Viva Alice!
Page 11
‘Oh.’ I couldn’t think of anything else to say to that.
‘And when you were little, your mum always had some special treat for you. I often heard her say, ‘Look Megan. I’ve brought you a surprise.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Those treats were never a big deal. It was usually a bird’s feather or a sugar-free cookie, or a chopped-up carrot or something pathetic like that.’
‘Maybe,’ said Melissa. ‘But those treats were for you. Your mum had brought them especially for you.’
All of a sudden I remembered the heart-shaped stone my mum had given me one afternoon. It was still on the locker next to my bed. It’s not exactly pretty or useful, but I like knowing that it’s there. For the first time, I could see where Melissa was coming from.
She leaned across and touched my scarf. ‘I remember the first day I saw this scarf,’ she said.
‘I remember that day too. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. You mocked me and said it looked like a snake.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just that …… my birthday had been the day before. My mum was in London on business and it was very late that night when she called me. I think she’d forgotten until then that it even was my birthday. The next day, a courier showed up with a dress for me. It was really expensive and pretty, but it was completely the wrong size – I think Mum might have sent her assistant out to buy it or something. And then I heard Alice saying that your mum had knitted you a scarf, and I thought about how long that must have taken her.’
‘Not that long really – she’s a really fast knitter – and she doesn’t get out much.’
‘Whatever. She did it for you. She made you something special, and my mum …… well my mum would never, ever do something like that.’
‘Oh,’ I said again.
‘And your mum is forever doing amazing things for you,’ she said. ‘Like the welcome home banner she made for you when you were in Lanzarote with Grace.’
‘You saw that?’
Melissa smiled. ‘Everyone saw that. It was there for most of the week. I think your mum put it up half an hour after Lorna and Eddie picked you up to bring you to the airport.’
‘That’s totally embarrassing,’ I said.
‘Maybe it is a bit,’ said Melissa. ‘But mostly it’s cute. It was really sweet of her to make that banner for you. It shows how much she loves you.’
‘Your mum loves you too,’ I said, hoping it was true.
‘I know she does,’ she said. ‘It’s just that she’s not very good at showing it – and that’s kind of a problem.’
I felt sorry for Melissa, but I still didn’t understand what she was saying. How did all this explain why she felt it was OK to bully me?
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But what’s all this got to do with me?’
‘I think I gave you a hard time – because I felt so bad. I know it’s stupid but it was like, if I couldn’t be happy, then I didn’t want you to be happy either. Can you understand?’
I thought I could. Mum always says that when someone does a mean thing, it says more about them than it says about you.
‘And then there was Alice,’ said Melissa.
‘What about Alice? What’s she got to do with this?’
‘I’ve never had a friend like Alice. Every time I saw you two together, it made me feel bad about myself.’
‘But in primary school you had lots of friends.’
She shook her head. ‘They weren’t real friends. Mostly they just hung out with me because they were afraid I’d thump them if they didn’t.’
‘But …’ I stopped when I remembered that Grace had said pretty much the same thing.
‘You and Alice have this perfect best-friend thing going on,’ she said. ‘It’s like, no matter what happens, she’s got your back, and you’ve got hers. And I was totally jealous of that.’
I tried to imagine life without Alice, but I couldn’t.
‘And the other day, you and Alice and Grace did that really, really nice thing for me. Because of you, I won’t be going back to boarding school in September. And it was so kind, and I’m so grateful, but I feel totally bad too, because I’ve always only ever done mean stuff to you.’
Maybe I should have argued, but how could I? Everything she said was true.
‘I’m really, really sorry, Megan,’ she said. ‘Can you forgive me?’
I looked at her for a long time before answering.
She was the girl I’d hated for years.
She was the girl who’d made my life a misery.
She was pretty and cool, and her clothes were so nice, and thinking about her being jealous of me was just weird.
‘Sure,’ I said in the end. ‘It’s fine. Everything’s just fine.’
Melissa gave a little squeal and then she leaned forward and hugged me. Her hair brushed against my face. It was totally soft, and it smelled like coconut and lemons.
OMG! I thought. I’m hugging Melissa.
And I couldn’t quite make up my mind if it was a dream or a nightmare.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When Melissa finally let me go, I felt all weird and dizzy, like I’d been on a merry-go-round and had got off too quickly.
Melissa seemed fine though, like nothing strange had happened at all.
‘I’ll walk you home,’ she said. I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea, but I was so used to being afraid of her, I didn’t argue.
‘There’s not much I’ll miss about boarding school,’ she said as we walked. ‘The swimming pool looks good on the brochure, but it’s never warm enough – and they put too much chlorine in it. The bedrooms are kind of small and dark. Most of the teachers are really cross. The only one I really like is the science teacher. She’s big into the environment, and she’s always telling us about how we should be saving the planet. She’s really cool. Actually she … she reminds me a bit of your mum.’
I opened my mouth but no words came out.
Was Melissa actually saying that my mum was cool?
Was this the freakiest day of my whole life?
By now we were outside my house. We stood there for a second and it was a bit awkward. I wondered if I should invite Melissa in.
I tried to picture her sitting at the kitchen table, eating sugar-free cookies, and drinking pomegranate juice.
I tried to picture her having a discussion about global warming with my mum.
Some things are just too weird to imagine.
In the end, Melissa rescued me.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘Sorry again and thanks again. See you around.’
‘Er…. bye Melissa,’ I said, but she was already halfway down the road, flicking her hair as she went.
* * *
Just as I opened my gate, Alice came running out of her house.
‘OMG,’ she said. ‘Jamie is going to drive me totally crazy. One of his friends gave him a drum for his birthday, and he won’t stop playing it. You’ve got to rescue me, Meg. You’ve got to take me for hot chocolate. I think that might be the only thing that will save my life. If I don’t …’
She stopped when she saw Melissa disappearing into the distance.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Is that Melissa?’
I nodded.
‘What’s she doing around here?’
‘We were having a chat.’
‘Was she picking on you again? That’s totally mean, especially after all we did for her.’
‘But––’
‘Maybe we should go around to her place and do a lot of crazy stuff and try to make her parents change their minds about sending her to our school.’
‘She wasn’t––’
‘Maybe we should start a rumour that our school is going to close down because the teachers were caught stealing from the hockey-pitch fund. Or we could say that there’s this weird virus leaking out of the science room. We could …
She stopped talking when she noticed that I was l
aughing. Trust Alice to race off into crazy-plan mode, without stopping to find out if it was necessary.
‘You only have to say the word, Meg,’ she said. ‘Say the word and I’ll sort Melissa out for you. I’ll get Grace and Louise and Kellie and––’
‘Thanks, Al,’ I said. ‘But that won’t be necessary. It’s sorted. Everything’s sorted. I’m not afraid of Melissa any more.’
‘Megan!’ she said as she hugged me. ‘That’s amazing. I’m so proud of you.’
‘Now are we still going for that hot chocolate?’ I asked. ‘Or are you going to hug me to death?’
She let me go. ‘Hot chocolate,’ I think.
‘Then give me one minute.’
Suddenly I realised that I didn’t have the quinoa any more. I must have left it on the wall when I’d been talking to Melissa.
‘OMG,’ I said. ‘Mum’s going to kill me. Don’t go anywhere. If the shopping’s gone I’m going to need a bodyguard.’
I raced back to where I’d left the quinoa. Luckily it was still there. I guess organic quinoa isn’t the kind of thing that gets stolen a lot.
I ran back home and went inside. I gave Mum the quinoa, stroked Domino, took off my scarf and hid it under the stairs.
When I went outside, Alice was still leaning on the gate.
‘Ready?’ she asked,
I nodded, and then I set off for town with my very best friend.
About the Author
JUDI CURTIN grew up in Cork and now lives in Limerick where she is married with three children. Judi is the best-selling author of the ‘Alice & Megan’ series and the ‘Eva’ series; with Roisin Meaney, she is also the author of See If I Care, and she has written three novels, Sorry, Walter, From Claire to Here and Almost Perfect. Her books have been translated into many languages.
By the Same Author
The ‘Alice & Megan’ series
Alice Next Door
Alice Again
Don’t Ask Alice
Alice in the Middle
Bonjour Alice
Alice & Megan Forever
Alice to the Rescue
Alice & Megan’s Cookbook
The ‘Eva’ series
Eva’s Journey
Eva’s Holiday
Leave it to Eva
Eva and the Hidden Diary
Copyright
This eBook edition first published 2014 by
The O’Brien Press Ltd,
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Ireland.
Tel: +353 1 4923333
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First published 2014
eBook ISBN: 978–1–84717–7094
Text © copyright Judi Curtin 2014
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