Friends Forever!

by Grace Dent

  so anyway

  Back at the Fantastic Voyage, our welcome-home party is in full swing far before Fleur, Claude and I even get off the train. Our parents don’t need much excuse for a knees-up at the best of times.

  As I walk into the pub, the first person I spot is my mum, standing behind the bar, looking rather more robust than the last time I saw her. She’s wearing red lipstick and yelling abuse at my dad about not taking out the trash quickly enough, while the customers duck for cover. It feels like normal services post-Nan are being resumed. I give Mum a huge hug, which feels marvelous. Absence really does makes the heart grow fonder. In fact, it’s a full twenty minutes before she finds a comb and starts trying to detangle my “surf-chick” hair, claiming my bunches are “a haven to fleas.” Charming.

  There seem to have been a few changes at the pub while I’ve been away gallivanting. Above the bar, on the blackboard, I notice all sorts of Thai and Malaysian dishes I’ve never seen before on the pub food menu. Over in the corner, Toothless Bert is slurping a kare lomen noodle dish with a look of contentment. And at the bottom of the blackboard, written under “Puddings,” Mum has scribbled:Fresh homemade scones, served Thunder

  and Lightning style, 2 for £1

  “They’re selling like hotcakes,” Mum says. “Pardon the pun.”

  I think of Nan and smile. She’d have been totally proud of both of us.

  Just then Dad appears with my little brother, Seth, who must have grown at least three inches since I last saw him.

  “Beeeeaaaaaaaablllll!” squeals Seth when he spots me.

  “He says hello,” explains Dad, giving me a huge kiss. “Hey, and nice booty-quaking yesterday, Ronnie!”

  “Oh well . . . y’know,” I blush as Seth flaps around in Dad’s arms demanding to be put down. Once placed upon the floor, he stumbles about ten steps before smashing headfirst into Gloria Cassiera’s handbag. Gloria scoops him up, dusts him down and passes him back to me.

  “Ronnie,” she says quietly, “I don’t know how to even begin to thank you.”

  “Aw . . . don’t worry about it,” I blush.

  It’s worth every penny to see her and Claude sitting there together in the pub looking so happy.

  “Loz!” Paddy Swan shouts across at my dad. “Let’s make a night of this! Shall we get the karaoke going later? I’ll do my Rat Pack medley.”

  “Not tonight, Paddy, please,” sighs Saskia, Fleur’s mum.

  “Good idea, Paddy,” agrees Dad. “And I’ll do my Marvin Gaye!”

  It feels great to be home. Among all the people who know and understand you.

  “I’m so happy you saved me from Mossington School,” sighs Claude as the LBD sit around a pub table nattering about all the super-cool things we’re going to do in Year 12. Excitingly, Fleur turns seventeen next month and Paddy has just hinted that he has his eye on an old Mini for her to pass her driving test in.

  “The bambino buggy!” says Fleur. “We should spray it pink!”

  “Hey, we can drive down to It’s a Girl’s World at Emerald Park Shopping City,” says Claude. “Together, this time, that is.”

  Fleur groans in embarrassment.

  “Hey, sorry to break up the party, girls,” says Dad, “but I’ve just had a weird phone call from a Mr. McGraw.”

  “Mr. McGraw, our headmaster?” I ask.

  “Yeah, sounded like him. Sounded a bit, y’know, depressed,” Dad grins. “He said he’d heard through the grapevine that you were all back home after your summer job. He was waffling on about his poodles. Have you girls made some sort of arrangement?”

  “Oh . . . oh no,” grimaces Fleur, hanging on to the pub table.

  “So anyway,” continues Dad, “the message is ‘Anytime early evening tonight is fine.’ Oooh yeah, and he’s bought special shampoo.”

  By this point Claude and I are in hysterics.

  “Noooo!” pleads Fleur. “Not tonight. Not any night! Let’s pretend we’re not here. Let’s say we’ve been abducted . . . by aliens?”

  “Fleur Swan, a deal is a deal,” laughs Claude. “Let’s go over and do it now. We can be back in time for karaoke. Pull yourself together, Blondie!”

  “Bleeeeeugh,” retches Fleur, just thinking about the task. “Oh God. Oh . . . okay then. But just promise me something—I’m just in charge of the front ends. Teeth and ears. Not the bums. Not the poo-encrusted bums!”

  Claude and I are laughing so hard now, we can hardly speak.

  “Anything but that!” Fleur pleads, walking very slowly toward the door. “Girls, say you’ll do those bits, pleeeease?”

  “Okay, Fleur,” I laugh as we both link her arms and pull her along.

  “After all,” chuckles Claude, “what are friends for?”