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  When Dad came to collect me at half past seven, I rushed up to him too and hugged him hard. After we’d both said our thank-yous and goodbyes and were in the car, Dad turned to me.

  ‘What’s up, Tilly? Didn’t you like it there? Isn’t this Matty as nice as you thought she was?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘I loved it there. And Matty’s fantastic and the best friend ever,’ I said.

  ‘So why did you come rushing up to me like that?’ he asked. ‘You seemed desperate.’

  ‘I – I was just happy to see you,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Oh, Tilly,’ Dad said.

  His face screwed up. I couldn’t work out whether he was happy or sad. His hand reached out and he squeezed mine, but then he had to use both his hands for driving.

  The house seemed extra quiet and tidy when we got home.

  I was really looking forward to going to school the next day, and yet I was a bit scared too. Maybe Matty had changed her mind and decided she didn’t want me as a best friend any more. She didn’t go to breakfast club, so I just sat eating my cornflakes by myself as usual and then read my book. But when it was time to go out into the playground, Matty came haring through the gate, yelling my name.

  ‘Hey, Tilly! Didn’t we have a great time yesterday? You’re so good at playing. You’re brilliant at making things up. Promise you’ll come again soon? Mum says you can come any time you like.’

  ‘Great!’ I said. I felt great. I wasn’t that little shy quiet mousy girl with a secret any more. I was Matty’s best friend, Tilly, and I was suddenly a great big bouncy funny girl who was brilliant at making things up.

  Matty asked me back to tea that very day and I so wanted to, but Aunty Sue said it was too soon. She wouldn’t even let me phone Dad this time.

  I wished Aunty Sue wasn’t so strict and bossy. I’d never really liked her. Dad had put an advert in the local newsagent’s when we moved to our new house and I was about to start going to my new school.

  WANTED

  Kind reliable lady to collect my daughter from junior school on a daily basis and give her tea occasionally. Fair wage paid.

  Sid the newsagent read the advert and sucked his teeth.

  ‘Funny how times have changed. Kids used to walk themselves home from school and get their own tea. Ah well. I don’t expect you’ll get many replies, but here’s hoping.’

  We didn’t get any replies the first week. Then an old lady answered – a really ancient lady who rode a buggy and had a hearing aid and very thick glasses. Dad didn’t think she was suitable even before she accidentally drove over his foot. He wanted someone younger to look after me, but the next person was almost too young, a girl of fourteen called Shelley.

  I was in awe of Shelley, with her bright blonde hair and her perfect eyebrows and her very short school skirt. Dad wasn’t at all sure, but decided to try her out for a week. I had to wait a good half-hour for Shelley to pick me up because the Seniors finished school later than the Juniors, but I didn’t mind. I sat on the school wall and read my book, and sometimes drew extra little scribbly pictures of Matilda in the margins. But on Friday Shelley’s boyfriend met her after school, and they went up to the park and forgot all about me. The school secretary had to phone Dad to come and collect me when I’d been waiting more than an hour. That was the end of Shelley.

  ‘I think you’re going to have to go to after-school club,’ said Dad.

  I’d been to after-school club at my old school, after Mum left. I’d hated it because a boy called Jeremy kept breaking all my pencils and crayons and saying hateful things about my mum. I knew Jeremy wouldn’t be at this new school and no one there knew about Mum, but I was still sure I’d hate it. Breakfast club was bad enough. After-school club was longer and much worse.

  I couldn’t see why I couldn’t do what Sid said children did long ago. I rather fancied the idea of walking myself home and I could easily make myself a sandwich for tea. I was good at cheese on toast too, and I knew how to use a can opener if necessary. I begged and pleaded, but Dad said I couldn’t – and then Mrs Brown the beige woman knocked on the door and said she was answering our advert. She was quite old but not so old she used a buggy, and she certainly wasn’t going to go to the park with her boyfriend.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll get along fine and dandy,’ she said, giving me her best bright smile and patting me on the shoulder. ‘You must call me Aunty Sue.’

  Dad said Aunty Sue was a godsend. If that was so, I wasn’t surprised. God was probably happy to have got rid of her. I felt truly fed up now when I had to go home with her instead of going back to Matty’s house.

  When we lived at our old house and Sylvie sometimes collected me from school when Mum couldn’t, she let me do painting with her, proper painting with big tubes of colour. Sylvie didn’t care if I dripped paint on the floor or got it all over my school clothes. She just laughed when I tried painting my hair blue to copy hers.

  Painting was out of the question at Aunty Sue’s, though she didn’t mind if I did drawing or colouring. I kept some spare paper and my second-best set of felt tips at Aunty Sue’s house, so I drew a picture of the three Warrior Princesses and their tribes having a gigantic battle.

  ‘Is that homework, Tilly?’ asked Aunty Sue.

  ‘No, just a picture,’ I said.

  ‘You’ve been working on it for ages, dear. What are you drawing?’

  ‘Princesses,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, lovely,’ said Aunty Sue. ‘I liked drawing princesses when I was a little girl.’

  But then she came to peer over my shoulder, which was very annoying. I tried to cover my picture with my hands, but the paper was too big and my hands too small.

  ‘My goodness,’ said Aunty Sue. ‘Why have you coloured their faces such strange colours? Don’t you have a pink felt tip? And what are all these other monster things? And why are they biting and hurting each other?’ She sounded really bothered about it.

  ‘It’s just a picture,’ I said, and I shut my drawing book quickly. ‘Can I watch television now?’

  Aunty Sue and I watched Pointless together. It was her favourite programme. She tried to get me to join in and guess the answers. I hardly knew any of them. Aunty Sue didn’t either, but she still loved watching. She talked about Alexander and Richard as if they were her best friends.

  When Dad came to collect me, Aunty Sue murmured to him when she thought I wasn’t listening. I heard her say, ‘Very strange . . . violent . . . disturbing.’

  Dad didn’t say anything to me in the car or when we got home. He didn’t ask to see my picture. But when he came to tuck me up in bed, he sat beside me and said, ever so casually, ‘So how are you feeling, Tilly?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said.

  ‘You’re still getting along with Matty?’

  ‘Yes. She asked me to go to tea with her again! Mean old Aunty Sue wouldn’t let me.’

  ‘You can’t keep going to Matty’s house day after day.’

  ‘She says I can!’

  ‘Yes, but it wouldn’t be polite. And I think Aunty Sue might be getting worried that she’ll lose her job. I pay her to look after you.’

  ‘I wish you’d pay Angie, Matty’s mum!’

  ‘So you haven’t had any fights with anyone?’

  ‘What? Dad! I don’t fight!’

  ‘No one’s picking on you?’

  ‘No. Well, Cathy and Amanda said I was stupid wanting to be friends with old Carrot-Top, but they’re just jealous because I’m Matty’s best friend now.’

  ‘Miss Hope hasn’t been cross with you?’

  ‘No. In D and T she said my purse was very good. I sewed a cat on it. She said . . .’

  ‘Yes? What did she say?’

  ‘She said it would make a lovely present for my mum.’

  ‘Oh. Well, you can save it to give to Mum when you next see her,’ said Dad.

  I didn’t say anything. Dad didn’t either. We just stayed still in my very quiet bedroom. Then Dad gave me a kiss on the chee