How to Get the Friends You Want

by Jenny Alexander

  When you’ve written it down, you think about it and think about until ideas start to come. Then you try one idea and another and another, until you find one that works.

  So when I got home I found some paper and wrote it down:

  I want to be friends again with Toby, Jess and Becky, and I want to stop being part of Sasha’s set.

  Chapter 12

  Four Facts about Friends and Making Amends

  I slept with my wish list under my pillow and when I woke up in the morning I had some good ideas about what to do. That’s the magic of Mr Kaminski’s method.

  When it came to Becky, Toby and Jess, I had to say sorry and make amends. That’s what Mum told Primrose to do when she dumped Matt because someone showed her a pic of him giving another girl a hug, and it turned out she was his cousin. I wasn’t sure how to do the amends bit, but I could certainly start straight away with saying sorry.

  When it came to Sasha, Tammy and Abina, the best thing would be to ease myself out gradually, making excuses for not going round their houses until they stopped inviting me.

  But when I tried to say sorry to Jess and Toby they kept avoiding me, and when I finally caught up with them at break time, Jess cut me off in the middle of my sentence.

  ‘Shall I tell you Five Fascinating Facts about Friends? One – they stick together. Two – they aren’t embarrassed about each other...’

  I felt my face go hot. I didn’t think anyone else knew how I secretly felt about Toby’s shorts, Jess’s unusual ideas and Becky’s charity-shop clothes.

  ‘Three – they don’t let each other down. Four – if they do mess up, they’re sorry...’

  ‘But that’s what I’m trying to say,’ I butted in. ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘If you’re sorry it’s just because you aren’t in Sasha’s team any more and therefore you aren’t going to win.’

  She turned and walked off. I felt confused. She was normally so easy-going, but suddenly it was like she’d taken strop-lessons from Primrose.

  ‘She’s really upset,’ Toby said, with a shrug. He limped off after her. He wasn’t using the crutches any more, but it didn’t look as if his ankle was completely better.

  ‘That’s only four facts about friends!’ I called after them, but they didn’t even look back.

  So far, so bad, and things didn’t go any better with Sasha, Tammy and Abina. When I told them I couldn’t go to Tammy’s after school they thought I was upset because their new Chair, Olivia Wyre, was coming.

  ‘She’s only coming because we need to practise with her,’ Sasha said. ‘We’d much rather have you on our team.’

  ‘You can do it next year,’ Abina said. ‘One of us will stand down.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Tammy, ‘you’ve got to come this afternoon to help with Heavenly Honeybun. We’re going to get her used to being handled for the pet parade, and you’re the expert. We need you!’

  They wouldn’t take no for an answer, so we all went to Tammy’s after school, Sasha, Tammy, Abina, Olivia and me. Abina and I watched the others doing their Young Voices practice and we all said well done to Olivia and told her how good she was.

  After they had run through it several times, we went down to the bottom of the garden to see Heavenly Honeybun. We fed her some grass through the mesh on her door while Tammy put on the gardening gloves. As soon as Heavenly Honeybun saw them, she bolted into the bedroom end of her hutch and thumped her feet furiously on the wooden floor.

  Tammy very slowly opened the hutch. Heavenly Honeybun glared at her in a ‘just you dare’ kind of way. After one or two half-hearted tries it became clear that Tammy didn’t really dare, even in the thick leather gloves, so she stood back and looked at me.

  I put on the gloves and offered my hand low to the floor of the hutch so that Heavenly Honeybun could push her nose under it. She tried to bite me. One thing was for sure, she wasn’t at all like Dennis.

  I made a grab for her and lifted her, kicking and wriggling, out of the hutch. I sat down and put her on the shed floor beside me, keeping one hand over her face until she calmed down.

  Sasha, Tammy, Abina and Olivia were impressed. ‘How did you do that?’ they said. Tammy fetched Heavenly Honeybun’s brush and they took turns brushing her sides while I held her.

  ‘You’re so good with animals,’ said Abina. ‘I can’t wait for you to help me put Pookie through his paces.’

  I said I was really sorry but I wouldn’t be able to go to her house on Saturday.

  ‘My friend Becky from the kennels is running a stall for the RSPCA at the pet parade,’ I told them. ‘I promised her I’d help. She’s doing a tombola and stuff.’

  They seemed genuinely disappointed, but they said they understood. Sasha asked if Becky had plenty of prizes because if she didn’t she was sure her mum would donate something from the shop. Abina said she could get her parents to give something too, and Tammy went to ask her mum straight away.

  A few minutes later, she came back with a brand new bird-feeder.

  ‘Mum bought this yesterday but she says she can easily buy another one. She’s going to ask her friends to make a donation too. This is going to be the best tombola ever!’

  By the time I saw Becky on Saturday morning I had two big bags of prizes from Sasha, Tammy and Abina’s parents and their friends. That was some serious amends!

  But saying sorry was difficult because Becky seemed completely normal with me, as if she’d never overheard me saying that she wasn’t my friend. But I knew she had. I remembered the hurt look on her face.

  All morning, as we cleaned out the pens and walked the dogs, I was trying to find the right moment to tell her I was sorry for saying what I said, but there wasn’t really a chance.

  I went into the farmhouse to see Sam while Becky was finishing up. It was lovely being able to hang around longer and not be in a rush because of going to Abina’s. Sam seemed to think it didn’t matter too much about saying sorry. ‘She knows you didn’t mean it,’ he seemed to say.

  ‘I did mean it, though.’

  ‘All right then, she knows you were just being stupid.’

  Harsh but true, Sam.

  After lunch we laid all the prizes out on Becky’s kitchen table. It was completely crammed. Half of them were normal tombola prizes such as tins of peaches and supermarket showergel, but the rest were much too good for a tombola, where every 50p ticket wins. There were expensive glossy books and arty picture frames and vouchers for free facials at Beachside Beauty. There was a hamper from Healthy Ways and a gift box from the chocolate shop.

  We decided to split the prizes into two sections and run a raffle as well as a tombola.

  When we had organised everything for Becky’s stall we went to my house to do a practice with Dennis. I picked him up and put him on the table, like they do in the pet parade, and Becky pretended to be the judge.

  Dennis got a bit edgy when Becky stroked him and I thought he might bolt, so I rested my finger gently across his nose, and he settled again. I explained how he would sit still for hours, quite happily, as long as he had his nose underneath something. That was his rabbit nature.

  Becky took a penny out of her pocket.

  ‘Would it work with this?’

  I shrugged. I didn’t think so. Really I meant he liked to put his nose under a hand or foot, not have something light and small balancing on it.

  Becky gently placed the penny on Dennis’s nose. He sat completely still until she took it off again. I put him on the floor and gave him a bit of cream cracker. He munched it up and then licked up all the bits, getting crumbs all over his whiskers.

  ‘That is one happy bunny,’ said Becky. ‘He deserves to win first prize.’

  ‘Being happy won’t be enough against a beautiful pet like Heavenly Honeybun or one that’s clever and well-trained like Pookie,’ I said.

  ‘Well, it should be,’ said Becky.

  I had some pictures of pot-bellied pigs and Blue French Angora rabbits in my book of unu
sual pets so we went upstairs to look for it. First stop, the living room. Primrose’s duvet was still draped over the settee from her Saturday morning TV-fest and there was a snow-storm of tissues on the floor – she must have been watching something mushy.

  Next stop, my bedroom. The super-size mug Matt gave me with the photo of Sam on it had a crust of last night’s hot milk round the inside and my tiger bedspread was all crumpled up in the corner of my bed, with my wish list poking out from under it.

  I whisked it into my pocket and as I did so – more wish-magic – I suddenly knew how to break friends with Sasha, Tammy and Abina without upsetting them.

  As soon as Becky went, I phoned Sasha.

  ‘As I couldn’t come to Abina’s today,’ I said, ‘I was wondering if you would all like to come to my house tomorrow?’

  Chapter 13

  The Tick-list of Fear and the Normal Sunday

  When I wanted to be friends forever with Sasha, Tammy and Abina, there was a list of things I was scared might happen if they came to my house:

  1 Mum cooking anything except frozen pizza

  2 Dad saying something mad and meaning it

  3 Primrose being a drama queen

  4 The house looking as if an earthquake had hit it – which it mostly had, that earthquake being Primrose.

  If I still wanted to be friends and they were coming to my house, there was a list of actions I would have to take to try and stop these things from happening:

  1 Hide the vegetables

  2 Make sure Dad wasn’t around

  3 Make sure Matt was

  4 Do the housework myself – it’s no good waiting for Mum to do it because she’s always busy with the business, and Dad’s motto is ‘Nature abhors a vacuum cleaner’.

  Sasha, Tammy and Abina all had neat, tidy houses and non-embarrassing families. Even their pets were tidily outside. They were organised and calm; they probably never got in the kind of state I’d have been in if I still wanted to be friends and everything kicked off just before they were about to arrive. But I didn’t want to stay friends forever, so I let it wash over me.

  Sasha, Tammy and Abina were coming at two o’clock and we didn’t start lunch until half past one. As it happened, Mum had cooked frozen pizza, but she’d also boiled up a vat of sprouts to go with it, and even a handful of sprouts will make your house smell like something’s died in your drains.

  Dad had been holding out all week to talk to the agony aunts because he was fed up with his footie friends not having any people skills. They were still teasing him and calling him Daphne, but now they were also annoyed with him for dropping out of the five-a-side.

  However, when he did his conference call, the agony aunts kept laughing at him because they thought he was joking when he wasn’t.

  ‘They said honesty was the best policy when we were talking about Jeannie’s letter from Guilty of Gossington, who was wondering whether to tell his girlfriend he’d gone off her, but when we finished talking about the letters and Kay asked us if we liked her new hair colour...’

  ‘Oh, dear – you didn’t,’ sighed Mum.

  ‘Well, pardon me for having a point of view, but purple was bad enough – blue-black makes her look like a witch in a wig.’

  Primrose was texting under the table and refusing to eat her sprouts so Mum was getting wound up with her, but Primrose didn’t care. She was away with the love-fairies, all gooey-eyed, like she always is when she’s texting with Matt.

  ‘He says we should have a special celebration for our six-month anniversary,’ she said. ‘We’re going to wear the same clothes and go for a walk on the cliff path, just like the first time we went out.’

  That’s dating, Polgotherick-style.

  ‘Six months isn’t till after Christmas,’ said Mum.

  ‘You probably won’t even still be going out with him,’ said Dad.

  Primrose gave a strangled squeal and stood up, scraping her chair across the floor. She’s got super-sonic emotions; she can go from gooey-eyed to wild-eyed in under two seconds.

  ‘How could you say that?’

  She stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. We heard her footsteps stamping away up the stairs.

  ‘What?’ goes Dad. ‘It’s true!’

  ‘Just because something’s true, that doesn’t mean you have to say it,’ said Mum.

  Dad normally does the dishes on a Sunday but he got in a huff and said he was late for his match. He looked for his notepad and voice-recorder, muttering away to himself that at least you knew where you were with work and you also knew where you were with sport.

  ‘Someone scores a great goal, you tell it like it is. Someone plays like a hippo with a headache, you tell it like it is...’

  ‘Can you do the dishes then, Peony?’ said Mum.

  ‘Sorry, but not really – I’ve still got to clean out Dennis before my friends arrive.’

  I opened both the doors of his hutch and fetched a black bag and a brush. Dennis got all territorial. He crouched behind his food bowl ready to pounce.

  Mum gathered the dirty plates noisily and dumped them in the sink. She turned the taps on so hard the water sprayed all over the place like a fountain in a force nine gale.

  Right then, there was a rat-a-tat-tat on the front door. Dennis thumped hard with his back feet, making his hutch floor rattle like a drum. Dad was nearest the door, so he opened it, just in time for Sasha, Tammy and Abina to hear the ear-splitting scream that suddenly erupted from Primrose’s bedroom.

  Dennis thumped again. Primrose started to wail. I read in Amazing Animals of the World that a lion’s roar can carry up to five miles away, which sounds impressive until you hear what Primrose can do.

  Mum grabbed a tea-towel and disappeared up the stairs to try and stop her from waking up the Australians. The sudden movement spooked Dennis. He burst out of his hutch and shot round the room, making Sasha, Tammy and Abina spill back onto the doorstep.

  Dad said, ‘It was lovely meeting you, girls,’ as he edged past to go to his match. Then he remarked on what nice shoes they were wearing, looking back at me in a smug way as if to say, ‘See, I can do it if I want to!’

  I jumped up and got to the door just in time to stop Dennis from disappearing down the front steps. I scooped him up and ushered Sasha, Tammy and Abina back inside.

  We heard Mum’s voice upstairs saying something soothing and then Primrose screamed, ‘Go away, Mum! You aren’t helping!’ Mum didn’t go away, but went on trying to talk her down, which only made her wail again.

  ‘Do you mind if I finish cleaning out Dennis?’ I said to Sasha, Tammy and Abina.

  They sat round the half-cleared kitchen table, watching while I wrestled the old newspaper out of Dennis’s hutch and tried to sweep up the old hay, with him tugging at the brush. I didn’t do that nose-under-hand thing so I knew it would get messy.

  I managed to get the paper and hay into the black bag, and then Dennis abandoned ship and dived in after it, kicking around furiously in it, making bits fly back out.

  ‘He’s very lively,’ Sasha said, picking up a stray sprout and popping it back in the bowl.

  ‘He’s sweet,’ said Abina.

  Primrose yelled again and Dennis did one of his dashes. Tammy only just lifted her feet up in time.

  I lined Dennis’s hutch with fresh paper, put the hay in the bedroom end and gave him fresh food and water. He arrived back from his dash just as I finished, jumped up into his hutch, grabbed the food bowl in his teeth and tipped it over.

  ‘All done!’ I said, cheerfully. ‘Would you like to see round the house?’

  As we went up the first flight of stairs we could hear what Primrose and Mum were saying.

  ‘Happiness has made me fat!’ Primrose wailed.

  ‘But most of your clothes fit fine,’ Mum said.

  ‘He wants me to wear the dress I was wearing on The Day!’

  ‘He won’t care what you wear. What about this yellow one?’

 
; ‘Noooooooooooooo!’

  As we went up the second flight to Primrose and my bedrooms we saw clothes strewn over the landing and, looking in at her door, Mum sitting on the bed amongst a heap of clothes, trying to stay calm and reasonable.

  ‘Primrose darling, he loves you. Even if you have put on a little, teeny, tiny bit of weight...’

  ‘Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!’

  Mum mouthed, ‘Hello,’ to Sasha, Tammy and Abina – or she might have said it out loud, but we couldn’t hear her. We went into my bedroom and closed the door.

  ‘Wow – you really do like dogs!’ Tammy said.

  ‘And you’ve got so many books about animals,’ goes Sasha.

  We had a look through some of my books and they seemed really interested, especially when I showed them the sections on pot-bellied pigs and fancy rabbits in the one about unusual pets.

  The noise was quite loud in my bedroom and Primrose can keep it up for hours, so I suggested we went back downstairs. When I opened the door we were hit by a wall of sound as Primrose yelled, ‘He’s going to dump me – I know he is! I might as well finish with him now and get it over with!’

  We sat around trying to watch TV for a while, and then Mum came through on her way back down to the kitchen. She said Matt was coming over later.

  What she meant was that it would soon be over. Primrose would wash her face and put on some make-up, find a baggy sweater to hide in and melt into Matt’s arms.

  Mum didn’t stop to chat – you never feel like talking when you’ve been Primrosed. You feel like moving to the Antarctic and living with the seals.

  ‘Hmm...’ I said, when she had gone. ‘This might not be pretty.’

  ‘Are they going to have a big row, do you think?’ said Sasha. ‘Is she going to dump him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps it would be better if we weren’t here when he comes.’

  We played on the PlayStation after that, with the sound of Mum tidying up in the kitchen coming up from downstairs and Primrose flinging stuff around in her bedroom above.