Secret Meeting (13 page)

Thursday came – the day of my birthday treat! I was so excited, but a bit nervous, as well. I had been Harriet’s number-one fan for so long! Ever since I was eight years old, and read
Candyfloss.
I just loved that book! I read it so many times that in the end it fell to pieces and Mum had to buy me another one. Now I was actually going to meet the person who had written it!

I couldn’t make up my mind what to wear. I don’t have all that many clothes in my wardrobe, and I am not
one of those hugely fashion-conscious people, like this girl at school, Rozalie Dunkin, who is trendy as can be and always dressed in the latest gear, which Mum won’t let me have. Or at least, not very often. She either says it’s cheap and tacky, or she says it’s not suitable. Meaning that she doesn’t approve of eleven-year-olds dressing up like they’re eighteen. She really is very old-fashioned, my mum. It doesn’t usually bother me as I don’t specially want to go round pretending to be eighteen, and am probably a little bit old-fashioned myself. Annie sometimes says I am. But I did want to look nice for Harriet!

I dithered for ages, trying to decide. Most of the stuff in my wardrobe is stuff that Rozalie Dunkin wouldn’t be seen dead in. But I had to wear something! Mum was calling to me from the kitchen: “Megan, your breakfast is ready! What are you doing?”

I stuck my head out of the door and yelled, “Getting dressed!”

“Well, just be quick! I haven’t got all day.”

Now it was Mum agitating to go, and me holding things up. I stopped dithering, grabbed a
top which was not new but which I just happen to love – it is blue, with little bunched sleeves, and ties round the middle – and my best pair of jeans, which
were
new. So new I hadn’t yet worn them! They had beautiful embroidered bits round the bottom, bright reds and greens, all curling and swirling. I thought maybe they were the one thing I owned that Rozalie Dunkin might not mind being seen dead in. I didn’t have any trendy sort of shoes, so I just put on my trainers, which she definitely would
not
have been seen dead in! They were quite old and tatty, but I hoped that Harriet wouldn’t notice.

Mum did! Well, she noticed the jeans.

“You’re wearing your new trousers!” she said. “I thought you were keeping those for the party?”

“I’ll probably wear a dress for the party,” I said. “I might get a bit hot in these.”

“You’ll get a bit hot in them today! It’s going to be well over 20 degrees. If I were you, I’d go and put some shorts on.”

I couldn’t go to tea with Harriet wearing
shorts.
I had this sudden great urge to tell Mum what I was doing, but I knew that I couldn’t. Mum is such a worrier! She might even tell me that I wasn’t to go. In any case, I had promised Annie not to say anything, and I couldn’t break my promise. Not when it was her birthday present to me, and she had worked so hard at it.

“Well, it’s up to you,” said Mum. “Wear what you like, I don’t have time to argue! Now, I’ll be picking you up at 6.30 tonight, OK? So you’ll be having tea with Annie.”

With Harriet, I thought; and I couldn’t help a little giggle bursting out of me. Oops! I promptly clapped a hand to my mouth.

“You’re in a very odd mood,” said Mum. “What’s brought all this on?”

“I’ll tell you about it later,” I said.

“Why can’t you tell me now?”

“’cos I can’t! It’s a secret.”

“I suppose Annie’s in on it?”

I said, “Yes, but we’re sworn to utter silence.”

“Oh! Well … in that case,” said Mum.

She didn’t try to get it out of me. I am allowed to have secrets! She just told me to eat up my breakfast or I’d make her late for work.

Needless to say I spent the morning jittering, in case for once Rachel didn’t go off to gaze at Tyrone and make sure her best friend wasn’t pinching him.

“What’d we do? If she doesn’t go? How’d we get out?”

“We could always climb through the window,” said Annie.

I ran across to look. It’s true there is an apple tree outside Annie’s window, but I knew I’d never be able to reach it. Heights make me go dizzy. And Annie has
never
been able to get more than a quarter of the way up the ropes when we do gym.

“We’d break our necks,” I wailed.

“I wasn’t serious,” said Annie. “I only said it ’cos of all the dithering you do.”

“But Rachel,” I moaned.

“You don’t have to worry about Rachel. She couldn’t stay away from
Tyrone
if you offered her a million dollars. I heard her on the phone last night. She’s got it so bad she couldn’t even say his name without stuttering …
T-T-Tyrone
!”

“I hope you’re right,” I said.

“I’m always right,” said Annie. “I’m your fairy godmother. When I wave my magic wand—” she snatched up a ruler from her desk and wafted it about “— all your wishes come true!”

She was right about Rachel. She isn’t always right; she is sometimes spectacularly
wrong.
But in this case she was right! Rachel came upstairs a bit later, when we were sitting good as gold, quiet as mice, with the CD player turned low as low could be, to tell us that she was going out for a couple of hours.

“You two just behave yourselves—”

“Or else,” said Annie.

“Yes!
Or else.
And keep that music down!”

What cheek! We couldn’t have turned it any lower if we’d tried.

“Some people are just never satisfied,” grumbled Annie.

A few seconds later the front door slammed shut.

“Now we can listen properly,” said Annie; and she turned the CD player up to practically full blast. “Let’s go and spy on her!”

We raced along the landing, into Annie’s mum and dad’s bedroom, which is at the front of the house.

“Hide behind the curtain! We don’t want her to see us.”

Giggling, I wrapped myself up in the curtain and watched as Rachel set off down the road.

“We’ll just give her time to get her bus,” said Annie. “We don’t want to go and bump into her at the bus stop.”

Help! I hadn’t thought of that! Suppose the bus was cancelled? Suppose we got there and she was still waiting?

“Oh, shut up!” said Annie, when I said this to her. “You’re behaving like your mum.”

Well! The last thing anyone wants to do is behave like their mum, so I obediently kept quiet and just worried silently inside my head, instead of out loud.

“You’re still doing it,” said Annie.

“Doing what?” I said.

“
Flapping.
I can tell from just looking at you.”

“Well, but you don’t think—”

“No, I don’t,” said Annie, without even waiting to hear what it was that I was going to say. “I’ve got it
all planned.
Just leave it to me.” She looked at her watch. “Every quarter of an hour. That’s when the buses run. We’ll go in
quarter of an hour.
”

Unlike me, Annie hadn’t bothered to get dressed up. She was wearing the same pink joggers she’d been wearing all week, though she had put on a clean top and a big old swanky cap (all pink and puffy) that she’s had for ages. But that was all right! It wasn’t Annie’s birthday treat. She wasn’t Harriet’s number one fan.

“I’ll just do a note for old Bossyboots,” she said.

She showed me what she’d written: WE HAVE GONE TO HAVE TEA WITH HARRIET CHANCE. WE WILL BE BACK SOON.

“
Annieeee
!” I stared at her, reproachfully. “I thought we weren’t supposed to tell anyone?”

“I’ve got to leave her a note,” said Annie. “We don’t want her getting in a panic and phoning the police.”

“But you promised!”

Annie stuck out her lower lip. What I call her stubborn look.

“Annie, you
promised
,” I said.

“OK! I’ll write another one.”

WE HAVE GONE TO TEA WITH HARRIET. WE WILL BE BACK SOON.

“How’s that? If I just say
Harriet
?”

I told her that that was much better. “It’ll keep her from worrying, but she won’t actually know where we’ve gone.”

“Right. So now will you please just stop
flapping
?”

I was still a bit scared what we might find when we got to the bus stop. If Rachel was there, we would have to hide in a shop doorway until after she’d gone. Then we’d miss our bus! Harriet would be kept waiting. She would be so cross – it would be so rude! I couldn’t bear it!

But then we got there, and I breathed this huge sigh of relief. Rachel was nowhere to be seen!

“Told you so,” said Annie. “All that flapping and fussing!”

“I can’t help it,” I said. “It’s my anatomy.”

“Your
what
?”

I hesitated. Perhaps I’d got the wrong word. “It’s the way I’m made. You can’t help the way you’re made.”

“You don’t have to give in to it,” said Annie. “When you feel a worry fit coming on, just think,
everything will be all right … Annie says so
!”

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.