The Manifesto on How to be Interesting Read Free

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.
    â€œâ€¦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.
    â€œHoldo?”
    He stuttered to a stop. “What?”
    â€œI’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.
    â€œThanks.” She dropped his hand and tucked hers safely back in her pocket.
    â€œWhy 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.
    â€œI’ve got English today. I could do.”
    â€œHe 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.
    â€œWatch it,” she said, her voice full of disgust.
    â€œSorry,” 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