took Irish dancing.” I corrected him. But then new me started to kick in, what was I doing, correcting him? Making a scene? Being the nerd that I was known for, back home. But I couldn’t help but go on. “We took river dancing, we’re not Irish.”

“Oh, but I’m sure you are – look at all those freckles!” he said and it really peeved me off. I’d tried everything, everything that morning to cover up those freckles – new me couldn’t have freckles! I’d thought I’d done pretty well, actually – but no, he had to point it out to the whole school.

Seeing how red my face was getting (so red, actually, that you wouldn’t even notice my freckles) my sister grabbed my hand, and squeezed, hard. “Come on, Penny. Down the stairs we go, let the nice man think we’re Irish if he wants.” She whispered.

I followed her down the stairs and she took me to where she was sitting before. “Are you really Irish?” one guy asked me as I sat down, and I had to try really hard not to say anything, to ignore him. Because popular people do not make scenes, and that’s what I was now – popular. Or atleast, I was going to be.

“So, you’re Irish,” an incredibly deep voice asked, and I looked up to correct him but – oooh. He was standing right in front of me, leaning over my locker, with his hand planted above my head. “I like that.”

“Really?” I said, as if guys do this to me all day, everyday – and had actually done this to me before now. I reached up, tugged on his hand where it was hanging above my head, squeezed, and then let it drop back to his side. “That’s nice.”

I turned back around to get my recess food and he cleared his throat. I didn’t pause, though; I just popped a grape in my mouth from the little plastic bag and closed my locker. In one of my sister’s magazines, it said guys like girls who are a challenge, and that are confident – no matter how much they deny it. I mean, why else would they like Angelina Jolie so much? They can’t resist a woman with weapons! Or in my case, my attitude is my weapon.

“You know,” he whispered to the back of my head. “I have magic powers.”

“Really?” I said, turning my head and looking up at him and letting my hair fall all over my eye the way my hairdresser said to do, to make me look ‘mysterious’. Mystery, my sister’s magazine told me – was also good. “What are these...powers? Can you tell me?”

“Oh,” he said, and then reached forward to brush my hair back out of my eyes (to my annoyance). “I’ll show you.”

And that, my friends, is how I ended up getting my very first kiss from a guy I didn’t even know the name of. Because he cupped my face in his hands, leant down and kissed me on the lips. Shivers went down my back, and all of me was feeling all...tingly, like on the movies. It was a total movie kiss, and then he was pressing me against my locker and – was cut short by a football.

He stood back up straight and one of his friends called him, “Hey, Luke, stop playing hockey with the new girl and come out and play some real sport!”

“Sorry, have lunch with me?” he asked, and I nodded. He grinned toothily at me, pecked me on the lips and jogged off with a, “See you!”

I stayed against my locker. In fact, it was probably a good thing it was behind me. I mean, otherwise I would have fallen down from the shock of it all. It felt like he’d sucked out my soul, or my heart atleast, and he hadn’t given it back. I was, eternally, all his.

“Penny!” I heard the cry of my sister, and turned. “Oh my God, that guy was totally macking with you on that locker. Oh, and boy, was he nice! If I wasn’t taken, I’d totally steal him from you!”

I smiled, “Oh yeah, I got the good catch.”

I knew she was only joking about the stealing thing, she was totally crazy about her boyfriend – who, by the way – lives like two hours away now. But he promised to come visit her on weekends, so she was happy.

“Oh. Man.” She breathed, her eyes widening. “Penny, Penny, Penny. You picked the wrong guy – perfection, I see.”

My head swivelled, and all I saw was the guy I’d got custard all over this morning, walking down the hall. He better not say anything, he better not say anything. I’ll kill him. “Who?” I whispered in her ear. “What are you talking about?”

“Him.” She said, rolling her eyes at me as if I said something really stupid. “The guy with the goldfish shoes.”

“Him?” I snorted.

As he walked past, swaggering with a smirk on his face, his eyes lighting up when they caught sight of me. He was bouncing my custard boob in his hand! He called, winking, “Hey, my sweet custard.”

My sister’s jaw dropped and I just ignored him, pretending to check the time on my watch, repeatedly. When he was out of sight she grabbed onto my arm, hard. “Nails!” I cried, trying to shake her off. The girl had great big talons on the ends of her fingers, disguised in pink polish.

She didn’t even bother to say sorry.

“Ohmigosh!” she wailed, holding an arm out, supposedly to Goldfish Shoes (whom was out of sight, by now, as before mentioned). “He called you his sweet custard!” She kicked a locker as we walked outside. “Not fair!”

“He was only calling me that,” I said, looking down at my grapes, all disappointed. I mean, they were the only fruit I could really prefer over junk food. How was I supposed to resist everything else, now? “Because those custard boobs you made me are defective, they started leaking all over me right in front of him.”

She stared at me, in horror. And then looked down at my chest, all confused. “They don’t look like they burst. Did they, really? If they did, I am so sorry. You lost your chance with that – and it’s all my fault.”

“Oh please.” I said, rolling my eyes. You’d think it was the end of the world. I mean, maybe it would have been if he was nice to me. But no, he teased me, and scraped custard off my (fake) boob. “Not like he’s such a catch, anyway.”

“Ooooh, ouch.” She said, smiling at me. “Looks like denial is not just a river!”

“Oh, shut up.” I said, and hit her on the head with my squished grapes. “And I’m not denying anything.”

“Sure, sure.”

Ah, health class – a class, I didn’t really like, actually. My health class teacher never really liked me for some very stupid reasons. Essentially we had to look after these babies, and well, let’s just say when you come back with one in pieces, you don’t exactly get the A you’d hope for. It’s not my fault though, seriously, I thought it was the alarm clock! So I threw it out the window – and BAM! Dead baby. Dead fake baby. Not that my health teacher treated it any less of a tragedy.

This class wasn’t much better than my last one, as I found out, when my teacher announced to me (or to some guy in my class named Jason Welling), “You may now kiss the bride!”

Oh she’s got to be freaking kidding me. I can’t get married – not even pretend married, did she not see that my heart, clearly, belonged to another? That another who also happens to be in this class, and named Luke, and whom was sitting right beside me – he obviously had to be very upset about it all, and so I looked at him, looking for signs of outrage, despair and longing – longing to be my husband, instead of Jason, whoever he was.

His eyes were closed. Was he...was he sleeping?

I batted my eyelashes at the sight. No, no it couldn’t be. He was a popular boy, wasn’t he? Popular boys listened. Popular girls listened.

“Mrs James,” I said, sticking my hand up since she didn’t appear to have any problems, like I did, on who I had been assigned. Could she not feel the bond, the way we felt towards each other – Luke and I, that is – even though one of us – it seemed, as I shot a glance back at Luke – appeared to need to catch up on his beauty sleep, and really, you just couldn’t blame him, how else would he look that good? “Can I be reassigned, I just don’t know many people around here – but I do, however, know Luke here, sitting beside me.”

But she didn’t listen to me, she didn’t understand why I was complaining, and it seemed, neither did all the other girls in class. As soon as I asked for a husband changed, all eyes turned towards me – and widened. I heard one girl whisper to another, not very quietly mind you, if that was what she was aiming for, “God, she is turning down Jason Welling? What a freak.”

Only she said it like fur—eek. I realised, at that moment, that I had made a mistake. Not again. I couldn’t be a freak again. “Nevermind.” I said to the teacher with a smile. Sorry Luke. “Don’t worry; I don’t have a problem with it.”

I felt bad about it, but it wasn’t like Luke was even conscious – he wouldn’t realise the mistake I had made, and that I’d basically ditched him to fix it. But no boy would ever be worth more than popularity – not when I just grabbed hold of it, not now that it was in my grasp. I couldn’t lose it again.

“That’s good.” A masculine voice said, and then, shoving my stuff aside, scooted his chair beside my desk and dumped his stuff next to mine. His hands were big, way bigger than mine, as they pulled back to perch themselves at the end of the table. “Wouldn’t want there to be any hard feelings between us, my sweet custard.”

Oh no. Not him, not again. Why did the world hate me so?

A round of gushes went around the classroom, and the voice I’d recognised before, going freak, was saying to her friend, “Oh my God, he called her his sweet custard!”

And she was like, “Oh my God, I know!”

I looked up from his big hands to him, and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath, and turned back to the front of class. I said out of the corner of my mouth, “Don’t call me that.”

“Alright then.” Mrs James said, still, I knew by the look on her face, looking confused. “Well guys, the point here is to – interact with your partners!”

Now everyone was staring at her.

“Ewwww! You want me to get intimate with Melvin Barker?” I turned my head, and was met with a girl with shoulder-length, layered hair who was sitting Indian style on her chair—causing all the male students (Jason, because he’s a freak, and Luke, because he was asleep, excluded) to look at her very exposed underwear, and not at her face. “Miss, gosh, isn’t that, like, illigal?”

“Illegal.” I corrected her automatically, and then cursed inwardly at myself. She looked at me, screwing up her nose, probably wondering who I was – and why I was talking to her. “It’s illegal...you said, illigal...” I muttered.

“Whatever.” She said, and turned her head back to the teacher. “It’s not right, Mrs James.”

“I didn’t mean intimate, Heidi.” Mrs James said wryly. “I meant, you must work together – as a team – to get this right! For you to get an A, you and your partner must cooperate. Figure out your lifestyle; pick your dream job – who’s going to stay at home when you have kids? Will you even have kids?”

“Kids with MELVIN?” Heidi shrieked. Melvin, beside her, was starting to look kind of pissed. “Oh God!”

Melvin, crossing his arms, rolled his eyes way into his forehead.

“Cooperation is the key kids!” Mrs James insisted, almost directly to Heidi.

She then went back to her desk to read a book, leaving me with Jason and Luke – whom was still sleeping, his partner, Anna I think her name was, eyeing him warily, not sure whether to wake him up or not.

Luke decided for her, stretching up his arms, and looking to his left, spotting Anna’s stuff. “Hey, Anna Banana.” Okay, so maybe it wasn’t original material – but wasn’t it so sweet? It made Anna blush!

Better than my partner, I looked to my side to find Jason, rolling his pen from one side to the other, bored. His blonde hair was falling over his eyes, to his everlasting annoyance, and he kept puffing to blow it away – but it wasn’t working. Reaching up, I brushed it away from his face without thinking – and he looked straight at me.

“It was in your face.” I said, quickly. I didn’t what him to get the wrong idea. I mean, it wasn’t like I liked him, or anything like that. He was still looking at me, and I started looking in any direction but at him. What was I doing? “Um, so, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

Oh my God. I can’t believe I just asked that question. What do you want to be when you grow up?! Oh my God, how whack did that sound?

He smiled at me though, and his knees bumped up against the side of my knees, because the desk was so small and all. I gulped. But I didn’t know why.

“Well,” he said, and his knees moved a little, and his goldfish shoes knocked into my sandals. He looked into my eyes with a smirk, “I want to be a fireman. So I can ride in a big red truck and make the big siren noise! What do you want to be when you grow up, Penelope?”

“I want to be a nurse, so I can save the world – one cold at a time.” I joked.

Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad, after all.

“So, how many babies are we going to have?” he snicked.

Not.

I can’t believe I got myself into this situation. I have a boyfriend! I have had said boyfriend for a week and a half, now. It wasn’t supposed to end up this way! But then I made the mistake of looking into his baby blues – again. And I was all over him, and his converse goldfish shoes.

I don’t know what made me do it. He was just sitting there, minding his own business – when I kissed him.

He was all, “So this is how we met, OK? There was a massive car accident and the bloke’s car got set on fire,” and he was waving around his arms as he went, “and my fellow firemen and I had to put it out – but then!”

He clapped his hands. “The ambulance shows up – we need a nurse, the guy is seriously hurt! And then you step out,” he looked at me, and his voice lowered, “And our eyes meet across the flames and we realise that we’re star crossed lovers that hold a burning passion for each other as hot as—”

He barely got the words the fire itself out before I reached out and smashing his face to mine – started kissing him. I knew it was wrong. I knew he would never, ever in a million years kiss me back – but I couldn’t help myself, and he was majorly stunned, he wasn’t even responding!

I pulled my lips from his, breaking away and muttering, “I’m sorry, I won’t do—”

He reached out and touched my lips, and was looking totally confused and adorable. His eyebrows went up, way up.

It had been like one and a half weeks since we started the project and tomorrow we had to present. We really should be working, but I had to go and ruin that plan.

“I’m sorry—” I started again but this time he reached forward, pulled me into his arms and started kissing me.

Not much encouragement was needed as I flung my arms around his neck and played with the blonde curly locks of hair hanging down the back of his head, moving my lips against his.

All the while his hands were doing a variety of things, obviously not tres inexperienced like my own. His hands were at my hips, then sliding up my back and then at my cheeks, bringing my face even closer to his. He could have frenched me into doing just about anything, at that moment.

And he wasn’t even my boyfriend!

Speaking of whom – my eyes darted to the big clock on the wall, I had to be going in 15 minutes so I could give him a Goodnight Call (my boyfriend, that is).

Using every ounce of self control I had, I tore – yes, tore, his lips were, delightfully so, firm on mine – my lips from his.

“I gotta go.” I muttered, and then grabbed my stuff, running out and hiding in the bushes till mum came and picked me up. Pathetic, I know.

It was also really hard to go ignore the pleading tones of one Jason Welling as he burst out into his front yard, panting and going, “Penny, Penny...please come out, can we talk about this?”

What was I going to say to him, anyway? I’m sorry I made out with you on your living room couch when I already have a perfectly nice boyfriend who calls me Goodnight every night without fail (even though it’s only been a week and a half, and he rants about soccer for about half an hour)? Yeah. Right.

So I stayed there till he went inside with this concerned look on his face and then, right on cue, my mum’s car pulled up and I ran out of the bushes and jumped in the car before Jason burst back out of there.

“So, how was your night?” Luke wanted to know.

“Oh, you know.” I shrugged into the phone. “Uneventful.” Mostly. Except for the part when I cheat on you horribly and the part where I kind of enjoyed it. Good times, good times – so how was your night?

And then he told me his sister had to use the phone, and hung up on me without saying Goodnight. Which was, essentially, the whole reason for calling up in the first place.

But thank God. People don’t give sluts enough credit – I mean, lying is exhausting. I only lied about a little bit of kissing! It also wasn’t really lying, just...withholding information.

“You know,” my older sister lifted her eyebrows at me, “maybe since you’re not having any fun with the blonde one, he could be my toy.”

“No!” I said quickly, before I could think better of it.

Jennifer’s eyebrows went up higher, “As if, Penelope. I have a boyfriend, whom I love and adore, remember? And why did you get all covetous, might I remind you that you have a boyfriend, too?” I kept my mouth shut. I am keeping my mouth shut. “Oh my God, you don’t like Jason do you?”

“I do not.” I said. Because I didn’t – I didn’t like Jason. I liked Luke, I just, well, had a temporary moment of insanity.

But then, Jason had to walk past going, “Hey, sweet custard.” and wink seductively at me. Jennifer, hopefully, didn’t notice. But he totally sent me this come hither look, and I knew I was in for it, for what I did last night.

Jennifer totally noticed.

She winked at me too, and went, “Oh, you bad.” and nudged me with an elbow. “Good luck, and tootles.”

I waited till she was out of sight before going over to Jason who was photocopying what I think is our script, and crossed my arms. He looked up, and grinned at me. I glared at him, crossing my arms even tighter around myself, he was more smirking than grinning – and I totally couldn’t resist confidence, and it always just oozed off him (but in a good way, unlike Luke and his stupid soccer ball, I love Luke and all but he isn’t half as good as he says he is).

It was because I loved Luke that I had to ignore the smirk, and go on with what I had come over to say. “Don’t call me that.”

“Call you what?” he said as the photocopier flashed at him.

“You know what.” I said, glaring at him. “Sweet custard, what was that about? You winked at me! Like come hither!”

“Oh,” he laughed at me and then sat the copied sheet on top of the photocopier and turned around to face me, “so I’m the one to blame here, tell me, sweet custard, aren’t you the one who spent five minutes lecturing me before you even allowed yourself to come over – telling me I was not to um, take advantage of you and your feminine charms? And then you were the one who started it, not me.”

“Don’t call me that. Can we please just not? Not here, okay?” I said, looking at the door worriedly.

“What, because you’re so worried of us getting caught?” he said, and then he pushed passed me, shoving the script at me and then slamming the door in my face.

I stood there, in the nurse uniform I had been working on for a while – I’d made one for Jason, too...only you know, not a nurse uniform – but a firemen one. But it didn’t look like he’d be wearing it. So I just stood there, wondering where to put it, when he came out wearing a big old one, I think it was his uncle’s or something.

I tried to hide it. But he saw it. “What’s that you got there, Davis?” he said, and then grabbed it from behind my back, and looked at it. “You made this?”

“Kind of.” I said. I then rushed to assure him, “But I’d understand if you didn’t wear it.”

“Whatever.” He said, and then took it off with him. I thought about telling him to hurry up and change, if he was going to, but he didn’t seem in the mood for it. So I waited until two minutes later he came out wearing the uniform, and our names were being called out. “Come on.” He said, and then dragged me out onto the stage of assembly where a small assembly of students sat.

Everyone quietened down, and Jason cleared his throat. “We met one stormy day, the thunder crashing, the rain pouring – it was enough to drive one very unlucky driver, off the road, and into a tree – that just got struck by lightning. A lady stood at her doorstep, drinking a glass of hot chocolate and wondering what the commotion was. She saw, oh she saw, and then—she called me, and the rest of the fire department, to the scene.”

He took my hand, and even though it was only supposed to be ‘pretend’, it shot tingles all the way up my arm. “The ambulance shows up – we need a nurse! And then,” his eyes turn to mine and I look right into them, as we planned. But it didn’t go as we planned, because as our eyes met we felt something – atleast, I felt something. Something that most certainly could not be called ‘good’ under any circumstance. Something I should not feel for anyone else, besides my boyfriend.

“And then...” he said again, and he has to look away with a frustrated noise “Oh, what the hell! Who cares? I really DID feel something for her, as soon as I met her and then freaking Luke shows up and he only likes her for her boobs! Which aren’t even real! Freaking LOOK!” He pulls an empty balloon out from underneath my nurse’s dress and throws it at Luke’s face, and everyone looks stunned. But then they start laughing.

My face starts to turn the shade of Jason’s toy fire truck he sat beside him as a prop and I look at him, shaking with anger – and embarrassment! How could he say that, in front of all those people? How COULD he? He didn’t even say freaking! “Oh my GOD, Jason! What is WRONG with you? Are you jealous, is that it?”

All the while, Luke is stammering, not sure whether to be laughing like everyone else, or sympathetic – or, like he was, completely self-absorbed. “Um, Penelope? I don’t think this will work out between us...you didn’t tell me about your, um...I think we have to break up. We’re breaking up – we’re broken up, I’m sorry.”

But I wasn’t even listening, I didn’t even care – Jason, was going to die, Jason, was just standing there, with his arms crossed and sending a look that said, what are you going to do about it, huh?

I rushed at him, and started beating my fists on any part of him I could reach, popularity quest forgotten (as if I’d have any left after this! Popularity, I mean) “How...could...you? You’re...trying...to...ruin...me...or...something—”

I beat a fist on him for every word, until he took my hands in his and kissed me, and I barely got out the word something, before he was kissing me all over again, just like last night. I shoved him away, angrily, “You can’t just kiss me and think I’ll forget all about what you just did.”

“I know.” He said and leant down to kiss me some more, to my deepest frustration – and delight. He pulled his head away and smiled down at me, “So, what do you say? Will you go out with me? I like you without Britney and JLo.”

I reddened, but did ask the question on my mind, which was: HOW DID HE KNOW WHAT I NICKNAMED MY FAKE BOOBS?

Instead, I said, “Yes.”

And then he flung off my nurses suit and ravished me.

Haha. As if. You don’t really think he’d do that in front of all those people?

I wish. But he did take me back to the photocopier room, the only room without people – and kiss me sweetly in thanks, and let me tell him that yes, I had always loved him and his goldfish shoes – I just didn’t realise it.

Mrs James had to give us an A. Because you know what? We OWNED that project. We were way more realistic than any of them, so far. In fact, the act is still going on.

“I love you,” he said, his hands down my bra (yes, he didn’t CARE whether they were big or not, he loved me for who I was!), “my sweet custard."

Okay. Count it, babes! Like, how many like, time did I like, say BOOB(s)?

Hope you like it! Cos I LOVE YOU XOXLURVE!! And like, you like, better have read this. Because this would not have come to be – if it were not for you! Sob! Thankyou.

Love,

xoxluurveR