The Friends Forever Collection

I muttered that it hadn’t been all right when we’d fallen out of the stationery cupboard, but at that moment our bus came and Annie didn’t hear me. Which was probably just as well.

All the way into town my heart was hammering, but now it was with excitement, not worry! I had a tiny touch of anxiety when we reached Market Square, for really no reason at all, but as soon as we were safely on the number six bus, headed for Brafferton Bridge, it disappeared. I suppose I could have started worrying about pile-ups, or being hijacked, but even I am not that sad.

However … when the bus stopped at Brafferton Bridge, and we got out, and there wasn’t anyone there to meet us, my heart stopped hammering and went flomp! like a dead fish inside my rib cage. I could see that even Annie was a bit concerned.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she said. “She’ll be here!”

The bus went on its way, leaving us all by ourselves. Stranded! In the middle of absolutely nowhere.

There aren’t any houses at Brafferton Bridge. No one actually lives there. It is just this old ancient bridge over a stream, with fields stretching out on either side as far as the eye can see.

“She’ll be here,” said Annie.

Even as Annie spoke, a red car drew up beside us and a woman got out. It had to be Harriet! She was holding a copy of Victoria Plum. A very old, battered copy, like my one of Candyfloss before Mum had replaced it. She came over to us, smiling.

“Oh!” she said. “There are two of you! I hadn’t realised you were both coming.”

I glanced anxiously at Annie. It takes a LOT to make Annie feel uncomfortable, but I could see she was a bit thrown. After all, she was the one who’d set everything up. In any case, I wouldn’t have been brave enough to come by myself.

“I th-thought it was w-what we’d arranged,” mumbled Annie.

“Of course! That’s all right. Two of you is lovely! So which one is the birthday girl?”

Annie beamed and shoved me forward. “Megan! She’s your number-one fan.”

Harriet held out a hand. “Happy birthday, Megan! Sorry I’m late. I hope you haven’t been waiting long?”

I shook my head. I wanted to say, “No, we only just got here,” but I couldn’t. I was suddenly struck dumb! I could feel my cheeks turning hot tomato. It was Annie who assured her that we had only that minute got off the bus.

“Thank heavens for that! I had visions of you giving up and going back home.”

“Wild horses wouldn’t get Megan back home,” said Annie. “She’s been, like, oh-my-goodness help-help I-can’t-believe-it ever since we set out!”

By now, my cheeks were starting to sizzle. It was just too embarrassing!

“Well, let’s get you into the car,” said Harriet, “and we’ll all go back and have some tea. Who wants to come in front? Megan?”

Annie gave me another shove. “Go on! It’s your treat.” She then added, beaming, that “Megan always gets sick if she sits in the back.”

I don’t know why she found it necessary to say that. Getting car sick is such a childish thing to do! But Harriet was really sympathetic. She said, “Oh, join the club! I always had to take pills if I was going a long journey.”

“Megs has to stick her head out of the window,” said Annie. “Even then it doesn’t always stop her throwing up. One time she did it and it all went splat down the door. D’you remember?” She leaned forward, chummily, from the back seat. “That time we went to Alton Towers with Mum and Dad?”

I did remember, but I didn’t particularly want to be reminded of it. Not in front of Harriet!

“We’d been eating sardine sandwiches,” said Annie.

“Oh, horrible! Sardine sandwiches aren’t at all the right thing to eat if you suffer from car sickness. But don’t worry, Megan! There are some peppermints in the glove compartment. They’ll help.”

“She doesn’t usually get sick in front,” carolled Annie. “The worst things are those things at fairgrounds that go round and round.”

Harriet looked puzzled. “Roundabouts?”

“No, those things where you stick to the side.”

“Oh! You mean, like a centrifuge.”

“Yes. She gets really sick in those!”

“Poor Megan!” Harriet smiled at me as she started the car. “You’re obviously like me, you have a delicate stomach.”

“You could write a story about someone like that.” Annie draped herself, eagerly, over the back of Harriet’s seat. “Someone who throws up everywhere she goes … you could call it Sickly Susan!”

“Well, it’s an idea,” said Harriet. “I’ll certainly bear it in mind.”

She was only being polite; she never used other people’s ideas. I knew that, from my reading. She’d said she had “a resistance” to them. I felt like telling Annie to just be quiet. She’d done nothing but burble ever since Harriet had met us! But something had happened to my tongue; it was like a great wodge of foam rubber in my mouth. I couldn’t talk! It was really annoying. Although I am not as bubbly and up-front as Annie, I am not usually shy; but when you are in the presence of greatness it is all too easy to just shrivel. Yet I had so many things I wanted to say! So many questions I wanted to ask! Anyone would have thought it was Annie who was the number-one fan rather than me.

“So how long have you been reading my books?” said Harriet.

I whispered, “Since I was about … s-seven.”

“She’s read them all!” crowed Annie.

“I haven’t read them all,” I said.

“Most of them!”

“Have you read this one?” said Harriet. She pointed at her old battered copy of Victoria Plum.

“Yes!” I found it a bit easier, now that we were talking about books. “It’s one of my favourites, ’cos Victoria’s always having bad hair days. I like the bit where she tries to make it curly and she goes to bed in rollers and says it’s like sleeping on a hedgehog!”

“And then she goes to school,” – Annie just couldn’t resist joining in – “and is forced to play hockey, ugh, yuck! And it rains, and all the curls come out!”

“And she says how for a little while she’d looked like a bubble bath but now she’s gone back to being a limp dish mop, and she’s just so ashamed she runs away and hides in the loo!”

“We used to think that maybe you had hair like a limp dish mop,” said Annie. “But you haven’t! You’ve got nice hair.”

Harriet’s hair was beautifully thick and curly – but it was going grey. Harriet was going grey! I felt sad about that, though I knew, of course, she couldn’t still look the same as she had fifteen years ago. She was wearing glasses, too. Just for a moment I wished that I could have met her when she was young; but then I thought that that was a very ageist thing to think, and very ungrateful. After all, she was still Harriet. She was still writing wonderful, marvellous books! And she did look warm and friendly; just a bit … mumsy. But that was quite comforting, in a way. If she had been young and glamorous I would probably have been struck dumb for all eternity.

Rather timidly, I said, “How did you manage to know what it’s like, having limp hair?”

“Megan’s got limp hair,” said Annie. “She’s always going on about it.”

“Like Victoria,” I said. “I really love the way you understand how people feel. Like having bad hair, or spots, or being plump, or not having any boobs. Like Sugar Mouse. I don’t know how you do it!”

“Well … there is such a thing as imagination,” said Harriet. “Very important, if you want to be a writer!”

“Megan wants to be a writer,” said Annie.