Best Friends Read online

  'It's going to be a brilliant birthday,' I gabbled, and then I charged upstairs and locked myself in the loo where I could cry in private.

  Eighteen

  Iwoke up very early on my birthday. I waved to Melissa sitting in petticoated splendour on my windowsill. She waved back with her stiff white arm. I kicked my dolphin duvet off and lay beached on my bed, arms and legs flung wide.

  Happy birthday, me, I whispered. And then,

  'Happy birthday, Alice.'

  I stuck my right thumb and little finger out, making my hand a pretend phone. 'Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday, dear Al-and-Gem, happy birthday to us,' I sang softly.

  There was a snuffling sound outside my door.

  Barking Mad came nosing in to give me a big birthday lick. I patted him and felt a lump hanging from his collar. It was a tiny packet of chocolate drops with a message: Happy Woof-Woof Birthday, with love from Barking Mad. His handwriting was very similar to Jack's crazed scrawl. I gave Barking Mad a 209

  big hug and then we shared my birthday treat together, one chocolate drop for me, one chocolate drop for him . . .

  'What's all this?' said Mum, coming into my bedroom in her dressing gown. 'You know Barking Mad is not allowed to eat chocolate drops. Mind Mum doesn't find out or you'll be in terrible trouble!'

  I giggled and Barking Mad drooled.

  'Happy birthday, Gemma darling,' said Mum, giving me a kiss.

  She handed me a pink tissue parcel

  tied with a polka-dot ribbon. I shook it for clues.

  'Careful!' said Mum.

  I saw the word MAKE-UP faintly showing through the pink tissue. Oh dear, it ing through the pink tissue. Oh dear, it looked like Mum had taken me seriously about wanting to be girly. I tried to pin a smile on my face as I ripped the tissue off. Then I smiled properly, a great grin from ear to ear. It wasn't ordinary girly pink lippy and peach powder. It was a box of stage make-up, with all kinds of colour sticks, zingy oranges and crimsons, wild greens and greys and deep blues. I stared at the sticks and saw myself made up as the Incredible Hulk, Spiderman, Dracula, the Lion King . . . My starring roles were endless. There was even a stick of black to make an excellent Fat Larry moustache.

  210

  'Oh Mum, it's magic!' I said. I rushed to the mirror to start experimenting.

  'Hey, hey, you haven't even washed yet!' said Mum.

  'Yeah, well, I'll need to wash after, won't I?' I said.

  I came downstairs to my birthday breakfast as a blood-crazed vampire, with chalk-white face, purple eyes and blood dribbling down my chin. My school uniform rather spoiled the effect, so I draped a sheet round me, hoping it looked like a shroud. Everyone cowered away from me in a very satisfac-tory manner. Mum made pancakes for a special birthday treat (she declined my offer of help). I dolloped strawberry jam on mine and pretended it was blood.

  I looked round hopefully for presents, even though I had to morph back into a girl and go to school in ten minutes' time. Gallum saw my eyes roving and laughed.

  'OK, OK. My present's in the hall,'

  he said.

  It was my own bike!

  'Oh Callum, you're so great!

  A new bike!'

  'Yeah, I'm very great, but it's not new, dope. It's Ayesha's old

  bike. We've stripped it down and

  painted it up for you. You like?'

  211

  'I love,' I said, jumping on the bike and trying it out there and then.

  'Gemma! Get off that bike! Watch the carpet and the walls!' Mum yelled.

  'No sweat, Mum, I know what I'm doing,' I said, taking my hands off the handlebars.

  But then the postman thrust a wodge of envelopes through the letter box, startling me. My new bike went whizzing down the hall. I didn't manage to keep up with it.

  'Watch the paintwork!' Mum screamed.

  'Oh Gem, don't bash the bike up before you've even had a ride on it!' Callum yelled.

  I checked the bike and the paintwork. For once I was in luck and both were undamaged. I sifted my way through the letters. Bills, more bills, birthday cards from old aunties and cousins and all-sorts.

  But not the card I was looking for.

  I went through the post all over again in case I'd missed it, though I could pick out Alice's handwriting from the other side of

  . the room. I'd sent her a birthday card. I'd made it myself. It was like a collage, with photos from every birthday we'd ever had in the past, all the way back to our first birthday when we were sitting in adjoining high chairs with our first birthday cake.

  Alice was very daintily licking her icing. I had cake 212

  all over me, even in my hair, and I was yelling because I wanted another slice.

  I'd cut lots of balloons and birthday cakes from Mum's magazines and stuck them in all the gaps, and then stuck a border of silver stars all round my collage. It was all a bit sticky and top-heavy when I'd finished, but I hoped Alice would appreciate it anyway. I hoped she'd like her present too.

  I'd spotted it in Mum's catalogue, a pink fluffy cushion in the shape of a heart. It was very very pink and very very fluffy.

  I thought it would be perfect in Alice's new bedroom. It was also very very expensive for a girl with no savings whatsoever, but Mum let me open up an account with her, so I could pay it off weekly.

  It would take up all my pocket money for ages and ages, almost until our next birthday, but it was worth it.

  I tried not to mind that Alice hadn't sent me anything, not even a card. I couldn't help crying just a little bit when I was scrubbing my vampire face off, but maybe that was because I'd got soap in my eyes.

  'Where's the vampire gone?' said Jack, when I came out the bathroom.

  'It's daylight so he's flown away,' I sniffed, mopping my sore eyes.

  'Pity. Here's a birthday present he'd like,' said 213

  Jack, thrusting a black shiny paper package into my hands. When I tore it open I found a black plastic wallet with bats flying all over it, teeth bared.

  'Thanks, Jack, it's a cool wallet,'

  I said.

  'Try opening it,' said Jack, as he went into the bathroom to have his ten-second wash-and-brush up.

  Try opening it? I pulled it open – and found a twenty-pound note inside!

  'Jack!' I hammered on the door.

  'What?'

  'Jack, come out, I want to give you a hug.'

  'No fear! I'll have to stay locked in here now.'

  'Oh Jack, how come you're so generous this birthday? You're usually really stingy when it comes to presents.'

  'Oh, thanks a bunch, Miss Tact and Diplomacy!

  Actually, I'm not really being generous this time.

  The wallet was a freebie with my Fantasy Gore fanzine – and the money's just your earnings.'

  'My earnings?'

  'All those rubbish jobs you did for me so I'd let you use my computer. I started to feel a bit mean about it. You can use it any time you want, kiddo.'

  There wasn't any point now. I was one hundred per cent certain old Cake Face wouldn't feel like passing on any messages.

  214

  It felt lonelier than ever sitting next to an empty seat at school. Still, I could always turn round and talk to Biscuits. He gave me a great birthday card of a big boy sitting at a huge table spread with hundreds of cakes: iced cakes, cream cakes, cheesecakes – every kind of cake you can think of. He was clutching an éclair in either hand, taking bites out of both with a big beam of bliss upon his face. The card said on the front I LIKE CAKES – and then inside Biscuits had written, But I like you more.

  'Oh Biscuits,' I said, blushing.

  'What are you giving Gemma, Biscuits?'

  'Why has she gone bright red?'

  'Show us what he's put, Gem!'

  'Hide it, quick,' said Biscuits, blushing beetroot too.

  I shoved it into my school bag while Mrs Watson clapped her hands together and told everyone to settle down. Some id