Best Friends Read online

  'Don't you like hot dogs, Auntie Karen?' I asked.

  'I prefer to stick with salad,' said Auntie Karen, though she didn't look as if she was relishing her carrot shreds and lettuce.

  'She's on this silly diet,' said Uncle Bob. 'Though I can't think why you want to lose weight. You look splendid to me.' He gave her a pretend smack on her big white bottom.

  'Bob! Stop it!' Auntie Karen snapped, but she didn't seem to mind too much.

  Uncle Bob pulled a face at Alice and me and we giggled.

  Auntie Karen had special squirty

  tomato sauce to flavour the hot

  dogs. It was very tempting. I

  wrote Gemma in bright-red

  writing over my hot dog. Alice

  tried to write Alice on hers but she was far more wobbly.

  'How come you're so good at it, Gem?'

  'I've been practising. Wait till you see our cake at tea time,' I said, hugging myself.

  If only I'd asked for us to have my special birthday tea then! But Auntie Karen gave us both vanilla ice cream with whipped cream and nuts and tinned cherries. We counted our cherry stones.

  'Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man – goodie 177

  goodie,' said Alice. She hid her last cherry stone under her plate because she didn't want it to come out poor man.

  'Who are you going to marry, Gemma? Oh, poor you – beggar man!'

  'I think it might be quite good fun to marry a beggar man and be a beggar lady. We could have one of those scrawny beggar dogs and busk.' I picked up a leftover hot dog and hummed, pretending to be playing a

  harmonica.

  I forgot about the tomato sauce.

  'Gemma! You look like you've got lipstick all round your mouth,' said Alice, trying to wipe me with her napkin.

  'Hey, maybe it's blood and I'm a secret vampire and you look so tempting I've taken a secret nip at your lily-white neck,' I said, baring my teeth and bobbing my head at her.

  Alice squealed.

  Uncle Bob laughed.

  Auntie Karen frowned. 'Not at the table, Gemma,' she said.

  Her mouth kept going into odd shapes because she had a shred of carrot stuck in her tooth and she was trying to hook it out with her tongue. My own tongue ached to imitate her but I knew I was already getting right up Auntie Karen's nose. I dared one 178

  weeny wobble of my tongue when Auntie Karen went to the fridge to get some fizzy water.

  Alice was taking a long drink of Coke at the time.

  She snorted terribly. Coke sprayed out of her nose in an impressive fountain.

  'Gemma!' said Auntie Karen, not looking round.

  'Wrong culprit!' said Uncle Bob, patting Alice on the back.

  'Oh Alice!' Look, it's all over your DKNY T-shirt.

  You'll have to change as we've got the Hamiltons coming.'

  I frowned, absent-mindedly wiping scarlet saucy fingers over my own ordinary GAP T-shirt.

  I wished the Hamiltons weren't invited. I especially wished wished wished Flora wasn't coming.

  Fifteen

  My heart sank when I saw Flora. She was exactly as I'd imagined, only more so. She had long blonde hair gently waving way past her shoulders, big blue eyes and pale creamy skin like rose petals. She was daintily skinny, with a delicate neck and pointy elbows, but her long legs had shapely dancer's calves. She wasn't wearing anything fancy, just a T-shirt and shorts, but the T-shirt was small enough to show off her flat tummy and the shorts were the sort you'd wear to a disco, not the baggy kind that make your bottom look saggy.

  'This is Flora, Gemma,' Alice said. She pronounced her flowery name as if it was very special. She was looking at Flora as if she was a princess and Alice was her little serving maid.

  Auntie Karen was dancing similar attendance on Flora's mum. She was like Flora but in full bloom. Uncle Bob couldn't stop looking at her too.

  She was wearing white trousers very similar to 180

  Auntie Karen's but she looked very different in them. Uncle Bob looked as if he was longing to pat her bottom too.

  He managed to avert his eyes just long enough to look at Flora's dad and offer him a beer. Auntie Karen tutted irritably and said she'd made a special jug of Pimm's for everyone. I didn't know what Pimm's was but it looked very pretty, like dark lemonade with lots of fruit and mint leaves bobbing about like little boats.

  My throat was very dry. I swallowed hopefully, even though there were only four glasses standing beside the jug. It was a very big jug. I watched Auntie Karen carefully pouring. She only used up half the lemonade stuff.

  'Please may I have a little Pimm's too, Auntie Karen?' I asked, careful to say it very politely.

  Auntie Karen sighed as if I was being deliberately cheeky. 'Don't be ridiculous, Gemma,' she said.

  Auntie Karen raised her eyebrows at Flora's mum. Flora sniggered.

  'I don't know what's so funny,' I said.

  'Pimm's is alcoholic,' said Flora. 'Surely everyone knows that.' She dug Alice in the ribs. Alice giggled.

  'Of course I know that Pimm's is a little bit alcoholic,' I said, sticking my chin in the air. 'I happen to be allowed to drink alcohol.'

  181

  'As if your mother would ever allow any such thing!' said Auntie

  Karen.

  'I didn't say my mother. I

  frequently have a lager with

  my grandad,' I said.

  I wasn't exactly telling whopping great fibs. Grandad had let me have one sip out of his can once, just so I could see what it tasted like. It tasted horrible, as a matter of fact.

  Uncle Bob burst out laughing. 'You're a caution, Gemma,' he said.

  'That's one word for her,' said Auntie Karen.

  'Now, I've made you girls a jug of real lemonade.

  Take it down to the end of the garden and leave us in peace. You carry the tray, Flora. I know you'll be careful.'

  We went out into the garden in procession, Flora first, bearing the tray of clinking glasses, Alice scur-rying second with the jug carefully clutched against her chest, and me trailing in the rear, not trusted to carry anything at all.

  The end of the garden had exciting possibilities.

  There were so many bushes we were mostly out of sight of the grown-ups sitting on the green garden furniture. The grass grew tuftily around our ankles here, and big white weedy flowers grew as high as our heads.

  182

  'We could play jungles, Alice,' I said excitedly.

  'Play jungles?' said Flora.

  'Gemma's good at pretend games,' said Alice quickly.

  Flora blinked her blue eyes rapidly in a silly way to express astonishment. 'I haven't played pretend games for years!' she said. 'Still, you're Alice's guest, Gemma, so I suppose it's polite to let you.'

  'I'm not Alice's guest, I'm her best friend,' I said fiercely.

  'Let's have our lemonade,' said Alice. 'You look very hot, Gem.'

  I was burning all over. I could have drunk a lake of lemonade and still been boiling. This was my one and only special day with Alice. Why did Flora have to barge in and start spoiling things? Now we couldn't play any proper games. All Flora seemed to want to do was talk.

  She talked about their Egyptian project and how she'd found all this stuff on the internet and printed it out. Alice said she was clever. I said there wasn't really anything clever in printing stuff out. I tried to tell them heaps of stuff about the Egyptians but they stopped listening.

  Flora talked about ballet and how she'd been picked to do a solo for their end-of-term perform-ance. Alice said she was brilliant. I said I thought ballet was silly and modern dancing was much more 183

  fun. I tried twirling and tapping but I tripped and Flora laughed. Alice did too.

  Flora talked about her riding lessons and her pony, Nutmeg. Alice said she was lucky, and she couldn't wait to get her own pony too. I said I was getting a white pony called Diamond. As soon as Flora opened her mouth I said I knew you called them greys but my Diamond was