Peppermint Kiss Read Online Free Page A

must be new. I haven’t seen you around before and, believe me, I would have noticed.”
    My stomach flipped over. I tried to think of something sparkling and flirty to say back, but all I managed was, “I’m meant to be in 9L.”
    He grinned. “That’s my form. It must be fate. The rain’s easing off now, let’s go for it.” My stomach did a double flip as he took my hand, pulling me along. Together we ran round a corner and into a doorway – so I wasn’t that far off after all.
    I wiped my feet on the mat thing, caught sight of myself in the glass door and immediately died of embarrassment. I looked like a cross between a drowned rat and a glam rocker, with my hair plastered flat to my head and make-up running all down my face in little black rivers.
    Oh
bleeping bleep
! I just had to get away from this Marco person and into the loos to fix my make-up meltdown as soon as possible, before
this
image of me got imprinted onto his brain for ever. I pulled off his blazer. “Here, thanks for this,” I said, trying to hand it back. I glanced down and realized the nun-thickness tights had stretched in the rain and were now bunched in soggy pools round my ankles. Just to complete the look.
    â€œNo. Keep it for today, it’s fine,” he muttered.
    â€œNo, here, I’ll be okay now,” I insisted, waving it at him, still looking down at my tragic tights.
    â€œNo, really, hang on to it,” he said again.
    I looked up at last. “Honestly, I’m fine, just take—” I stopped talking as I watched his gaze slide quickly from my face to my chest and back to my face again, while he did a strange feet-shuffling, throat-clearing thing.
    At this point you’re thinking it couldn’t have got any worse, right? But it had. I glanced down too and absolutely
spun
in my grave of embarrassment. My shirt had gone see-through and (oh no! Oh
yes
!) my entire
bra
was showing. I clapped the blazer to my chest, then pulled it back on, writhing around like a snake to keep everything covered up while I was getting my arms in. Like a true gentleman, Marco was staring in completely the other direction, looking extremely interested in a wall display about how to make biodiesel from chip fat.
    Thank goodness a teacher came by then and hurried us off to class, or we might have been stuck there, too embarrassed to move or say anything until, like,
the end of time
. And luckily it was impossible for me to BE more embarrassed by then, because now I had to make my new-school debut with a dripping-wet spam head and scary clown make-up, in my stupidly prissy, posh pea-green gear with the nun-tights flapping round my ankles.
    My stomach lurched with nerves as I followed Marco into the classroom and stared around me. Really, I would have fitted in better by wearing my own stuff, because everyone else was in only the tiniest
hint
of uniform. The surf-dude types wore theirs with zip-up tops and beanie hats, the Emos with bandana scarves and black skinny jeans, and the townies with gold chains, crop tops and velour trackies (just the girl ones, obviously. They also had so much foundation on I thought it might crack and drop off when a couple of them smirked at the state of me).
    Whatever group they were in, everyone gave me the same look, like I’d just landed from outer space. I turned to the teacher, thinking he’d introduce me, or even (please, please) let me go and dry off in the loos. But instead he just gave me a moody glare and said, “Abigail Green, I assume. Take a seat, quickly. You’ve disrupted this class enough already.”
    Luckily, Marco ushered me over to his table. I squelched across the room and took the spare chair, and the teacher started talking again (I’ve no idea what about). The brown-haired boy sitting opposite me (with his shirt unbuttoned to display a Scooby Doo T-shirt underneath) gave me a warm smile and I smiled back. You know