Blueberry Wishes by Kelly McKain

draft poster over from the printer and was holding it in front of my face. “Boooo-ring!” she declared.
    I had to admit I could see what she meant. We’d uploaded the photos she’d taken of the face-mask pots, but even half-open to show the lovely blue mixture inside and dressed up with a few blueberries, the poster still didn’t look very exciting. We fiddled with the fonts and text size, and Mr. Mac suggested changing the background colour, which we tried, but that didn’t improve it very much either.
    That was when Summer looked at me and did another of her cheeky smiles. “It would be more eye-catching if someone actually wore the face mask,” she said. She nudged me and glanced towards the boys. I grinned too – having a boy rather than a girl on the posters would be even more eye-catching, plus it was a great chance to wind them up.
    Summer wandered over to the big table where the socks campaign was taking shape, and informed Marco that he was going to be the new face of Blueberry Wishes Face Mask.
    He smirked, obviously not taking her seriously. “Why me? What about you two?”
    â€œI’ll be taking the photos and Abbie’s too busy designing,” said Summer.
    â€œYeah, I’m too busy designing,” I called, from the computers, swooshing the mouse around and peering at the screen.
    â€œBen’ll do it. Won’t you, mate?” said Marco. “ I can’t. I’m probably, like, allergic to it.”
    â€œIt’s all natural ingredients,” I told him, “so you shouldn’t be.”
    â€œOh, come on. It’s for charity,” said Summer. “You look more the sort to use a face mask than Ben.”
    â€œOh, cheers!” cried Marco.
    Ben looked smug. “Are you saying I’m the rugged, manly type?” he said to Summer.
    â€œShe’s saying you look like a tramp, mate,” I heard Marco reply. But I wasn’t looking at him. I was watching my best friend. She’d gone all red and stuttery when Ben had said the rugged-manly thing, and she was taking a big interest in her shoes. They were quite interesting – I mean, they were cool DMs with little flowers painted on and one yellow and one red ribbon for laces – but they weren’t that interesting.
    â€œNo, I just meant that Marco’s got a more urban look than you and—” Summer began, then trailed off into embarrassed mumbling.
    Ben was actually blushing beetroot by then, and also looking like he wanted his plastic chair to magically eject him out through the ceiling. What if Summer still liked him (hence the red-and-stutteriness) and what if he liked her now too (hence the beetroot-blushing)? (Look at me, saying “hence”! See, I’d SO been listening in English!) Well, that would be just perfect , wouldn’t it?
    To check out my theory in a scientific way, I needed more evidence, so I smiled sweetly and said, “I’ve changed my mind. You’re doing the face-mask poster, Ben. No arguing. Summer, you get it on him while I finish this.”
    Well, they both looked horrified. But they didn’t argue. And there was a lot of awkward blushing and mumbling and general embarrassment as Summer applied the gloopy purple mask to his face.
    Actually, I’m not sure what that proved. Perhaps Ben just felt like an idiot (everyone had cheered and done a big round of applause as she was dolloping it on him, which can’t have helped). But maybe there was more to it than that. If there was, I was determined to find out for definite.
    When the pictures were done, Ben went to wash the face mask off (while grumbling about annoying girls and how we so owed him an iced bun as compensation at last break), and Summer came and sat down next to me to load them up onto the computer. I didn’t say anything about Ben to her, though. I was too terrified about getting it wrong, like I did before the beach party, and