The Manifesto on How to be Interesting Read online

  Bree let Holdo’s well-exercised rant wash over her. She’d heard it at least twenty times. It was one of his favourites. Along with the ones about how reality TV was destroying the music industry, how Dan Brown should be hanged, drawn and quartered for his Da-Vinci-Code-shaped crimes against literature, and how the film industry had no original screenwriters any more as they spent all their time adapting bestselling novels rather than investing in raw talent.

  She sighed. Holdo was her best friend. Her only friend, if she was being honest. Bree knew she wasn’t a very likeable person, but it didn’t bother her mostly. Yes, of course there were moments of crippling loneliness. And, yeah, it would be nice to have a girl to talk to from time to time. But generally she was happy with Holdo.

  “…and it just makes me so angry that the Vietnam War was ever allowed to happen, you know? It was just so completely immoral and it’s not like America has learned from it, have they? You’d think they would—”

  Ahh. The war. She’d wondered when he would start ranting about the war.

  Holdo was your stereotypical rich-kid-rejecting-his-upbringing. The indie sort that honestly believed, if he and Morrissey were to meet, they would become the best of friends. His real name wasn’t Holdo – it was Jeremy Smythe. He’d renamed himself – yes – after Holden in The Catcher In The Rye (although the “o” on the end apparently made it “more original”). But Bree loved Holdo (in a strictly friendship way). He was the only person around who shared her intellect levels and desires to DO something with their privilege instead of resting on the laurels of wealth. Holdo was designing a computer game – he actually knew how to write code for it and everything. It was a cross between Grand Theft Auto and Bugsy Malone. As Bree understood it, the game involved a bullied geek running amok at school with a splurge gun, squirting bullies with cream. Holdo was eventually going to be a self-made millionaire. Bless him – he just needed to get through school first.

  She interrupted his war monologue.

  “Holdo?”

  He stuttered to a stop. “What?”

  “I’m a good writer, aren’t I?”

  She knew she was. Of course she was. But she could do with some reassurance.

  Holdo reached out and squeezed her hand. “Of course you are. I read everything you write and love every word.”

  She looked at his hand, wondering how quickly she could detach herself. That was the thing with Holdo: strictly-friends-only wasn’t an opinion he shared.

  “Thanks.” She dropped his hand and tucked hers safely back in her pocket.

  “Why don’t you talk to Mr Fellows about it?”

  She’d already planned to. Mr Fellows was her English teacher and the only adult in existence who noticed her.

  “I’ve got English today. I could do.”

  “He always seems to cheer you up.”

  Bree smiled to herself.

  Holdo had no idea.

  chapter two

  They got to the school gates and then queued to get through security at the main door. While Holdo somehow slipped through and disappeared with a wave towards his form room, Bree waited impatiently to get her ID card checked. Queen’s Hall school cost twelve thousand pounds a year, and half the money seemed to go on ensuring Joe Public couldn’t sneak in. Like “being common” was infectious or something.

  She stood directly behind Jassmine Dallington and her posse of perfects and could smell the clean strawberry scent of Jassmine’s blow-dried hair. As the queue of students shifted and jostled, Bree overstepped slightly and accidently trod on the back of her heel. Jassmine swung her head round, to see who dared touch her. When she saw it was Bree, her nose wrinkled.

  “Watch it,” she said, her voice full of disgust.

  “Sorry,” Bree mumbled, looking down at her stripy legs.

  Jassmine turned away and must’ve made a face because the other girls laughed. Not properly – a genuine laugh would make their faces look too ugly – but they sniggered in an attractive way. Gemma Rinestone whispered in Jassmine’s ear and there was another wave of giggles.

  Bree continued expressing an unnatural interest in her tights and cursed herself for blushing. She didn’t care. Of course not. The perfect posse were idiots. But, you know, it was still embarrassing.

  She handed her security card to the guy and did her best disappearing-into-the-wall trick while she waited. It wasn’t hard. She was nobody here. Bag and card retrieved, she made her way through the maze of corridors to her form room. She would have to sit there for no good reason and listen to her tutor drone on about the importance of success for an hour.

  Hugo and his mates were standing in the doorway, blocking it.

  “Excuse me,” she said, turning her body sideways to try and squeeze past.

  They ignored her and Hugo carried on talking.

  “Oh my God, guys, the gash hunt on Friday was totally brutal. Those single-sex-school girls are, like, so grateful. I swear, I’m not even lying, this one girl came up to me and offered herself, just like that.”

  His friends laughed like a pack of hyenas and high-fived him.

  “So, did you?” one asked. His face was far too red. Either from unfortunate genetics or overzealous fake guy-laughing. Bree thought his name might be Seth.

  Hugo raised an eyebrow. “A gentleman never tells.”

  “Ha! And when have you ever been a gentleman?”

  “Good point, man. Good point.” Another high five. “Actually, nothing happened. I told the girl to get some self-respect and she started crying.”

  More laughter. Possibly-Seth looked like he was about to combust.

  “Great party though, man,” the red-faced guy said, tears of laughter in his eyes. “I was so completely wasted. I swear to God I went literally blind for a while.” He looked round the circle, waiting for the laughter. It didn’t come.

  Hugo pulled a face. “Christ, Seth. You only had a few shots!”

  “No I didn’t! I had most of a bottle of vodka. You just didn’t see. Probably too busy pushing away all that gash.”

  Hugo rolled his eyes. “Whatever, man.”

  Bree used the awkward silence to try and get past. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me.”

  Now all the boys’ eyes were on her.

  “What do you want?”

  “Can I just get by?”

  Hugo lifted his arms and stood back, creating the teensiest bit of space for her. The other boys followed suit, each not quite giving her enough room. She examined the gap, sighed inwardly, and sidestepped her way into the form room. The front of her body brushed against Hugo’s.

  “Eww, stop rubbing up against me,” he said. “I don’t like getting touched up this early in the morning.”

  The boys burst into hysteria. Bree blushed for the second time that day and half-ran to her desk. Her legs twinged as she sat and pulled out her favourite notepad. She could feel her face burning and pulled some lanky strands of hair over her face to cover it.

  Stupid school. Stupid school. Stupid school.

  The thing was, though she was loathe to admit it, she couldn’t help but fancy Hugo. Ridiculous, she knew. Ludicrous. Fantastical. And also so, so wrong, considering he was such an arse arse ARSEhole. He basically stood for everything she hated about:

  a) Boys

  b) This school

  c) Life in general

  And yet he was so frustratingly good-looking and lived up to all the clichés that went with that. Captain of the school’s trophy-winning rugby team, complete player (though he proudly pronounced it “playa”), the absolute definition of alpha male thanks to his built, toned physique. He was a year older than them, after his parents pulled him from school for a year so he could live in Paris and get fluent in French. Oh – and his parents knew Mark Zuckerberg or someone. He was so wealthy he made everyone else at school look poor.

  Of course he and Jassmine had a turbulent on-off-on-off relationship. Even Bree knew every detail of the ongoing saga that was their “l
ove”. Every update got broadcast round the classrooms like some really sad version of Chinese Whispers. Bree hoped her own silly crush would ultimately pass and the thought of getting with him wasn’t one she indulged. Not only because it would NEVER happen – he was ignorant of her very existence – but also because, well, he was an ARSEhole.

  Her form tutor, Mr Phillips, strolled into the room and everyone settled down immediately. That was the thing about private school – people behaved.

  “Alright, everybody?” he asked, putting his briefcase on the desk and opening it.

  Nobody replied.

  “I said, ALRIGHT, EVERYBODY?”

  Calm down, Bree thought. You’re not a rock star.

  “Morning,” the class chorused.

  “Right, UCAS form, UCAS form, UCAS form. I know you’re thinking, ‘What? But we’re only in Year Twelve!’ but your parents spend a lot of money ensuring I get you into the university of your choice. And that means applying in good time with a personal statement that’s been honed to perfection over a year. Now, does everyone know what subject they’re doing and what five universities they want to put down? Oxford and Cambridge applicants, do you know which college you want to try for?”

  Bree doodled in her notebook. She’d had her escape to Cambridge planned since puberty and a word-perfect personal statement and completed practice UCAS form had been sitting on her laptop for months, just waiting for the day she could hit Send. So she didn’t really need to be listening to Mr Phillips right now. Which was just as well because she was writing another list.

  Reasons why it is entirely unreasonable to fancy Hugo d’Felance

  I have never heard him refer to the female species without using the words: gash, clunge, flange, pussy, bucket, windsock and the C-word that can definitely not be mentioned. Ever.

  He is openly racist, homophobic, misogynistic and a massive bigot.

  I have heard, from anecdotal evidence only, but lots of it, that he’s had at least one STI.

  He once referred to Shakespeare as “that boring dude”.

  If Jassmine ever found out she would gut me with her nail file, burn my intestines and eat my eyeballs with a spoon…

  I have self-respect. I have self-respect. I have self-respect.

  Bree’s continuous list-writing had become her coping device. She had a special notebook and everything. The lists weren’t useful – just her views on the world at that moment. Sometimes she fantasized about them being displayed in a museum hundreds of years in the future, secured in glass, in a sell-out exhibition about her “early life”. A plaque next to her notebook would read: Bree’s unique insights on her sad teenage years were diarized here, in list form. You can already see her strong narrative voice beginning to emerge, soon to become the voice of her generation that would be treasured until far beyond her death.

  Mr Phillips was still droning on.

  “Now, university interviews. We’ll be holding training sessions on interview technique closer to summer so you can practise over the holidays. The sign-up sheets will be posted after Christmas. Don’t all rush to sign up at once, there are enough slots for everyone. But, in the meantime, I want you to be thinking about your extra-curricular activities. Remember – boring people don’t get into Oxbridge! You need to DO stuff. Get doing!”

  Bree heard Hugo and his mates laughing and looked over. Hugo had drawn a massive hairy penis on Seth’s practice UCAS form and was showing it off.

  “Hey!” Seth tried to grab it back. “I need that.”

  Hugo put it behind his back. “Why do you want a picture of a knob so much, Seth?”

  “Ha ha. Gay boy, gay boy,” the others sniggered.

  “Shut up. You know what I mean. It’s my practice form. I need it.”

  At this point, the teacher noticed the kerfuffle. “Problem, gentlemen?”

  Hugo shook his head, the paper still behind his back. “None at all, sir.”

  “Good.” And Mr Phillips went back to harping on about university entry.

  Hugo drank in the attention he’d provoked – mainly from two girls Bree knew only from form-time. They giggled at Hugo and flicked their hair. He winked and they giggled harder.

  Bree added one last I have self-respect to her list.

  chapter three

  After the bell rang, Bree navigated the corridors – doing her best impression of the invisible girl – towards English. Seeing Mr Fellows always put her on edge so she leaned against some lockers and took a couple of deep breaths before entering the classroom.

  He didn’t acknowledge her arrival. She took a seat right at the front. More pupils trickled in and sat down, begrudgingly taking their copies of Philip Larkin’s poetry anthology out of their designer bags. Bree stared at Mr Fellows. He was marking, presumably, scribbling away on a sheet of headed A4. His conker-brown hair flopped over his eyes. She sucked her stomach in and uncrossed and recrossed her stripy legs.

  Finally, Mr Fellows registered his class’s existence and straightened up.

  “Excellent, wonderful,” he said, to no one in particular. He stood with his back against the interactive whiteboard. “Right. Where were we?”

  Bree put her hand up but didn’t wait for him to call her. “We’d just read the poem ‘As Bad as a Mile’.”

  She heard a groan. Bree wasn’t sure if it was due to the poem or her overeagerness in class.

  Mr Fellows picked up his battered copy of poems and skimmed through the pages. “Right you are, Bree.”

  She shifted back in her chair, bathing in the praise, no matter how small and inconsequential it was.

  He found the right page and read it aloud. Beautifully…

  “Watching the shied core

  Striking the basket, skidding across the floor,

  Shows less and less of luck, and more and more

  Of failure spreading back up the arm

  Earlier and earlier, the unraised hand calm,

  The apple unbitten in the palm.

  “Right. So in this poem, Larkin tries to throw an apple core in the bin but misses. What did you guys all think about it?”

  Some kid called Chuck raised his hand.

  “Yes?”

  Chuck had jet-black hair, definitely dyed. “I think that Philip Larkin shouldn’t try and throw an apple in a bin considering he’s such a bloody depressive who can’t even breathe without whingeing about it.”

  The small class twittered with laughter.

  Even Mr Fellows smiled. “Is that right?”

  Chuck, cocky now, nodded animatedly. “Yeah. I mean, sir, why have you given us something so depressing to read? No other English classes have to read this joker, moaning on and on about his sad life.”

  This sort of backchat was completely unacceptable in any class other than Mr Fellows’s. But Mr Fellows wasn’t like the other teachers. He was like an air bubble in a nailed-shut coffin, an interval during a boring play, a palate-cleansing amuse-bouche during a heavy meal, a…er…Bree couldn’t think of any other metaphors. Basically he had character. He was actually interested in the students as humans, rather than as high-grade-getters to use as ego-massagers, confirming what a great teacher you were. No one knew quite how he had got or kept the job. Especially as he regularly picked books not on the recommended list, used swear words in class and, rumour had it, once shared a spliff with students on results day.

  “Does anyone else feel this way about Philip Larkin?”

  Bree’s hand shot in the air. “I don’t. I love it.”

  “Surprise surprise,” someone whispered and more laughter echoed behind her.

  Bree didn’t care. Not much.

  “Nice to hear at least one of you is enjoying it.” Mr Fellows didn’t even look at her and she felt worse. “How about the rest of you?”

  “It’s boring.”

  “It’s so miserable.”

  “Why didn’t he just top himself?”

  “Yeah. Why did he have to write so much? Now we have to be miserabl
e too.”

  Mr Fellows shook his head. “Guys. This is so hard to hear! Philip Larkin is one of England’s most treasured poets. Don’t tell me you don’t like him just because he’s miserable.”

  Bree’s hand shot up again.

  “Yes, Bree.”

  “He was sexist as well. Lots of people don’t like that he was sexist.”

  “Good point.”

  Bree glowed.

  “But it sounds like you’re all caught up in the depression of it all. Why do you think that is?”

  Cocky Chuck put his hand up.

  “Yes, Chuck?”

  “Because no one wants to read about some miserable loner whingeing on about how crap his life is. I don’t care how good his onomatopoeias are. Can’t we do someone else, sir?”

  “Not at all. Now, come on, let’s dissect this poem and I’ll get you all to change your minds.”

  chapter four

  When the bell went for lunch, Bree dawdled next to Mr Fellows’s desk. He was scribbling again, his hair flopping again. She waited for him to notice her.

  “Yes, Bree?” He looked up eventually and she paced from foot to foot.

  “I got another rejection letter.”

  Mr Fellows pushed his chair back and gave her a sorrowful look. “I’m sorry. I know how hard you worked on that second novel.”

  “I just don’t understand why, sir. Like you said, I tried really hard. I put everything into it. And it’s still crap.”

  “It’s not crap, it’s just…”

  She pounced on the pause. “What? What is it?”

  He sighed and ran his hands through his hair – agitated. “Look, Bree, you know you’re a hard worker…”

  “I don’t want to be a hard worker, I want to be a good writer. A published author!”

  “I know, I know, I know. It’s just…well…what you write… Have you thought about how commercial it is?”

  Commercial? She shuddered at the word. “You want me to sell out? To write some sappy easy-read?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying… It has to be commercial enough to be published, remember?”

  “I know I can write. I got full marks in my English Language GCSE. The examining board even asked if they could use it as an example piece!”