by Various
“Clara, the secretary said there was someone in reception looking for you earlier,” she says. “An American boy. He said he’d come back after school. Are you expecting anyone?”
Alex! It has to be. What is he doing here? My stomach tenses but then I start to feel angry. This mess is all Miss Carmichael’s fault. This whole pen pal thing has been a disaster.
“You lied,” I say. “You said they were all girls.”
Miss Carmichael looks confused. “Sorry? Who?”
“You know, the pen pals? Mine is called Alex. And he’s a boy.”
She nods. “He’s a really nice boy, brilliant at English just like you, and a big reader.”
“You knew?”
She looks a bit sheepish. “I was talking to St Xavier’s English teacher and we thought you’d get on well. But what’s that got to do with the American boy?”
“Canadian. The boy in reception, I think it’s Alex.”
“What? What’s he doing here? And did you tell him everything, Clara? Because I think the secretary may have said something—”
Before she can finish, I’m sprinting out of the classroom, down the corridor and through the main door. I have to get out, get away from all this … from Alex and Miss Carmichael … from Nessa … even Mum. I just want to be alone. But there, standing with his back against the wall in reception, is Alex Goodman in the flesh. And what flesh! His Facebook photo doesn’t do him justice. He’s gorgeous, and the very last person I want to see.
I stand there, frozen to the spot, staring at him.
He walks towards me. “Clara? I recognize you from your Facebook photo. Clara?” he says again, his gaze gentle and concerned, not angry at all. In an instant I realize that Miss Carmichael was right; the secretary did say something to him. He knows.
“I just want to check you’re all right,” he continues. “Then I’ll leave you alone, I swear. Can you understand me?”
I nod. My eyes well up and I start to cry. My head is spinning. I can’t believe he’s being so nice. I kept the truth from him and then I shut him out of my life, just stopped writing, even though he sent several letters asking if I was all right, saying he was worried and begging me to write back to him. But I didn’t. I ignored him. You see, it felt so good to be normal that I wanted to freeze the two months when I was just Clara McCarthy, no one “special”.
Right now I feel completely mortified and humiliated. I drop my head and cover my face with my hands. I want to die. I want to dissolve in my tears and wash away. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my entire life. I have such a huge lump in my throat that I couldn’t speak to him even if I wanted to. Then I feel his hand on my shoulder. It’s gentle but firm. I lift my head and look at him.
He starts moving his hands. He’s using international sign language. Mum made me learn it a long time ago.
Please don’t cry, he signs. I want to help you. That’s what friends do.
You can sign? I sign back. I don’t understand. How?
Becca was deaf. It doesn’t matter to me that you are too, Clara. You’re still the same person. Is that why you stopped writing to me, because you thought I’d mind? I wouldn’t be much of a person if I minded, would I?
Finally I find my voice. “It’s not that,” I say. “I would have told you eventually. I was just enjoying being normal for a while.”
He gives a short laugh. “Normal? You’re too smart to be normal, Clara. You have no idea how talented you are. Your photos are something else. And that chapter you sent me was awesome, and I don’t even like angel books.”
I take a deep breath. “Plus you’re a boy,” I admit. “I thought I was writing to a girl, and when I found out the truth it freaked me out. I would never have said all that stuff to a boy.”
“A girl? Really?” He throws his head back and laughs heartily. “Well, as you can see, I’m not. I’m one hundred per cent male.” Then he lifts his eyebrows and smiles at me, a lovely lopsided warm smile, a smile full of promise. My heart practically somersaults out of my chest.
“Can we start again, Clara?” he asks.
I nod and give him a shy smile. “Hi, I’m Clara McCarthy,” I say, blushing furiously.
“Alex Goodman, good to meet you.” And then he leans towards me and kisses me softly on the cheek. My first kiss.
With thanks to Lorna McCormack from
Simply Signing for her invaluable help.
THE
AUTHORS
Katie Dale loves creating characters – both on the page and on-stage. She studied English literature at Sheffield University, followed by a crazy year at drama school, a summer with a national Shakespeare tour and eight months backpacking through South East Asia. Her debut YA novel, Someone Else’s Life, was a winner of Undiscovered Voices, and she is currently busy on a variety of projects, from novels to picture books, while still occasionally treading the boards as a princess, zombie or fairy when she has time!
Cathy Kelly is an internationally bestselling fiction writer. She lives in Ireland, is married to John, has twin sons called Murray and Dylan (who are ten) and three dogs (who are sisters) called the Puplets of Loveliness, or Dinky, Licky and Scamp. Cathy always wanted to be a writer and went to journalism college after school. She is now a full-time author. She loves reading, watching films, chocolate, lipstick and jeans. This is Cathy’s first story for younger readers but she’d like to write more.
Abby McDonald is the author of eight romantic comedy novels, including Getting Over Garrett Delaney and The Anti-Prom. Born and raised in Sussex, she recently left the rainy countryside for the blue skies and palm trees of LA. She is twenty-seven years old.
Monica McInerney is the award-winning author of ten bestselling novels for adults, many magazine and newspaper articles and lots of stories written especially for her eighteen nieces and nephews. She grew up in a family of seven children in a small country town in South Australia. For the past twenty-two years, Monica has moved back and forth between Australia and Ireland, her husband’s home country. They currently live in Dublin. Fortunately, she loves rainy weather.
Sinéad Moriarty is a bestselling author whose work has been published globally. Born and raised in Dublin, Sinéad was inspired by watching her mother, who is an author of children’s books, writing at the kitchen table and then being published. From that moment on, her childhood dream was to write a novel. Her first book was The Baby Trail. It was published by Penguin and has been translated into twenty-five languages. Her eighth novel, This Child of Mine, went straight in at number one in the Irish charts.
Joanna Nadin is the bestselling author of the Rachel Riley series for teens, the award-winning Penny Dreadful series for younger readers, and the acclaimed young adult novels Wonderland and Paradise. A former journalist and special adviser to the prime minister, Joanna also freelances as a speechwriter. She lives in Bath.
Adele Parks was a swotty, sometimes lonely kid who found books were her friends; she specialized in daydreaming and unsuitable crushes. The combination of these skills led her to publish her first novel, Playing Away. It was very rude and therefore, not unsurprisingly, very successful. She has since published twelve novels, all of which have been top-ten bestsellers. Her work has been translated into twenty-five languages. Adele lives in Guildford with her husband and son.
Madhvi Ramani grew up in London, where she studied literature and creative writing at university. She likes dark chocolate, blueberries and second-hand bookshops. She now lives in Berlin, where she spends her time drinking coffee, making stuff up and speaking terrible German. She’s currently working on her first novel for teenagers.
Dyan Sheldon is the author of many books for young people, including Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen; One or Two Things I Learned about Love; The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love; Tall, Thin and Blonde; and My Worst Best Friend. Dyan was born in Brooklyn and now lives in London.
Sarah Webb worked as a children’s bookseller for many years before becoming a full-time aut
hor. Writing is her dream job as she can travel, read books and magazines, watch TV and movies, and interrogate friends and family, all in the name of “research”. Sarah is the author of the much-loved Ask Amy Green series. She has also written ten adult novels and many books for younger children. She visits a school every Friday during term time and loves meeting young readers and writers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
This collection first published 2013 by Walker Books Ltd
87 Vauxhall Walk, London, SE11 5HJ
Anthology © 2013 Walker Books Ltd
“Star-Crossed” © 2013 Katie Dale
“Supercool” © 2013 Cathy Kelly
“Extracurriculars” © 2013 Abby McDonald
“My Embarrassing Mother” © 2013 Monica McInerney
“Lost in Translation” © 2013 Sinéad Moriarty
“The Movie Kiss” © 2013 Joanna Nadin
“All of a Sudden” © 2013 Adele Parks
“Dog Days” © 2013 Madhvi Ramani
“Just a Friend” © 2013 Dyan Sheldon
“My First Kiss” © 2013 Sarah Webb
Cover photograph © Jean Luc Morales / Getty Images
Typograpy © 2013 Walker Books Ltd
Chalk Effect Typography by Joel Holland
The moral rights of the contributors have been asserted
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-4063-4450-9 (ePub)
www.walker.co.uk
