Eighteen Kisses Read Online Free Page B

of me on the hockey team and in the cast of
Grease
. The musical had been so much fun – the whole of transition year had been really. I couldn’t believe it was nearly over; we had less than a month left.
    The office door swung open and a second-year girl, whom I vaguely recognized, walked past, looking kind of traumatized. She gave me a sympathetic smile; a show of solidarity to a fellow comrade destined for similar torture.
    ‘Come in, Jacki.’ Miss Jennings knew the name of every single pupil in the school, which was incredibly cool, but also a bit weird.
    ‘Take a seat,’ she said. She was wearing a black trouser suit and her auburn hair was tied back in a tight ponytail. She looked surprisingly cheerful for someone about to give detention. I settled down on the chair opposite her. Her desk was arranged in neat piles – paper, pencils, Post-its and two silver frames facing her.
    ‘First of all, I would like to say congratulations.’
    ‘Er … thanks?’ I said, with absolutely no idea why I was being congratulated. As far as I was aware, I hadn’t entered any competitions. I’d come second in an open-mic contest in Sligo a few weeks ago, but I was pretty sure Miss Jennings hadn’t heard about that. She tilted her computer screen towards her and started to read.
    ‘
We are pleased to inform you that your student JackiKing has been chosen to intern at our magazine. Her application for work experience was successful and she is invited to begin a two-week internship in our Dublin offices, starting on May the fourteenth. We do apologize for the late announcement of our chosen interns. This was due to an administrative error. If Miss King is still interested in the placement, she should contact us as soon as possible.
    ‘Yours sincerely, Tim Kavanagh, Deputy Editor,
Electric
magazine.
    ‘Isn’t that wonderful news?’ said Miss Jennings. My brain was working really fast, trying to figure out what was happening before my body gave a signal that showed I didn’t have a clue what was going on. Then it struck me – Sergeant Lawlor had arranged this. Wow, Matt worked fast – I was impressed. But had I really heard that right?
Electric
magazine?
    ‘Are you not excited?’ said Miss Jennings.
    ‘Yeah … no, I’m … I’m really excited. Sorry, I’m just so shocked.’
    ‘That’s the music magazine, right?’
    ‘Yes.
The
music magazine!’ The one I read from cover to cover in Nick’s mum’s shop. The magazine whose first cover was a black and white portrait of Phil Lynott, the lead singer of my favourite band – Thin Lizzy. The magazine that so many people I knew would kill to be mentioned in. I’d heard they got sent twenty demos a day – mine was buried somewhere in their stack. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to be spending two weeks in their office. Miss Jennings’s phone started to ring.
    ‘Well done again, Jacki,’ she said. ‘Best of luck with it.’
    As I left the office, I felt excited, but also a bit anxious. Icouldn’t wait to see inside
Electric
magazine, and two weeks in Dublin would be great. But it also meant two weeks apart from Nick. I already saw him much less than I wanted to with all his band practice and our gigs at weekends getting in the way. I took my badges out of my pockets and fixed them back on to my blazer. I headed down the corridor to maths class, trying not to think about what Nick might say when I told him after school.
    We lay on Nick’s bed, propped up by pillows, our legs outstretched. Nick wasn’t saying much at all, offering one-word answers when I tried to make conversation.
    ‘How was practice yesterday?’ I asked.
    ‘Fine.’
    I scooched down and put my head on his chest. Nothing. He usually twirled my hair or put his arm round me or tilted his head down and smiled, but not this time. I’d rushed to his house after school and had been really looking foward to seeing him, but now I was begining to wish I hadn’t bothered. I wasn’t