‘WHAT?’
‘Cal!?’ I hissed.
‘See you guys later,’ Cal laughed, grabbing his bag and dropping Fritz into my lap as he breezed out of the reception hall and through the hotel doors.
After about five minutes of explaining to Matthew that it had only happened on one occasion, when Fritz was a puppy, I was let off the hook and allowed to escape back to my room, where I spent the next few hours googling Ethan Duke and going through all his videos. Cal’s stupid comments had made me feel a bit nervous about what I was actually going to talk about, so I wanted to check the vibe of other guests. Most of them were able to talk about their recent films or music releases. What was I going to say?
Would announcing the launch of my vlogging channel be an interesting enough topic? Would Ethan find me as much of a laughing stock as Cal did? And what was I going to talk about on my own vlogs anyway? I wasn’t sure I’d thought this whole thing through. All these thoughts were starting to give me a headache.
Who knew that vlogging was such hard work?
‘She really is in her own world. Flick? Helloooooooo.’
I broke out of my daze and saw everyone around the table watching me expectantly.
‘Welcome back to Earth.’ Olly laughed. ‘Penny for your thoughts?’
‘I was just telling everyone about how, on the last Saturday of half-term, my parents are taking me for a really posh lunch,’ Ella boasted, before I had the chance to answer Olly, ‘and then I’m going to Olly’s house in the evening.’
‘Everyone’s invited,’ Olly added.
‘Our parents have set up a projector in the basement,’ Grace enthused. ‘And we’ve made it really cosy in there, so we’re going to have a movie night.’
‘I’m going to do the popcorn challenge,’ Liam said proudly. ‘How much popcorn I can fit in my mouth at once. Got to beat Tom’s record.’
‘Sounds . . . interesting.’
‘Are you going to come?’ Olly asked.
‘I can’t, I’m still grounded.’
‘That sucks.’ Everyone else nodded in agreement with him.
‘It’s OK.’ I shrugged, seizing an opportunity. ‘I need to prepare for Ethan’s vlog.’
Grace dropped her fork with a clang. ‘What?’
‘Oh,’ I said innocently. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Ethan’s asked me to do a guest vlog.’
Whispers of excitement satisfactorily spread down the table. Of course, Ella then had to go and open her big mouth and ruin it all.
‘You?’ She laughed. ‘But why would you be on Ethan Duke’s vlog?’
‘Why wouldn’t she be on it?’ Olly enquired, catching my eye.
‘I just mean, what would she talk about?’ Ella said, flustered, dropping her hand from where it had been permanently resting on his arm. ‘It’s not like she’s famous.’
‘She’s been on all the fashion websites since the Lewis Blume show,’ Grace said hurriedly.
My stomach tightened at Ella’s sharp words. Would everyone else think that? But if Ethan thinks I’m good enough then it doesn’t matter – he knows what he’s talking about so who cares what Ella says?
Except, I hadn’t heard from Ethan in a few days. Maybe he had changed his mind and he didn’t want me on it any more and now the whole school would know that he had dropped me . . .
‘It’s not a big deal, just a bit of fun,’ I said, standing up quickly before anyone could say anything else. ‘Anyway, I’m sad to miss out on the popcorn challenge.’
‘Right on.’ Liam nodded, holding up his hand for me to high-five. ‘It will be epic.’
‘Where are you going?’ Grace asked.
