He She It

three: undeniably brilliant boobs

Amara was desperately, painfully in love with Natalie Harper, and it was desperately, painfully obvious, and it had been that way for just over a year, ever since Amara had realised that - surprise! - she was not quite as heterosexual as she'd originally believed.

(This realisation had been brought on by Natalie Harper's boobs).

(Natalie Harper's boobs had also made Joe Simmons crash his Dad's car into a lamp-post).

(They were undeniably brilliant boobs).

Despite their brilliance, though, Lilly thought Amara's crush had gone a little too far - and by too far she meant it had turned her once rational best friend batshit insane, which was not ideal when she was relying on Amara to play good cop and somehow help her to coerce Adam Hiller into giving half of the school a demonstration of his cross-dressing tendencies.

"So you're trusting Michael," Amara said, eyes not on her best friend but all the way on the other side of the corridor, where Natalie was leant against the wall talking to Grace. "Michael Brooks is your reliable source."

"Okay, okay. So it might be complete and utter bullshit, but I've got to try, Ra!" Lilly said, flicking Amara in the middle of her forehead. "And stop with the staring, pervert."

"I was not staring, Lillian," Amara replied, but she looked away all the same. "Just observing nature at its finest."

Lilly rolled her eyes and closed her locker, books clamped tight to her chest. "Adorable," she said, "now either ask the girl out or get over your little obsession and help me find Adam Hiller."

"What if I don't want to help you exploit the poor boy?" Amara asked, blatantly ignoring Lilly's earlier suggestion. There was more of a chance of her being Lilly's model than there was of her asking Natalie out, who was the type of hot that bordered on intimidating - and that was saying a lot, because the last time somebody had tried to get Amara on stage she'd made herself throw up all over her fairy costume.

She was fourteen.

"I'm not exploiting him, Ra. I'm giving him an opportunity to express himself," Lilly said, "and you want to go on a date with Natalie, right?"

"I want to do lots of things with Natalie."

"Ew," Lilly wrinkled her nose. "But I promise, if you help me convince Adam to be my model, then I will do my very best to get Natalie to be your girlfriend. Deal?"

Amara glanced across the corridor to where Natalie was bent over laughing, and then gave a slow nod.

"Deal."

"You're the best, Ra," Lilly said, wrapping one arm around her friend's shoulders. "Don't worry, he'll be saying yes in no time."

***

"Are you mental?"

Adam, it seemed, was not particularly taken with the idea of parading around on a stage in a dress, which was - at least in Amara's opinion - both understandable and predictable. She stood behind her best friend, wincing a little and mouthing 'sorry' every time Lilly said something along the lines of 'you don't have to be ashamed of your identity, Adam,' an identity that Amara strongly presumed didn't even involve wearing little black mini-skirts.

(And on the off-chance that it did, she highly doubted he made a habit of doing it in public).

"I don't even know what you're talking about, Lilly," he said, eyes fixed firmly on his Maths textbook. "I've never worn a dress in my life."

"But Michael said-"

"Newsflash: Michael Brooks is a lying bastard," Adam hissed, straining his neck to scan the library over Lilly's shoulder. Amara met his eyes and raised her eyebrows, a silent 'sorry-my-best-friend-is-trying-to-ruin-your-life-I-swear-I-tried-to-stop-her.' "But if he asks, I think he's a great team-player and a real inspiration to all of us."

"An inspiration to Perez Hilton, maybe," Lilly said, giving a half-hearted laugh. "I probably shouldn't have believed him. Sorry."

Adam smiled, and Amara couldn't help thinking that it was a damn shame he didn't cross-dress, because even with a slightly swollen eye he had most of the boys in their year beat at the DNA-game.

"It's cool," he said. "I hope you find a model soon."

"I'm so desperate I'm considering teachers," she replied, leaning forward. "I've heard Mrs Mace used to be an underwear model."

"Yeah, and I'm forth in line for the Spanish throne," Amara said, because Mrs Mace was a lot of things, (none of them particularly good) but a lingerie model was most definitely not one of those things. "We've got to meet Bri in like five minutes, Lilly, so unless you want to spend the rest of lunch getting lectured, we should go."

"Oh, shit," Lilly muttered, because Brianna's lectures knew no bounds, and the girl kept a mental category of all the times she'd been let down for future reference. "See you later, Adam."

"Bye!"

The sprint from the library to the canteen, interrupted every so often by the appearance of a teacher and a reminder of the fact that if they wanted to run, there was always the track, took approximately four minutes - just quick enough to limit Brianna's disapproval to a small sigh and a pointed glance at her watch.

"Where have you been?"

"Lil is still trying to recruit models," Amara said, taking a seat next to Brianna and stealing a chip from her plate. "I thought she was scraping the barrel with twelve year olds, but now she's trying boys."

"In my defence, your twat of a boyfriend told me Adam likes to wear dresses," Lilly told Brianna, pulling a bottle of water from her bag. "Which he doesn't, apparently."

"You took Mikey seriously?" Brianna asked, giggling. "He was probably just joking, Lil. Don't take everything so literally."

Lilly stuck a finger in her mouth and made a gagging noise. "Please, don't call Prick of the Year Mikey ever again. It's like calling a lion Fluffy, for fuck's sake."

Amara coughed and tapped Lilly on the shoulder, ready to play mediator in the fight that had been going on ever since Brianna had made the questionable decision to shove her tongue down Michael's throat, to which Lilly's first response had been: "the last time somebody made a choice this bad, the Titanic sank."

(Amara had been torn between being impressed that Lilly had insulted somebody using history - which was not exactly her strongpoint, to say the least - and pointing out that that was a slightexaggeration, because a bad choice or not, it was highly unlikely that Brianna and Michael's relationship would cause the death of 1500 people).

"What should I call him, then?"

"Oh, I can think of plenty of things, starting with Dou-"

"Guys," Amara interrupted, "relax. We've got more important things to talk about."

"Like what?" Lilly asked, jaw clenched.

"Like, Lillian, how exactly you plan to get me a date with Natalie Harper."

(A/N: this is kind of a filler chapter so sorry if you were expecting EXTREME DRAMA but i swear it gets more exciting and also this had a new ship if nothing else #amalie. thank you so much for your comments and votes on the last two chapters, i really appreciate all the feedback!)