B raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows in surprise. “Why, yes! Most people confuse it with leopard.”
“I know.” I couldn’t resist turning back once more to look at Henry. He hadn’t condescended to favor me with a glance since his family arrived. But now he was smiling at me—a sad, resigned smile. I couldn’t possibly return it.
His father was busy with Milo’s body search. He was already pulling off the child’s anorak, swearing quietly. Milo himself, however, no longer looked such a picture of misery. He glanced at me over the brick wall—and winked!
High time I got out of there.
“What I really need is a snow leopard coat,” B was saying behind me, and I turned one last time to look at her.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “The only one who really needs a snow leopard coat is the snow leopard itself.”
TITTLE-TATTLE BLOG
The Frognal Academy Tittle-Tattle Blog, with all the latest gossip, the best rumors, and the hottest scandals from our school.
ABOUT ME:
My name is Secrecy—I’m right here among you, and I know all your secrets.
21 January
This isn’t exactly breaking news, but still, you could say it was news about breaking, ha ha ha. ?
Emily Clark and Grayson Spencer have broken up.
Liv Silver and Henry Harper have also broken up.
Hands up, everyone who suspects a connection between those two events. ?
But to be honest, the end of the relationship could be foreseen in both cases, and it won’t surprise anyone, will it? Emily says she had to make a break because Grayson was too immature for her, on account of being short of ambition, vision, and masculine self-assertion.
Grayson isn’t saying anything. But if you ask me, he doesn’t look like someone with a broken heart. And Grayson got the highest score on the English exam last week, finishing just above Emily—maybe if you’re a genius the ambition isn’t so important.
As for the reasons why Henry and Liv split up, I can only make my own assumptions, but I guess sex is top of the list. Also the fact that outside school, Liv is under the same roof as a very attractive new singleton by the name of Grayson.…
And now to the real breaking news of the day: Jasper Grant has changed his relationship status on Facebook from “It’s complicated” to “In a relationship.” Unfortunately he forgot to give a link to the girl concerned, but it’s my bet that I wouldn’t be wrong to say she’s one of his forty-four new Facebook friends, or more precisely one of the twenty-eight new female friends. Anyone fancy a guessing game? Just click your way through the profile and add your comments, so I’ll know which of those French girls you think Jasper fancies. I’ll give a prize to whoever is the first to guess right. Oh yes, and while you’re at it, you can tell me why they all look like film stars. And why all their names begin with L. Lola, Lilou, Lucy, Louise, Louanne, Lilly, Léa, Lina—there’s something not quite right about all those French girls.
See you soon!
Love from Secrecy
24
WHEN I ARRIVED at school the next morning, everyone but me—as usual—had read the Tittle-Tattle blog, and they were all staring at me. However, there was sympathy in their eyes for a change. Too bad. So the news about the end of my relationship with Henry had finally filtered through to Secrecy.
“Oh, Liv, how mean of Henry! But never mind, now we can console each other!” Persephone flung her arms around me and drenched my school uniform with tears. As far as I could gather from the remarks she sobbed into my shoulder, Jasper had found a new girlfriend over in France.
“But I thought you and Gabriel…?” and/or Eric—Persephone spent the lunch break flirting with both of them for all she was worth.
She took her head off my blazer and sniffed. “Gabriel? He’s only to take my mind off things! So that I can survive Jasper’s absence! Jasper was, is, and will always be my one great love!” With a sweeping gesture, she mopped her tears away, and I surreptitiously examined my blazer for traces of snot. “Like Henry is yours!”
I really did wish she’d keep her voice down a bit, but she wasn’t about to oblige me by lowering it. On the contrary: she grabbed hold of my hand and announced, as if she were declaiming something on stage, “Let’s found a Broken Hearts Club!”
Sure, why not? But only over my dead body.