Samantha Mackintosh - Kisses for Lula

Hi everybody

Welcome to my attic! This is where I wrote most of Kisses for Lula generally very late at night or first thing in the morning. Theres only one window up here, so it can be really dark and it gets unbuuuleeevably cold. Sometimes I put the heater on under the desk and squidge up on top with my papers, like a leopard on a rock. Bliss!

Bliss has also been writing about Lula, listening in on all the conversations going on in my mind. Fingers crossed that you like the craziness as much as I do. I reckon there are bits of her that are just like you or me or someone you know that you really love. Having Lula in my head has been the best thing ever, and I hope you enjoy having her in yours too. Shes good for the soul!

Big hugs

Samantha Mackintosh

Kisses for Lula
First published 2010
by Egmont UK Limited
239 Kensington High Street
London W8 6SA

Text copyright 2010 Samantha Mackintosh

The moral rights of the author and cover illustrator have been asserted

ISBN 978 1 4052 4962 1
eISBN 978 1 7803 1060 2

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Printed and bound in Great Britain by the CPI Group

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

For my father

Chapter One

Girls! I got an article published! In the Herald! Alex stopped shrieking and shaking the newspaper to do a Christina Aguilera bump and jive in the doorway. Me, me, me! Famous at last!

Hardly, drawled Carrie. Alex, get in here and focus on our friend. We three depart in she stopped to consult her watch, her head flopping back on my bed twenty minutes, leaving Tallulah thoroughly in the dwang.

Up the stormy creek, murmured Tam, checking for split ends in her long brown hair.

Without a paddle, ended Alex, no longer jubilant. She dropped her arms and folded the Hambledon Herald carefully before kicking my bedroom door shut. Okay, so what do we have?

What we have is me, Tallulah Bird (aka Lula, Lu, Tatty, T-Bird (yes, like the car, groan), sometimes even Tatty Lula) in a frikking desperate state. Im fifteen years and 360 days old.

AND
UNKISSED.

Why?

Because Im jinxed. Well, everyone at my school Hambledon Girls High thinks I am. Which means everyone at Hambledon Boys High too, and thats the real problem.

Proof?

1. Bliddy Stan Pavorovich, my year-eight dance partner, getting rushed to A&E with food poisoning. Even before the dancing began! Wed just walked in the door!

2. Dr McCabe being called out when Robert Blugle zipped his bits into his jeans after an afternoon of innocent sunbathing with me at the uni pool.

3. Simon Smethy getting gum in his hair at the cinema on our first date. That bubblegum stuck so deep his whole head had to be shaved. It took him six months to convince the girls of Hambledon High that he wasnt a total thug.

So. Just a few incidents... Not worth a mention in my opinion, but with a witchy grandma... well, people jump to conclusions they shouldnt.

I focused on the now. My three best friends were staring at me with kindly pity in their eyes: Alex with her long dark hair, matching eyes and restless energy. Carrie with all the calm in the world, her brown eyes and elegantly cut chestnut hair. Tam with long tawny tresses, hazel eyes and a skin so porcelain it seemed shed never seen the light of day, which pretty much summed up her other-worldliness.

How did it get to this? I wailed.

Definitely Simon Smethy and the gum incident, replied Alex promptly. He started the jinx rumour for real.

Youre forgetting Cam Sharp-Jones getting that weird migraine every time he saw you. That was the clincher, said Tam, giving me an understanding little pat on the arm.

Stop! I pleaded.

Yeah, but the real nail in the coffin was Gianni Caruso ice skating at the pond over half term, said Alex, throwing a handful of peanuts in her mouth. Mwhanuthin thinth, she finished.

Tam stared at me. Gianni Caruso was with you that day?

Come on, Tam, said Carrie. You know this.

I do not know this! He was what, like, your date?

I flared my nostrils and narrowed my eyes ever so slightly. All these, I said in a low voice, are coincidences. Coincidences, people.

I saw my friends exchange glances and felt a sense of unease prickle up in goosebumps all over my body.

Look, Lula, said Tam gently, breaking the awkward silence, even if there is no jinx youve got to kiss someone to prove there isnt. You need a List of Candidates. Without a kiss before your birthday this Saturday, youre doomed. Youd have to go looking for strangers. And even then they wouldnt necessarily help, because a stranger is not going to spread the word that youre a safe smoocher thats if they survived the experience... She trailed off after fierce squinty glances from Alex and Carrie, but shed said enough.

Today is gone that means Saturday is five days away. Frikly frik, I groaned, dropping my head back in my hands. Frikking frikly FRIK!

It sucks, agreed Alex, but... She went a little blank, and her eyes glazed while she hunted for a bright side. A silver lining. A possibility that a normal teenage life for her friend was not totally down the toilet. Her eyes lit up. Tam is an excellent list-maker!

I am! said Tam with fake confidence. She began writing really fast in her lyrics book. Well help you beat this jinx, Lula.

I shook my head sadly. The jinx, the rumour whatever has got too big. I suddenly felt bad-mood lines creasing my forehead. My eyes narrowed. Simon Smethy and his big mouth...

Dont go thinking revenge, Tatty Lula, warned Alex, wagging a finger at me and trying to get a look at Tams list. Theres no time for that. You need to be remembering my flirting tips, stocking up on breath mints, raiding Darcys cupboard for cool clothes in preparation. Focus, girl.

But its the holidays! Everyones left Hambledon, I bleated. (This is what comes of living in a town consisting of a university and a bunch of boarding schools.) Theres no one left to kiss!

There will be, but dont lower your standards, warned Carrie, her dark eyes serious. Theres got to be a gorgeous local weve all overlooked.

I spotted Alex giving Carrie that blank are you out of your mind? look.

What? said Carrie.

Our friend is about to be sweet sixteen and never been kissed, hissed Alex. There are no standards!

Heres The List, said Tam, hastily tearing a page from her lyrics book. These guys all live here. All aged twelve to twenty.

Twelve? I squeaked. Twelve?

Let me edit that, said Carrie. She snatched The List from Tam, who whipped it back and shoved it in my face.