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Did he just ask her on a date? Kelly’s face lit up. ‘Cool. Yeah, I should be.’

‘See you there at eight. Nice trainers by the way.’

Kelly’s heart soared. Sean liked her and he even liked her trainers, the ones Melissa had sneered at.

She heard shouting and turned around.Shannon was running towards her. She hugged her. Today had gone from awful to brilliant.

‘What are you doing here?’ Shannon asked. ‘Did you get out early?’

Kelly grinned. ‘Something like that. Where’s Mandy?’

‘She got detention.’

‘What for?’

‘She told Keelan that her face looked like a pizza and she should ask her zits for rent.’

Kelly laughed. ‘She never?’

‘Yeah, and Mr Byrne overheardher and you know the way he has loads of zits too, so he gave her detention. It was totally unfair because Mandy was only getting back at Keelan because Keelan had told Mandy that Kevin Dolan said her boobs were like udders, but Mandy was too embarrassed to say that to Mr Byrne.’

‘Poor Mandy.’

‘School sucks.’

‘You can say that again. I mitched off early.’

‘What? I thought they Tasered youin St Jude’s if you tried to leave, and had electric fences and sniffer dogs to keep you in and the riff-raff out.’ Shannon giggled.

Kelly loved this. She loved the banter and the fun and being able to be herself. She hugged her friend again.

‘Jeez, Kelly, it must be bad. You’re not really a hugger.’

‘You have no idea. But forget about that, guess who I met on my way here?’

‘Frank?’

‘No.’

‘Oh, Gary.’

‘No.’

‘Your man Simon?’

‘No, you thick, Sean Whelan.’

‘Oooooh, wow! He is hot.’

‘Soooohot, and he chatted to me.’

‘And?’

‘And he asked me to go to the cinema with him on Saturday if I was around!’

‘That’s so cool. What will you wear?’

‘God, I don’t know, we need to discuss it.’