“Will Baron Biscuit be all right, Nurse Forehead?” asked Zoe. She was on her hands and knees collecting all the tiny bits of dust from Baron Biscuit’s shattered ear. She noticed that Ava kept looking round to see if anyone had seen the accident. If they had, they’d know it was all Zoe and Ava’s fault. It didn’t help that Baron Biscuit was sparkling with purple glitter, which had clearly come from Zoe’s wrist.
Baron Biscuit’s injury proved much too severe for a plaster and an emergency lolly. Colonel Crunch was going to have to get out the superglue. It was all very serious, and no one looked more upset about the whole thing than Ava and Zoe.
Lottie appeared from nowhere, notebook in hand. Straight away, she saw that Ava and Zoe both looked EXTREMELY guilty. Lottie stared at them through her glasses. She reached out to stroke Baron Biscuit and made a note of the purple glitter that came off on her fingers. Ava and Zoe both had the same purple glitter on their hands which, of course, Lottie also noticed.
“Did you make that bracelet together?” Lottie asked Ava and Zoe. Ava and Zoe shook their heads. “Then why are you both so sparkly?” Colonel Crunch was watching Ava and Zoe closely. He thought they looked guilty too.
“Colonel Crunch,” Lottie went on, “did you know that Ava and Zoe aren’t friends any more? Zoe says that Ava is a meanie, and—”
“Mind your own business, Lottie!” shrieked Ava, and for the first time in two days, Zoe agreed with her. Lottie glared at both of them as Mrs Peabody shooed everyone to their classrooms.
That morning in Year Three things went from bad to worse. They were meant to be working on the magnet projects whilst Miss Moody marked some handwriting homework, but no one was discussing the North Pole.
“You don’t have to get mad at ME because YOU broke Baron Biscuit,” Lottie said to Zoe. “I’m just doing my job investigating.”
“It’s not your job, Lottie,” said Zoe crossly. “You’re not a real spy. You’re a child. Real spies are grown-ups.” But Zoe had to admit that, even though she was a child, Lottie had come dangerously close to solving the Case of the Broken Biscuit.
“Ava is right,” Lottie told Zoe. “You are the meanie. That’s why you don’t have a best friend.”
“I do have a best friend,” insisted Zoe. “Look, see? Isabel and I made Extra Special Friendship Bracelets. We’re best friends now, too.”
“Isabel is MY best friend,” said Lottie. She stared at Zoe’s bracelet in a way that made Zoe remember watching Rani’s wrist the day before.
Zoe knew she shouldn’t have said what came out of her mouth next, but she did: “We were going to make you a bracelet, but then Isabel didn’t want to.”
Lottie’s big brown eyes filled with hurt, but instead of crying, she reached for her notebook and scrawled a note to Isabel:
TRUE OR FALSE: I DID NOT WANT TO MAKE AN EXTRA SPECIAL BRACELET FOR LOTTIE TOO.
It turned out to be true; Isabel hadn’t wanted to make an Extra Special Friendship Bracelet for Lottie. When Zoe had suggested it, Isabel said no, they could keep these Extra Special Friendship Bracelets just for the two of them. This was really because Isabel wanted to have something private that didn’t include Lottie, just like the Extra Special Top Secret bit of Lottie’s notebook didn’t include Isabel.
“But that’s silly,” said Lottie, when Isabel explained. “A spy has to have some things that are secrets from EVERYBODY. Even her best friend.”
They were in the lunch room with the rest of their class. Isabel and Zoe were sitting next to each other, and Lottie was across from them, with Rani and Ava next to her.
Zoe was cross because Ava had made her break Baron Biscuit, and because she was lonely without a proper best friend.
Ava was cross because Zoe had made her break Baron Biscuit.
Lottie was cross because Isabel had left her out on purpose.
Isabel was cross because Lottie cared more about spying than she did about being best friends.
Rani was just tired of all this crossness. She was happy to have found Ava. She was also glad that she had rescued Ava from the meanest best friend in the world. All Rani had seen from Zoe was bossiness and shouting, and now it seemed like Zoe was making everyone else cross too.
“Real best friends are not supposed to have secrets,” Isabel was saying.
“Yes,” said Zoe, loudly enough so Ava could hear her. “Real best friends tell each other everything. They don’t make stupid bracelets with other people.”
This is where things got all muddled up: Zoe was talking about Ava’s bracelet that she’d made with Rani. But Isabel thought that Zoe was saying that the bracelets Zoe and Isabel had just made were stupid too. The stupid bracelets were confusing everybody.
“What are you talking about, Zoe?” screeched both Isabel and Ava at the same time. Then Lottie and Ava and Zoe and Isabel all started shouting at once. No one was listening to anyone else.
“What are you on about?” yelled a girl from another table. “Stop arguing, or we won’t get any golden tickets for being good!”
“Mind your own business!” cried some of Year Three.
And then suddenly everyone in the lunch room was shouting at everyone else, and the crossness that before had been a little circle just around Zoe and her friends spread like a sickness. The noise was deafening. Lady Lovelypaws ran from underneath Rani’s chair and jumped into the big bin in the corner.
Zoe couldn’t stand it. This whole thing was really all Ava’s fault. Ava was the one who should have stuck by her best friend forever, and only Ava could make up for it by saying sorry. Zoe tried to tell Ava this, but Ava was shouting something at her and not listening. Zoe yelled louder and louder, but everyone else did too. It was no use. She had to find another way to get Ava to listen. Zoe stood up from her chair, but loads of other girls were standing up too, and shouting.
Zoe looked down at her plate, with its bits of leftover fish fingers and a few stray peas. She looked at her empty cup of water and her crumpled-up napkin. Then her eyes came to rest on her untouched bowl of Mrs Crunch’s famous apple crumble.
Then a person who was stood at Zoe’s place, a person who looked just like Zoe but who just couldn’t possibly have actually been Zoe, reached down, picked up a gooey, slightly warm handful of apple crumble and threw it in Ava’s face.
Ava gasped as crumble went splat! between her eyes. The rest of Year Three gasped as the crumble dribbled down Ava’s cheeks. The entire room gasped when the crumble fell from Ava’s face into her lap. And from the bin, Lady Lovelypaws gasped when the crumble finally went plop! on to the floor.
“You … you … you … horrible…” Ava was so shocked by the crumble attack that she couldn’t even speak. She grabbed the spoon from her own apple crumble, scooped out a huge helping and, using her spoon as a catapult, she flung the crumble across the table at Zoe.
Splat! Ava’s crumble hit Zoe right on the nose. But she was ready for it.
“How about some cream with your crumble?” shouted Zoe. She took a huge pitcher of cream and sloshed it across the table at Ava. Except that she missed Ava, and the cream hit Lottie.
“Hey!” said Lottie. And then splat! went a handful of Lottie’s apple crumble in Zoe’s ear.
Before long there was an all-out apple crumble war going on, and the grown-ups in the room couldn’t do anything about it.
“Take that!!” shouted Year Two as all at once they fired their puddings on Year Three.
“That’s for stealing my crayon yesterday!” said one Reception girl to another as she dumped crumble on her head.
Splat! Plop! Slop! went the crumble and the cream. When the bowls and pitchers were empty, the girls scooped up crumble from the tables and the floor, and had another go.
Suddenly the lunch room door opened. Mrs Peabody had expected to find tidy tables of girls quietly enjoying their delicious lunches. Instead, she saw a disaster. Crumble covered everyone in the room, the tables and the floor. Crumble was splattered across the windows
and crumble dripped from the ceiling. As the headmistress stood staring, a mushy apple soared through the air and landed right on her shoes.
Mrs Peabody fainted.
“WHO STARTED THIS?” thundered Colonel Crunch.
Colonel Crunch was rarely ever cross, and this was certainly the first time Zoe had ever heard him shout. But a huge batch of his wife’s apple crumble completely gone to waste was more than the Colonel could take.
“Who started this?” he repeated, and it didn’t take long for the entire room to point the finger at Year Three. Colonel Crunch came and stood beside their table. He looked down at Ava and Zoe and Lottie and Isabel. The Colonel had a feeling that these four were somehow involved in all this mess.
“Lottie?” he said. Lottie could always be counted on to know the facts.
But Lottie said nothing. Spies are good at keeping secrets, when they want to.
“Isabel?” tried Colonel Crunch, staring down at her. Isabel was the best-behaved girl in the entire school. Surely she wouldn’t approve of this behaviour.
But Isabel said nothing. Just because you know how to behave properly doesn’t mean you should tell on everyone else.
“Ava?” Colonel Crunch was getting desperate.
Zoe could hardly breathe. Their whole table could hardly breathe. Surely Ava would tell on her best friend for never, her not-friend, her ex-magnetic partner?
Ava said nothing. Because, when it really came down to it, this was much too big of a thing to tell on someone for. Especially when you might get in trouble too.
Ava shook her head. As she did, a blob of apple crumble fell from her hair on to her lap.
Colonel Crunch turned to Zoe. Her stomach felt like it had wasps in it, and her arms and legs were like jelly. She couldn’t lie to Colonel Crunch.
“It was me!” Zoe said as she burst into tears. “I did it! I crumbled Ava! But only because she was mean to me.”
Zoe cried and cried. She cried for the mess, for the trouble she was going to be in, and most of all, Zoe cried for her best friend forever, who wasn’t any more.
“Attention!” said Colonel Crunch to the rest of the room. “You are all dismissed! Out you go to the playground. Mrs Crunch will rinse you off with the hose.”
Mrs Crunch looked delighted at the prospect of squirting the dozens and dozens of sticky girls who had wasted her precious crumble with a bit of cold water. Revenge is sweet.
“Zoe, you stay here. You too, Ava. You two have a job to do.”
Colonel Crunch was not interested in knowing the details of Ava and Zoe’s battle. He didn’t want to hear all about their falling out, or what they’d said to each other or whose fault it was. He simply handed them each a mop, a bucket and a sponge. Then he left, closing the lunch room door behind him.
Zoe and Ava were alone with Lady Lovelypaws, who was very kindly helping to clean up the cream.
The two girls mopped in silence on opposite sides of the room. At first, they made a big show of ignoring each other. Then Zoe began thinking about how this was probably not going to be their only punishment. Mrs Peabody might ring their parents, once she was finished fainting. Maybe Ava’s mummy and Zoe’s mummy would have to come to school early to get them. Then the mummies would see the crumble-covered lunch room and they’d both faint too. Zoe couldn’t help smiling a little, in spite of how sad she was. It was a shame that she and Ava weren’t ever speaking to each other again. Ava would have liked to imagine a huge pile of shocked, fainting grown-ups next to the dining-room door.
The silence went on and on.
Who would say something first? Not Zoe, that was for sure. Zoe was never, ever, ever going to speak to Ava again. No matter what happened. Never.
But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t try to get Ava talking. Just to see what would happen, Zoe stuck her tongue out at Ava.
It worked. Ava gasped. Lady Lovelypaws looked up from a huge puddle of cream. Then, at last, Ava broke the silence.
“Why are you being so mean?” cried Ava. “You really are the meanest girl in the whole world!”
“No. YOU are,” said Zoe. “You are supposed to be my best friend. You chose Rani instead and you broke the spell and hurt my feelings. You ruined everything.”
“YOU are the one who said we weren’t best friends any more!” said Ava. “YOU broke the spell and hurt MY feelings.”
The room seemed to darken at the mention of the spell. Zoe thought sadly about their lost necklaces. Maybe magic didn’t really exist after all.
There was a loud hiccup from their feet. Lady Lovelypaws had drunk too much cream.
Zoe had forgotten that she had been the first to say that Ava wasn’t her best friend. It did sound mean, now that she thought about it.
Suddenly, Ava slipped on a particularly gooey bit of apple. She went sliding under the Year Three table.
To prove to Ava that she wasn’t the meanest girl in the world, Zoe very, very kindly reached down to help Ava to her feet. But then Zoe slipped too, and ended up under the table next to Ava. They both laughed for a second before they remembered not to. They sat under the table together in not-so-terrible silence.
“Remember in Reception,” said Zoe at last, “when you fell out of your chair and your jacket potato fell on your head?” As soon as she said it, she worried that Ava might think it was mean to remind her about falling down.
“Yes,” said Ava. “And you sat down next to me and we had lunch on the floor. Then we were best friends.”
Zoe wondered if they were still best friends.
“You said you hated me,” said Zoe finally. “Yesterday.”
“So did you. And you ticked ‘Not Friends’ on Lottie’s note,” replied Ava.
“I’m sorry I ticked that box,” said Zoe. She meant it. “I was mad at you because you chose Rani as your best friend instead of me.”
Now that she wasn’t quite as angry as she had been, Zoe had a very scary question that she needed to ask Ava.
“Is Rani your best friend?” asked Zoe.
“No,” said Ava, and Zoe’s heart skipped a beat. “But I really like her. You would too, if you gave her a chance. You should have been nicer to her.”
Zoe thought about Rani ruining break time and stealing her best friend. She thought about how much she wanted things to go back to the way they had been before Rani had come to Crabtree School. But she realized that this wasn’t really about Rani. What Zoe really wanted to know was whether she and Ava were still best friends, whether they could forgive each other. But that was hard to talk about.
“OK,” was all Zoe said. “If you like Rani, I will be nice to her.”
“Good,” said Ava.
“But only because you are my best friend,” Zoe added quickly. She held her breath.
Ava nodded in agreement.
After that, there was no more explaining, or saying sorry, or pointing out whose fault it was. Sometimes best friends don’t need words. Besides, the crumble was going from gooey to sticky, and poor Lady Lovelypaws had drunk so much cream that she was turning green.
The two friends got back to the job at hand. Working side-by-side, they wiped and mopped and scrubbed. When they were finished, the lunch room shone.
It was as if the whole terrible thing had never happened. Almost.
It was still break time when Colonel Crunch dismissed Ava and Zoe into the playground.
Isabel, Lottie and Rani were in the corner near the slide with a few other Year Three girls. They were playing It, but they were all moving so slowly that it was hard to tell if they were really moving at all. They looked really, really silly. And they were all laughing. “Go, Go, Granny: Gotcha!” shouted Lottie as she tagged Rani in slow motion.
“Do you want to play?” Ava asked Zoe timidly.
“Yes,” said Zoe. “But could we play Mummies and Babies tomorrow?”
“Sure,” said Ava. “If you want to.”
They took off across the playground, as slowly as they possibly cou
ld. Rani looked surprised when she saw Zoe coming, and a little scared, but they soon got lost in the game. Remembering to be as slow as a turtle when you are trying to run away from someone takes a lot of brain power. There was no time to worry about anything else.
In the end, Go, Go, Grannies: Gotcha did turn out to be more fun than fun. Especially when Rani suggested that they combine it with Mummies and Babies. Now it was way more than just a slow version of It. In their new game, the baby had to crawl, the mummies and daddies could run normally, the lifeguard had to pretend to swim and of course the granny had to be slow. And every once in a while, Zoe would transform into a fox, like the one she’d seen on his way to the bus stop. If the fox was chasing you, you could run as fast as you wanted, even if you were a granny. When the fox appeared, cries of “Gotcha!” could be heard for miles around.
Zoe was more nervous than nervous. In just a minute, she was going to have to stand up and give a talk in front of all of the twenty-one girls in her class, plus Miss Moody, plus Mrs Peabody, who had come to watch the Year Three magnet presentations. That made twenty-three people, and twenty-three people made Zoe quite scared, she realized. She looked at Rani in front of her, and thought about how scary it must have been to stand up in front of twenty-three strangers on her first day. (Zoe was glad that they weren’t strangers any more. She’d even given Rani her pink Monday pencil, to make up for being unkind. Rani had given her a sparkly purple one in return.)
Ava’s magnet presentation was about her plan to use a giant magnet to trap Father Christmas by his metal belt when he came down the chimney. (Ava had refused to believe that this project wasn’t about Christmas.) Zoe, Isabel, Lottie and Rani had laughed so hard they cried.
Best Friends For Never Page 4
