The Friends Forever Collection

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, ’cos a) she won’t find out and b) even if she does, there’s nothing she can do about it! ’Cos if I tell Mum, Mum’ll be furious with her. She promised your mum that Rachel would be here with us all the time.”

“So what shall we do?” I said. “Watch more videos?”

“No! Let’s get some lunch and take it upstairs.”

“And then what?”

“Then we’ll think,” said Annie.

So we grabbed some food and went back to Annie’s bedroom to eat it.

“Sure you don’t want to visit the bookroom?” said Annie.

I said, “No! Don’t keep pushing me.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” said Annie. “You’ll never guess who I talked to!”

“Who?” I said.

“Harriet Chance’s daughter!”

“Lori?”

“Mm!”

“You spoke to Lori?”

“Yes!”

I swallowed. “What did you talk about?”

Annie giggled and said, “You!”

“M-me?”

“I told her that you were Harriet’s number-one fan. I told her you’d got every single book she’d ever written—”

“I haven’t!” I cried. There are three of her early ones that I’ve only been able to find in the library, and one, called Patsy Puffball, that I have never even seen. (Though I did read somewhere that Harriet Chance was ashamed of it and wished she’d never written it.)

“I’ve got most of them,” I said, “but I haven’t got all.”

“So what?” said Annie. “You’re still her number-one fan! I thought you’d be pleased I’d talked about you!”

I suppose I should have been, but mainly what I was feeling at that moment was jealousy. Huge, raging, bright-green JEALOUSY. I was the bookworm! Not Annie. I was the one that ought to be talking to Harriet’s daughter!

“We could visit right now,” said Annie, “and see if she’s there.”

I pursed my lips and shook my head. Inside, I was seething and heaving like a volcano about to erupt.

“Megs, it’s harmless!”

If I did erupt, I would spew bright-green vomit all over Annie. Great gobbets of it, splatting in her face and dripping through her hair.

“It’s just books. Just people talking about books.”

Annie didn’t even like books. She only read them because of me.

“There’s no grown ups. Nothing bad. No one talks about sex, or anything like that. It’s just kids! Nobody over fourteen.”

I came back to life. “If it’s nobody over fourteen,” I said, “what’s Lori doing there?”

“Why?” Annie blinked, owlishly. “Is she over fourteen?”

“Yes, she is!” I knew all about Harriet Chance’s daughter. I knew everything there was to know about Harriet Chance. Well, everything that had ever been written.

“So how old is she?”

“She’s fifteen,” I said. “She was fifteen in January.”

“Oh! Wow! Fifteen!” Annie went into a mock fainting fit on the bed.