Secret Meeting

Mum pretended to be very surprised when I said this. Her eyebrows flew up and she went all sarcastic, saying, “Oh, really?” in this silly artificial voice. “Well, that’s nice to know. You could certainly have fooled me!” A reference, I presume, to Christmas, when I was moaning – QUITE JUSTIFIABLY – about Gran giving me a box of bath salts. Bath salts, I ask you! LAVENDER bath salts. And a titchy little box, at that.

Mum was quite cross. She reminded me that it was the thought that counted, to which I retorted that in Gran’s case the thought obviously hadn’t counted very much. Mum then told me not to be so grasping, but I don’t see that it WAS grasping, considering Gran spends a small fortune going off on cruises every year, and that me and Annie are her only and dearly beloved grandchildren.

I mean, quite honestly, I wouldn’t have minded so much if it had been something I wanted. But who in their right mind would pollute their bath water with stinky, flowery scents? Especially LAVENDER. Lavender’s an old lady smell!

Anyway, that was then, and this is now. And right now I would rather be stacking shelves with Jem than stuck here in charge of a couple of horrible brats. Well, Annie is a horrible brat. She’s plump, and she’s spoilt! Her friend Megan isn’t so bad, it’s just that her mum is seriously weird, like some kind of pathetic old hen, always fussing and bothering. DON’T LET HER DO THIS, DON’T LET HER DO THAT.

Plus she has this thing about computers, like the minute you log on someone’s going to leap out and grab you. At least, thank goodness, Mum and Dad have always been pretty relaxed about trusting us to be sensible. I mean, how can you ever LEARN to be sensible unless they let you just get on with things? But Mum says if Mrs Hooper doesn’t want Megan going into chatrooms, then Annie has to promise not to take her into chatrooms, and I have to keep an eye on them both to make sure they’re obeying the rules. How am I supposed to do this? TIE THEM UP AND HANDCUFF THEM??? Mum says don’t be ridiculous; just pop your head round the door every now and then and check they’re OK. But I don’t see why I should have to!

“Because it’s what you’re being paid for,” says Mum. “It’s what I’d have to do, if I were here.”

So why isn’t she here? Because she wants to take all of her holiday in one great lump and go off to Spain for the summer. She seems to be under the impression that’s what I want, too.

“Just think of those nice friends you made last year,” she oozes.

Hm … I’m thinking of them. One in particular. The blond one. Kerry. He was gorgeous! But who’s to say he’ll be there again this year? In any case, what about Ty? He’s gorgeous, too! And he’s stacking shelves in the supermarket … I might drop by there tomorrow.

Jem says she and him are on the same shift. She says that sometimes they even stand and stock the same shelves together … I’m just glad she doesn’t fancy him!!! Well, she does, but she’s got Kieron. Otherwise I’d be tearing my hair out! I think tomorrow I’ll definitely go down there. Just to suss things out. The two dwarfs can manage on their own for an hour or so. I mean, they’re nearly twelve years old, for heaven’s sake! That’s quite old enough to start taking responsibility for themselves.

They’re downstairs at the moment, watching a video. Moaning and whining because I made them go into the garden and run about. Left to themselves, they’d never move anywhere at more than snail’s pace. The little fat thing is all squashy, like an overripe plum. The other one is so skinny she looks like a puff of wind would blow her over. They don’t get enough exercise! If I had my way I’d make them do two laps of the hockey field every morning, before school. I think I’ll get them running round the garden again tomorrow, before I go and see Jem. That way, they’ll be too EXHAUSTED to get up to mischief.

Even if they’re not, who cares? I’m sick to death of them!

Mum came to collect me at four o’clock. Annie and me were still collapsed on the sofa, watching videos.

“You look as if you’ve had a busy day,” said Mum.

I couldn’t decide if that was her idea of a joke, or if she was being serious. Rachel was there. She said, “I made them go into the garden and get some exercise.”

“Good for you!” said Mum.

“She only did it because she wanted to practise hitting things,” said Annie.

“Excuse me,” said Rachel, “I did it because you need to lose weight.”

“Megan doesn’t need to lose weight! If you’ve made her lose weight she’ll probably disappear down the plughole next time she has a bath, and it’ll be all your fault.”

“I just hope they behaved themselves,” said Mum. “It’s very good of you, Rachel, to keep an eye on them.”

“She’s paid for it!” shrilled Annie.

“People are paid for emptying dustbins,” said Mum, “but I wouldn’t want to do it.”

“It doesn’t need any skill,” said Annie. “You just have to be a big bully, is all.”

Mum laughed. “Well! Sooner Rachel than me. I trust Megan hasn’t been too much bother?”

“It’s not Megan,” said Rachel, looking hard at Annie. Annie stuck her tongue out. “It’s her,” said Rachel.

As Mum and me walked back through the Estate, Mum said that Annie was obviously “a bit of a handful”.

Of course, I immediately leapt to the defence of my best friend.

“It’s Rachel,” I said. “She’s so bossy!”

“It’s difficult,” said Mum, “when you’re only sixteen. And after all, she has been left in charge.”

I grumbled that it didn’t give her the right to make us go and chase balls all round the garden.

“That’s not what she’s there for!”

“I’m sure she’s doing her best,” said Mum.

“Bossy,” I muttered.

“Just keeping you out of trouble.”

“We didn’t need to be kept out of trouble! We weren’t in trouble.”

“Maybe she thought you were going to be.”

“Well, we weren’t!”

“You promise?”

“Promise!” I said. “We weren’t doing anything.”

“All right,” said Mum. “I believe you.”

Mum always does believe me, which is why I feel that I have to tell her the truth. It is quite hard at times!

We walked on, through Snicket Link, to our part of the Estate. It’s only, like, fifteen minutes from Annie’s, but Mum doesn’t like me going through the Link by myself, which is why she always comes to collect me. The Link is this very long, narrow path between blocks of flats. It has high walls on each side, so that even in daytime it’s quite dark and scary.

Annie’s mum doesn’t seem to mind Annie going through it when she comes to visit me, but Mum says it’s too dangerous. She says anyone could be lurking there. If I go to Annie’s by myself I always take the long way round, by the road.

Annie lives in a house, but Mum and me live in a maisonette, which I know from French lessons means a little house. What it is, it’s two little houses, one on top of the other. We have the one on top. It is quite tiny, but it is a real little house; not a flat!

Mum asked me what I was going to do after tea, and I said I was going to write my book review for school.

“Harriet Chance, I suppose?” said Mum. Mum knows all about Harriet Chance! She can hardly help it, considering my room is full to bursting with Harriet Chance books. “Which one are you doing?”

I said I was going to do Candyfloss, because a) I’d just watched the video – for about the ninety-eighth time! – and b) it was one of my favourites. This is what I wrote:

CANDYFLOSS

Candyfloss is eleven years old and lives with her mum. She has no brothers or sisters, but often wishes that she had. She has no dad, either. Her dad left home when Candy was only little, so that she can remember hardly anything about him. This makes her sad at times but mostly she is quite happy just to be with her mum.

I have just had a sudden thought: maybe this is why Candyfloss is one of my big favourites? Because Candy is like me! Lots of Harriet Chance characters are a bit like me, one way or another. For instance, there is Victoria Plum, who loves reading; and April Rose, who gets into trouble when her best friend leads her astray. But Candyfloss is the one who is most like me!

To continue.

Candy is quite a shy sort of person, who doesn’t think very highly of herself. If anything happens, she always assumes she is in the wrong. Like if someone bumps into her in the street she will immediately say sorry, even if it was not her fault.

Like at school, just the other day, this big pushy girl called Madeleine Heffelump (that is what we call her, her real name is Heffer) well, she came charging across the playground, straight towards me. I tried to get out of her way but I wasn’t quick enough and she went crashing wham, bam, right into me, nearly knocking me over. And I was the one who said sorry. Just like Candy! Even though it was Madeleine Heffelump who was in the wrong, not me.

Crazy! Anyway. This is the rest of my review:

Candy is pretty, with bright blue eyes like periwinkles and bubbly blonde hair (as I already said, I don’t look like her. Alas!) but she never thinks of herself as pretty, having this quite low opinion of herself most of the time. Then there is this girl at school, Tabitha Bigg, who bullies her and tells her she is useless and stupid, and Candy believes her, until one day a TV director comes to the school looking for someone to play a part in a TV show he is doing. Tabitha Bigg is sure he will choose her, because she is convinced she is the cat’s whiskers and Utterly Irresistible. Candy is too shy to even show herself! She tries to hide in the lavatory, but she comes out too soon and the director catches sight of her and immediately forgets all about Tabitha Bigg.

“THAT is the one I want!” he cries.

So Candy gets the part and it is yah boo and sucks to Tabitha Bigg, who is as sour as gooseberries and totally gutted. But everyone else is really glad that she didn’t get chosen as they are all fed up with her.

When the show goes out on television, Candy’s dad sees it (on the Net: he is in Australia) and he writes to Candy, and comes flying over to see her. It turns out that Candy’s dad is a big name in Australian TV. He offers to take Candy back with him and make her a Big Star, but she chooses to stay with her mum.

Which is what I would do if ever my dad turned up! I wouldn’t want to be a Big Star, and Candy doesn’t, either. Another way that we are alike!

After I had written my review I read it out loud to Mum, who said that Candy sounded “a very sensible sort of girl”.

I wondered if I was a sensible sort of girl, and whether sensible was an exciting thing to be. I decided that it wasn’t, and that was why I needed Annie. I don’t think anyone would call Annie sensible. But sometimes she is exciting. Like when she gets one of her mad ideas!

“When I go round there tomorrow,” I said, “to Annie’s, I mean, is it OK if I use her computer? Just to type out on?”

“What’s wrong with your handwriting?” said Mum.

“It’s horrible! No one can read it.”

“Of course they can, if you just take care. Why don’t you write it out again, nice and neatly? You can write beautifully when you try!”

I didn’t want to try. I wanted to do it on Annie’s computer! I wanted it to look like proper printing.

“Everyone else’ll do it on the computer,” I said.

“Everyone?” said Mum.

“Well … practically everyone.”

“I don’t believe you’re the only person in your class who doesn’t have their own PC.”

“I said, practically everyone.”

I think I must have looked a bit mutinous, a bit rebellious, ’cos Mum sighed and said, “Well, all right, if you really must. But I think it’s a great shame if people are going to lose the ability to write by hand!”

“I don’t mind for ordinary homework,” I said, “but this is going to be made into a book. It’s going to go on display. Miss Morton’s going to put it in the library! So it needs to look nice, Mum. It—”

“Yes, yes, yes!” Mum held up her hands. “Enough! You’ve made your point.”

“I wouldn’t go into a chatroom,” I said. “Honest! All I’m going to do is just type out the review. I wouldn’t ever go into a chatroom,” I said. “’cos we’ve talked about it. And I’ve given you my word. And I wouldn’t ever break my word, Mum, I promise!”

“Oh, Megan.” Mum reached out and patted my hand. “I know you think I’m a terrible old fusspot—”

“I don’t, Mum,” I said. “Truly!” I mean, I did, a bit; but I wanted her to know that I understood and that it didn’t bother me.

“It’s just that Annie is such a strong character—”

Did Mum mean that I was a weak one???

“— and you do tend to follow wherever she leads.”

“Not always!” I said.

“Most of the time,” said Mum.

“Only when it’s something funny! I wouldn’t do anything bad.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t mean to. But it does worry me that Annie’s parents are so lax.”

I crinkled my forehead. “What does it mean? Lax?”

“They’re not very strict with her. They let her do things that other parents wouldn’t. Like going into chatrooms without supervision, or—”

“She knows not to give her address!” I said.

“Even so,” said Mum. “She’s only eleven years old. You can do very silly things when you’re that age.”

“Did you ever do silly things?” I said.

“Of course I did!” said Mum. “Everybody does. You don’t have the experience to know any better.”

“What were some of the silly things that you did?” I said.

“Oh, come on, Megs! You really don’t want to hear about them.”

“I do,” I said. “I do!”

So then we got sidetracked, with Mum telling me how she’d once tried to turn herself blonde by using a bottle of household bleach – “I had to have all my hair cut off!” – and how another time she’d plucked her eyebrows almost raw, trying to look like some movie star I’d never heard of.

“Mum! To think you were so vain,” I said.

“You’d be hard put to believe it now, wouldn’t you?” said Mum, tweaking at the side of her hair where it is just starting to turn grey. “At least it’s one thing I wouldn’t accuse you of.”

It is true that on the whole I am not a vain sort of person, which is mainly because I don’t really have anything to be vain about. Maybe if I was in a competition to find the human being that looks most like a stick of celery I might get a bit high and mighty, since I would almost certainly win first prize; or even, perhaps, a competition for the person with the most knobbly knees. My knees are really knobbly! A boy at school was once rude enough to say that my knees looked like big ball-bearings with twigs sticking out of them. Some cheek! But I have to admit he was right. So this is why I am not vain, as it would be rather pathetic if I was.

I told Mum about the celery competition and the ball-bearing knees, and Mum said, “Oh, sweetheart, don’t worry! You’ll fill out,” as if she thought I needed comforting. But I don’t! I don’t mind looking like a stick of celery. I don’t even mind knobbly knees! If ever I start to get a bit depressed or self-conscious, I just go and read one of my Harriet Chances. Every single one of Harriet’s characters has secret worries about the way she looks. April Rose, for instance, has no waist. Me, neither! Victoria Plum has “hair like a limp dishcloth”. Just like me! Then there is poor little Sugar Mouse, who agonises about whether she will ever grow any boobs, and Fudge Cassidy, who can’t stop eating chocolates and putting on weight.

I don’t personally care overmuch about growing boobs, in fact I sometimes think I’d just as soon not bother with them. And as for putting on weight, Mum says I hardly eat enough to keep a flea alive (not true!) but there are lots of people who do agonise over these things. Harriet Chance knows everything there is to know about teenage anxieties. She can get right into your mind! When Mum dropped me off at Annie’s the next day, I said that I was allowed to use her computer just to type out my book review.

“We’d better tell her,” said Annie. “Old Bossyboots.”

“Oh, do what you like!” said Rachel, when Annie told her. “I’ve washed my hands of you.”

“That’s good,” said Annie, as we scampered back to her bedroom. “P’raps now she’ll leave us alone.”

But she didn’t. I’d just finished typing out my review when she came banging and hammering at the door, shouting to us “Get yourselves downstairs! Time for exercise!”

“We exercised yesterday,” wailed Annie.

“So you can exercise again today!”

There wasn’t any arguing with her.

“You get out there,” she said. “It’s good for you! You heard what your mother said, Megan.”

She kept us at it until midday, by which time we had gone all quivering and jellified again.

“OK,” she said. “That’s enough! You can go back indoors now. I’m going out for a couple of hours. I want you to behave yourselves. Otherwise—” she twisted Annie’s ear. Annie squawked. “Otherwise, there’ll be trouble. Geddit?”

“Goddit,” said Annie. And, “Geddoff!” she bawled. “You’re breaking my ear!”

“I’ll do more than just break your ear,” said Rachel, “if I get back and find you’ve been up to nonsense.”

“She’s not supposed to leave us on our own,” said Annie, when Rachel had gone. “I’ll tell Mum if she’s not careful!” And then this big sly beam slid across her face, and she said, “This means we can do whatever we want

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