The Bad Karma Diaries by Bridget Hourican

well … it’s quite embarrassing. So, you’re supposed to admit embarrassing things in your diary, right? That is what makes it different to your blog, right? Well, so … on the way to meet Declan (we were sitting on the top of the bus on the front seat, which is the best seat in the bus), Anna goes, ‘So, Declan must fancy you…’
    I said, ‘No way!’
    She said, ‘So why is he doing all this for us, then?’
    ‘Cause he needs to practise computer programming, so hecan grow up to be Bill Gates.’
    ‘This isn’t computer programming ! This is easy. It’s not practice . It’s like … autopilot. Nah, he must fancy you.’
    ‘Maybe he fancies you , so.’
    ‘He’s round ours all the time. He’s been round ours for years . He’s known me since I was ten. No way does he fancy me. If he fancied me, I’d know. And anyway you don’t fancy people you’ve known since you were ten .’
    ‘Well you might,’ I said. ‘In Fire and Hemlock , she meets Tom when she’s ten, and he’s at least twenty .’ ( Fire and Hemlock is this really good book by Diana Wynne Jones.) Anna paused to consider this; she couldn’t deny it, but she came right back with her answer. She always does come right back.
    She said, ‘Yeah, but he doesn’t fancy her until she’s grown-up. I mean you might meet someone when they’re ten, and then not see them for a long time, and then meet them when they’re grown-up and fancy them. That might happen. But you don’t just suddenly start to fancy someone when you’re calling into their house all the time.’
    I couldn’t comment because she knows more about this stuff then me. She has all these older brothers and sisters. She’s been observing how people fancy each other for years.
    I said crossly, ‘Whatever. He couldn’t fancy me. He’s too old. Fourth years don’t fancy second years!’
    ‘They do too,’ said Anna, sounding a hundred per cent sure, ‘especially when they’re nerdy like Declan, that’s exactly whothey do fancy, younger girls, who are sweet and unthreatening,’ and she looked out the window and sang, ‘That’s why he picked you-oo …’
    So I thumped my fist down hard on her knee and said, ‘I’ll show you unthreatening’ and she said, ‘Ooh, he’d love it if you did that to him!’ So I squealed quickly to banish the image of thumping Declan and him enjoying it, and thumped her harder and she thumped back and soon we were in one of our mad, giggly moods when everything is funny (to us, that is – it’s never funny to anyone else).
    Unfortunately for Declan this mood continued when we got off the bus and walked round Trinity College and across Grafton Street and into Ukiyo, which is this cool Japanese-looking café with low tables and not too much light. It’s a place for grown-ups, I don’t know why Declan wanted to meet here. Well, probably because it’s a comfortable place to sit. There he was in the corner crouched over his laptop.
    ‘Go and give him a quick thump,’ whispered Anna, ‘go on – make his day.’
    I gave her a secret thump on the leg and then we were sniggering in front of Declan.
    He hardly looked up. (Who says he fancies me?) He just said, ‘Hi, sit down …’
    Anna said, ‘You sit there, Denise,’ meaningfully, pointing to the place beside him so I’d no choice, but I leaned right forward on the bench so that no bit of me was touching him.
    We peered into Declan’s laptop, which is so thin it looks like a large credit card. His mouse was whizzing round websites. Our PC at home is a lot slower.
    Anna said dreamily, ‘Wi-fi is like a dog with extra-sensory hearing. It picks up signals we can’t.’ (She loves dogs).
    So I said, ‘Woof-fi!’
    She said, ‘Woof-Fido!’
    I said, ‘Wi-Fi-Fo-Fum.’
    I admit these jokes were very lame (I’m embarrassed just writing them down!), but we were in the kind of mood that thought they were hilarious. We kept on like that. Declan looked from one to the other, confused.