My desk vibrating under my fingertips tells me I'm receiving a message on my phone, and of course, I ignore it. I'm in class, after all, and I'm a good little girl, always following the rules, doing her homework, and offering the teacher an apple every day...

Well, the last part isn't true... unless they're really hungry... or it's a special occasion, but I do mostly agree with the first and middle parts... usually.

It buzzes again... and again... 

Someone is being very persistent, and Lara, sitting at the desk in front of mine, is starting to move around. She'll turn around soon and give me one of those class monitor looks of hers. I can do without the look... and the lecture that almost always goes along with it. She isn't the class monitor, by the way; Frank is. 

Sighing, I pull the smartphone from my freakishly large - as it's been called - pencil case and give it a quick, sneaky glance since it could be my dad having an emergency.

Five messages from Ethan Fletcher!

Seriously?! The person who just earlier this week accused me of being a good little girl, apple and all! Why does he suddenly think that I would read his messages?

Why is he messaging me at all?

We are not messaging friends. No, wait! We're not friends... period. I am fortunate enough to have my best friend in this entire world living in the house next to ours. I'm also unfortunate enough to have my worst tormentor living in that very same house.

Ethan is my best friend, Delia's unrequested attachment... in fact, he is her annoying twin brother.

The first time I met Ethan, I was five years old and the youngest kid in first grade, and he pushed me into a muddy puddle when he found out that my house was the one right next to theirs. For some reason, he didn't like that.

Whenever the story comes up, he swears he was just welcoming me to the neighbourhood.

He then informed everybody with ears that I'd "shat my pants". The first time I met Delia was two minutes later. She took me to the girls' bathroom and helped me clean the mud off the back of my school dress.

I hated Ethan on sight; I loved Delia immediately. That first meeting on our first day of school, two days after my family moved into town - the twins had been visiting their grandparents until the night before - set the trend for the rest of our lives until now.

I haven't murdered Ethan yet, and I try not to get into fights with him because Delia loves her brother, and I love Delia.

I used to have long, thick brown braids, and Ethan just adored them, but not in a good way. If he wasn't secretly tying them to my chair in class, using my ribbons, he was grabbing them, going: "Giddyap! Ya! Ya!" pretending that they were reins. He once dipped one of them in the paint during our arts and crafts period and tried to paint a picture using it as a paintbrush. I only noticed when it caused me to get paint all over my school uniform. Fortunately, it was water-based paint, but still!

Ugh! If I were to go into every moment of shame, horror, humiliation, shock and pain that boy made me go through in the 12 years I've known him, I would fill at least 12 thick volumes, one for every year.

I cut my hair in the eighth grade, preferring shoulder blade length layers and not just because it spoiled Ethan's fun (an added perk), I really liked it, and it suits my face. The long hair made me look like a little girl, and when I started high school, I didn't want to look like Delia's baby sister anymore. Besides, the hair was extremely heavy, giving me bad headaches, and it also got in my way when I was out searching for obscure habitats and hidden ecosystems.

When Ethan hit puberty, he became really shy for a while. Perhaps having a voice that kept on sliding into the wrong key at random times humbled him, or perhaps he was just freaked out by all the changes our bodies were going through. I am not sure. He was feeling awkward and clumsy, and it showed, and miraculously it caused him to behave... It didn't last long, though.

Since he turned 15, I've barely seen his face (that is not a complaint) because it is always obscured by whichever girl he is currently giving throat examinations to, using his tongue. Yuck! Ethan is gross and has the moral standards of a cane rat. I honestly don't know how it is possible for a wonderful person like Delia to share so much DNA with a miscreant like him.

They even look a little bit alike. Not much, just enough to be able to tell that they are siblings.

Until about a year ago, Ethan mostly ignored me, only sporadically going out of his way to drive me up the walls, and then suddenly, I somehow became his favourite torment victim again. I have no idea what changed. He still doesn't often speak to me, though, and he definitely doesn't randomly message me. I only get messages from him when he's having an emergency and desperately needs to get ahold of Delia, and she's not answering her phone. Those emergencies usually involve him needing her to cover for him with their father.

He is always in trouble with their dad.

One of the reasons Delia is often hard to reach these days is that five months ago, she started dating Simon Stirling. At first, I found it hard because I was so used to having her around all the time, and suddenly, I had to share her with a boy we barely knew. Simon was new in town, and Delia ran into his bicycle with her own, and somewhere during their collision and mutual nursing session, cleaning and bandaging each other's scrapes, they fell in love.

Just like that, it took them ten minutes or less.

Yes, I was jealous. Not because I wanted Simon, I just thought I was losing my best friend. For about a month, I hardly saw her; if I did, it was almost always with Simon. I was lonely and miserable, but then things settled down, and I get to hang out alone with Delia often enough now. I also discovered that I rather like Simon and that the two of them match each other very well.

He makes my best friend very happy, what's not to like?

I cannot think of any mid-class emergency Ethan could possibly suffer to warrant a message from him now. Delia is seated at the desk next to mine, definitely not hard for him to reach. I don't understand these five messages at all.

I look diagonally across the classroom towards the first desk in the last column, where Ethan is seated. Most of our teachers prefer having him in the front row because throwing things at him and connecting if he sits further away is harder. I'm not the only person constantly inspired to throw stuff at the guy.

Ethan is 18 going on... friggin' annoying!

It's not hard to see him clearly, because all the students are bowed over their books, busily working on the assigned work we're supposed to be doing during the rest of our last lesson for the day. Ethan is not doing the biology work... obviously. He'll just copy Delia's later. He is sitting upright, turned sideways in his seat, leaning his back against the wall behind him. His desk is right next to the door - not a very wise choice by our teacher – and I am in the back row next to the windows.

I frown at him when I see him looking at me, and the guy has the audacity to make bug eyes at me and wave his phone impatiently as if I didn't hear his obnoxious messages buzzing away.

I shake my head, making it clear that I am not going to read his messages, and without even looking at his phone, he sends me another one and another one and another one... My hand is getting an excellent massage right now, and Lara is definitely about to turn around. I press my lips together and glare at Ethan, which makes him laugh.

He is such a pain in the butt!

I could think of worse words to describe him with, but I leave cussing to idiots like Ethan, who doesn't have much of a vocabulary.

I unlock my phone, open the messaging app and read Ethan's oh, so important messages.

There is a string of messages consisting of nothing but a decimal point. I have to give Ethan a look to show him how irritating I think he is. Then I read the first message, and I roll my eyes.

"Mt brg aft scl."

In what language does that qualify as an actual sentence?!

I look at him, spreading my forearms in the universal sign for "huh", and now he is rolling his eyes as if I'm the exasperating one. He messes around with his phone for a while, and I decide to ignore him and just carry on proofreading the paragraphs on genetics I've written in my biology book. Yes, I'm done with my classwork... because... I'm a good little girl, always following the rules and blah, blah, blah...

My phone buzzes again in quick succession, and sighing, I give Ethan a defiant look before dutifully reading his messages. I don't want to be the joy-filled recipient of a gazillion decimal points again... or rude emojis. He loves sending rude emojis and gifs... I have proof... 

There are four new messages: "meet", a picture of a bridge, "after", and a picture of what appears to be a school building dating back to the era of donkey carts and frilly bonnets.

There is no way I'm meeting him at the bridge after school, and I tell him so via return message, with no abbreviations, images or strange acronyms, no ambiguity whatsoever.

I glance over at him, and instead of frowning or glaring or giving me the finger or any of his usual reactions to my defiance of his rude bossiness, Ethan is smiling an angelic smile shining both his dimples at me. That smile has toppled kingdoms... well... princesses... many, many of them. It is not toppling me; it is making me uneasy and more than just a little apprehensive.

Now what?

He is typing, looking smug enough to make my toes curl anxiously. I'm almost too scared to read the message when it finally buzzes its way into my phone.

"Fine, meet you in your bedroom!" He even typed the full words this time.

I clench my teeth, purse my lips and shake my head at him, and he is still smiling his let's-seduce-the-entire-netball-team smile. It is lost on me. He should know that by now.

Knowing there is no way out of this, I forward his bridge image back to him. I don't want him anywhere near my bedroom. The guy is a hurricane, a nasty one. I'll meet him at the friggin' bridge!

I wish I were Elastigirl, and I could reach across the diagonal of the classroom to slap the triumphant grin from his face.

I must have growled softly because Delia turns her head to look at me, and that look is sending a million question marks in my direction. I smile and shrug, shaking my head, pretending to be the sweet girl next door and to make sure that she doesn't ask me any of those questions and her annoying brother realises that I'm done talking to him, I drop my phone back into my pencil case and turn in my seat to face the windows.

♀

"Are you okay?" Delia asks when the bell rings, and we leave the classroom, ready to go home. At least I was ready, but then her brother derailed my plans, and now I'm looking forward to some kind of weird meeting at the bridge.

Why 'The Bridge' of all places?!

It is a popular hangout for teen couples who want to sit around staring into each other's eyes or kids looking for a place to smoke or drink and generally get up to no good. In summary, it is not the kind of place I normally hang out at... unless I'm looking for tadpoles for our fishpond. 

Birds sometimes catch our freshly hatched babies, and then I need to replenish them. I like catching them as tadpoles and watching them grow up. Yeah, I love biology and enjoy stuff like animal life cycles... which apparently makes me a biology nerd in Ethan's directory of human classification.

That's okay because he's an ass in mine.

"Yes, why?" I smile at her, relieved to see Simon waiting outside our biology classroom, ready to walk his girlfriend home. That should put an end to her curiosity about my strange behaviour.

"You just seem a bit... off somehow," Delia says, and then she's looking into Simon's eyes, and I'm pretty sure she has already forgotten about my existence.

"I'm totally fine. Oh," I say, touching her hockey stick. "May I please borrow this?"

My request draws her attention away from Simon to give me a startled look instead. "Sure, we already had our practice during gym period today."

I knew that, of course. I know everything about Delia, and she knows everything about me. What she doesn't know, though, is that I'm about to meet her brother at the snogging place. I don't want to hear all her questions; besides, if she knew, it would distract her and spoil her sweetie-pie time with Simon. I'll tell her later when I know what this stupid meeting is all about and Simon isn't in the mix.

"What on Earth do you need it for?"

Yeah, cannot dodge that question.

"A weapon," I blurt, and when they both make wide eyes at me, I giggle and shake my head. "It's nothing."

"Are you okay, Kira? Is somebody hassling you?" Simon wants to know, smiling his Prince Valiant smile at me, and I can tell that his concern is sincere. Have I mentioned that I like Simon? If asked to write a term defined by kind and dependable, handsome and strong, I would write "Simon Stirling".

As far as I can tell, Simon's only flaw is that he actually likes Ethan! That is probably a good thing since he is Delia's one true love, and Ethan is a by-product of her birth. 

To be honest, I was surprised when they started dating because Dell is strong-willed, independent and can be quite fierce and feisty. She needed those qualities to survive nine months in a womb with Ethan. I thought Simon would be too gentle and too laid back to be able to handle her, but they complement and supplement each other perfectly.

And they look great together. Dell is very athletic and energetic. She has a gently curling blond ponytail, sparkling blue eyes and a cheeky smile, while Simon is tall, brown-haired and dreamy looking, like a poet. He is rather well-built; he is a member of the school's basketball team, after all... and they don't suck too badly.

"Nope, all good," I smile. "No problem at all. Bye, Simon, see you later, Dell!"

Before either of them can ask any more questions, I rest the shaft of the hockey stick against my shoulder, blade side up and take off, desperately wanting to reach the school gate before they do. I don't want them to see me heading to the left, towards the brook and not to the right, towards home.

There would be far too many questions.

♂♀