Don't You Forget About Me. Liz Tipping

to see if anyone had seen what a massive idiot he was being.

      “What’s wrong with you,” he said, laughing hard.

      “Everyone’s looking,” I said.

      “Oh here we go again. Don’t want anyone looking at you, but always moaning that nobody notices you.”

      “Nobody does notice me,” I said, feeling a little bit hurt and embarrassed that Stubbs seemed to think it was funny.

      “Yeah, right,” he said.

      “Anyway, I thought you wanted to ask April out. Isn’t she the one you’re passionate about?”

      He scratched his head and looked off into the distance and kind of mumbled a bit.

      “Maybe,” he said.

      “Well, why don’t you then?”

      “I dunno. I don’t know what she’ll say.”

      “She’ll say yes. Or she’ll say no.”

      “Nah, was a silly idea really. She wouldn’t go out with someone like me.”

      “What do you mean, someone like you?”

      “You know what April is like, she’s all bad boy bikers or corporate bankers. She goes for anyone with a bit of drama attached. I reckon I’m just too ordinary for her and just not popular enough. She is fit though.” I reckoned he added that bit about her being fit because he was worried he had almost revealed his innermost secrets and fears and had to change it at the last minute to blokeify his statement.

      “Yeah, she is. Fit.” I thought, unlike me who wanted to keel over after a forty-second run. I didn’t think that being an athlete was my thing at all.

      “I’m bored of this now,” I said. “Can we go for a cup of tea instead?” I motioned with my head to the tea rooms.

      Stubbs reluctantly agreed and we sat near the window with a pot of tea and piles of toast.

      “So the athletic life isn’t for you, then? What’s next on your plan?”

      “Brain,” I offered. “Or criminal?”

      “Do you want to leave without paying then?”

      “No way,” I said, looking round to see if the staff or one of the customers on the nearby table had heard us.

      “Brain it is then.” Stubbs reached out behind him and picked up one of the newspapers from the rack. He flicked through to the crossword page and said, “Nine down…”

      “Stop,” I said. “I can’t do crosswords.” Brain was probably the least likely fit for me, I reckoned.

      “How do you know you can’t? When did you last do one? Here try this one. Nine down: ‘month for fools’.”

      I tutted and decided I wasn’t going to go along with it but then he said, “It’s easy.”

      “April,” I said. Stubbs grinned and raised his eyebrows.

      Bloody April again. Popping up everywhere to remind me how cool and popular she was. I’d always assumed things were easy for April at school. She must have had a blast, everyone liked her and she was at the centre of everything. I thought back to watching The Breakfast Club and wondered if being popular had been a curse for April, like it was for Molly Ringwald. Maybe this life as a princess wasn’t that comfortable for April after all. I wondered if she was like me and was finding it hard to shake the past or if she was satisfied to live the life she had been assigned at school. It was like April hadn’t moved on at all, trying to cling on to her popularity. It made me even more determined to move on from being the invisible girl.