Читать книгу The Friends Forever Collection - Jean Ure, Stephen Lee, Jean Ure - Страница 11

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, ’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.

“You said nobody over fourteen,” I reminded her. “Anyone could just say they were fourteen!”

“Why would they want to? Just to talk about books!”

I hunched a shoulder. Annie had made me feel all cross and hot.

“OK, if you don’t want to,” she said. “I’ll probably visit later and have a chat. I’ll tell her you’re too shy.”

“Don’t you dare!” I said.

“So what shall I tell her?”

“Tell her … tell her that I’ve chosen Harriet Chance as my favourite author and I’m writing a review of Candyfloss for the school library!”

“All right,” said Annie. “I don’t mind doing that.”

Annie is a very generous and good-natured person. More good-natured than me, probably. She knew I was cross, but she didn’t want to quarrel. Annie never quarrels. Rachel is the only person she ever gets ratty with; but then Rachel is enough to make a saint ratty, I would think.

“Hey!” Annie suddenly went bouncing off the bed. “Look what I’ve got!” She snatched up a box and rattled it at me.

“What is it?”

“Make-up! All Mum’s old stuff that she doesn’t want any more.” Annie tipped the contents of the box on to her dressing table. Little tubs and pots rolled everywhere. “Loads of it!” she said. “Let’s practise making ourselves up!”

So that was what we did. I still felt sore at the thought of Annie talking to Harriet Chance’s daughter, but I was determined not to be tempted and I really didn’t want to go on being cross, and messing about with the make-up was quite fun. After we’d made ourselves up to look beautiful – we thought! – we went a bit mad and started on Dracula make-up, and Cruella de Vil make-up. Alien-from-Outer-Space make-up. Monster-with-Red-Eyes make-up. Anything we could think of! We forgot all about Rachel. We were taken by surprise when she put her head round the door. She was taken by surprise, too.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” she screeched.

Me and Annie flashed toothy lipsticky smiles at her. Annie had drawn black spider legs all round her eyes and daubed big red splotches on her cheeks. I had painted my mouth green and my eyes purple. In addition, we had both tied scarves round our chests, beneath our T-shirts, and stuffed them with knickers to give ourselves boobs. We could hardly look at each other without collapsing into giggles. It was really funny! Needless to say, Rachel didn’t think so. She has no sense of humour. (She exercises too much. Well, that is my theory.)

“Honestly, you look a total sight,” she said. “You’d better just scrub all that muck off yourself, Megan Hooper, before your mum comes for you!”