Oops, I Lost My Best(est) Friends

by Karen McCombie

  Dylan's sorry, sad secret

  There had been an explosion of gerbils. kind of explosion; a ‘population explosion’, that's what Mum called it.

  Basically, that meant that loads of gerbils had been handed in to the Paws For Thought Animal Rescue Centre where she

  worked, and they'd all had heaps of babies.

  There'd been so many litters of gerbils born that they'd run out of space to keep them all. Which was why we had a cage full of gerbils plonked on our kitchen worktop right now.

  “How many babies are there, Mrs Kidd?” asked my bestest friend Soph.

  “Six in this litter,” Mum replied.

  “How old are they?” asked Fee, peering at the snuffly, pink blobs in the straw.

  Fee is my other bestest friend. Soph and Fee came round after school today to work on the poems our teacher asked us to write. Instead, we were staring at the newest foster pets in our house.

  'Cause of Mum's job, we often have foster pets here, and some of them end up becoming PROPER pets, like Dibbles the not-very-pretty-but-totally- adorable dog did not so long ago.

  “They're only a few hours old,” I told Fee. “They were born this morning, weren't they, Mum?”

  “Yes, Indie, that's right. Oh dear … it is worrying,” Mum sighed.

  “Why's it worrying?” asked Dylan.

  Dylan is my stepbrother. He hadn't come round to write poems; he'd come round to hang out with Dibbles and our other dogs, Kenneth (the Scottie) and George (the greyhound), since he's not allowed pets at his house.

  “Well, Dylan, it's worrying because it's going to be very hard to find homes for all these little guys!” Mum said.

  Mum was so caught up in worrying that she'd totally forgotten she'd scrunched her hair into a (sort of) bun and (sort of) fixed it in place with a pencil – a pencil with a green-haired, rubber gonk on the end.

  “Right, I must make a note of the gerbils' feeding rota!” she mumbled, heading out of the kitchen. “Now, where did I leave my pencil…?”

  “Oooh, Indie – those babies are just the cutest thing!” cooed Soph, once Mum had left the room.

  “Yes, I know,” I said, thinking that Soph was so close to the cage that her breath must have felt like a warm breeze to the gerbil babies.

  “Urgh! Are you kidding?” Fee laughed. “They look like slugs with noses!”

  “Oh, yeah, Fee? Well, you look more like a slug with a nose than they do!” Soph burst out.

  “I do not!”

  “Yes, you do!” Soph insisted with a big

  cheeky grin. “Then again … you look more like a slug in a wig!”

  Fee did a big gasp then, pretending to be hurt, though she wasn't really.

  “If I look like a slug in a wig, Sophie Musyoka, then you look like a … a … a daddy long legs in a hoodie!”

  Now that they'd both started to get silly, I wasn't sure what they'd come up with next – something dumb about me being like a bluebottle with bunches, maybe?

  But then a car horn went HONK! outside, waking our cat Smudge up from her snoozles for a whole nanosecond.

  “That'll be my dad,” said Soph, as Smudge's eyelids started drooping and she carried on with her snooozles in the laundry basket. “Want a lift, Fee?”

  “Def'nitely,” said Fee, handing Soph's school bag to her.

  And with a wave and a wiggle of fingers, they were both gone.

  “Indie, is it hygenic to have those gerbils in the kitchen?” asked Dylan all of a sudden, his eyes fixed on the cage.

  Trust Dylan to think about stuff that no other boy of nine would think about. Other boys of nine might want to know when the baby gerbils would open their eyes, or what baby-gerbil poo looks like, or if it would be all right to feed them Quavers, but not Dylan.

  “Course it's hygenic – this bit of the kitchen isn't where we cook or anything!” I said, while I quickly elbowed a plate of half-finished toast under a newspaper.

  “How come they do that thing?”

  “How come who do what thing?” I asked, thrown by Dylan's new direction in our conversation.

  “Soph and Fee. How can they be horrible to each other, when they're supposed to be friends?”

  “But that's what friends do, isn't it?” I said with a shrug, scratching Dibbles' head as he nuzzled up and started licking my knee (he's a dog of very little brain). “Friends can just have a laugh and tease each other. It doesn't mean anything! Don't you do that with your bestest friends?”

  “I don't really have any bestest friends.”

  When Dylan said that, I felt as stunned as if Dibbles had dropped a certificate in my lap, showing he was a qualified helicopter pilot.

  “But what about at school, Dylan – you've got to have friends at school!”

  “Not really. I mean, I talk to people and stuff, but I don't have bestest friends – not like you and Soph and Fee.”

  Urgh, that made me feel sorry and sad and kind of around the edges. “Can you show me how to get friends, Indie?” Double URGH – I felt as as a blackcurrant jelly now! “Of course I'll help you get some friends!”

  Suddenly, I wanted to give Dylan a hug, but

  He's not a hugging kind of boy.

  But huggable or not, I knew I'd do everything I could to help my ace little (step) brother get a friend.

  “It's not a proper word, y'know, Indie.”

  “Huh? What isn't?”

  “‘Bestest’,” said Dylan, blinking wideeyed at me. “You're just meant to say ‘best friend’, 'cause ‘bestest’ isn't a proper word.”

  Sigh.

  Sometimes, Dylan could be hard work.

  But whatever, I guess I was still determined to help him get himself a best(est) friend.

  Even if he drove me mad while I was doing it.

  The best-friend poem

  So how could I help Dylan get some friends?

  Well, I couldn't do anything to help right now, because I was in class. It was Friday, and the last day before we broke up for a week's holiday. Our teacher, Miss Levy, looked tired, as if she was really looking forward to the holiday. Or maybe she was just tired of hearing our rubbish poems.

  Like the rubbish poem Georgia Jones was reading out right now…

  “It's called ‘Sausages’. It goes,

  Only I don't really have rice, Miss Levy – I just needed rice to rhyme!”

  “Thank you, Georgia, that was very … interesting” said Miss Levy.

  Lying is not really a good thing to do, but Miss Levy was lying when she said that Georgia's poem was interesting. Then again, I guess it would have sounded mean to be honest and say it was a bit boring.

  Miss Levy had asked us all to write about things that were important to us, but I think she was regretting it now. That's because so far …

  8 boys had written about football.

  6 girls had written about their cats (and all rhymed ‘PURR’ with ‘FUR’).

  4 boys had written about their PlayStation 2 or Xbox and

  3 girls had written about shopping.

  Apart from being about lots of the same things (and sausages), none of the poems was very funny or sad or clever, which is what poems are supposed to be, I guess.

  At least my best(est) friends had tried to do something different. Fee's was about her hair (Miss Levy said it was very “positive”), and Soph's was about her dance class (“I like the rhythm of it,” said Miss Levy, “but it is on the short side, Sophie!”).

  “It's your turn next!” Soph whispered, nudging me on the elbow so that the pencil I was holding went skedaddling across my poem.

  “Yeah!” whispered Fee from the other side of me. “And your cat poem is much better than any of t
he others.”

  I don't mean to sound like a bigheaded, IM-SO-FAB show-off, but my cat poem was better than the others. For a start, I hadn't used the words ‘PURR’ or ‘FUR’, never mind rhymed them. And instead of just going on and on about how cute my cat was (like everyone else had done), I'd written about how hard it was to tell the difference between Smudge and a cushion, but that I still loved her.

  “Er… I'm not going to read that one out,” I mumbled, turning my scrawled-on page over to a newer, neatly-written-on page.

  “Are you feeling shy 'cause you're last to stand up and read?” Fee whispered some more.

  “Or is it 'cause all the other cat poems are rotten and you don't want to show them up?” asked Soph, forgetting to whisper.

  For that, Soph got a wide-eyed, warning look from Miss Levy, while I got dirty looks from the six girls who'd written about their moggies.

  “Come on then, Indie!” Miss Levy said directly to me. “Let's hear what's important to you!”

  “OK,” I said in a small nervous squeak, kind of 'cause I still felt bad for the cat fans, and kind of 'cause everyone was looking at me.

  For a second I wished I was a pupil at Harry Potter's school and could magic myself invisible so everyone would stop staring. But I didn't go to Hogwarts; I went to West Green Primary School for ordinary, non-magical children and I just had to get on with it, since everyone else had done it already.

  “It's called I began, in as brave a voice as I could manage (which probably sounded as brave as a kitten mewing).

  “Sounds good!” Miss Levy smiled encouragingly, probably very relieved that my poem wasn't about football, shopping or PlayStations. “Right. It goes like this…”

  “Indie, that was lovely! Thank you!” said Miss Levy, beaming at me. I had no idea if the rest of the class thought my poem was lovely or what, 'cause the end-of-school bell chose that second to go and the whole classroom turned into a blur of girls and boys rushing out to start their holiday straight away.

  “See you in a week's time!” I heard Miss Levy call out above the screeching of chairs and yakking of kids.

  Meanwhile, I felt a hand slip under each elbow.

  “How come you ended up writing a different poem?” asked Fee, thinking back to our scribbles yesterday, before we got distracted by the gerbil explosion.

  “Whatever,” shrugged Soph, before I got a chance to answer Fee's question. “But that stuff about not having a best friend … well, you'll always have us, Indie!”

  I was confused for a second, till it dawned on me that Soph thought the poem was about her and Fee.

  “But I didn't mean… I mean, it's not about you two – it's about Dylan!”

  Soph and Fee looked kind of hurt when I said that.

  “I wrote it last night,” I tried to explain, “after Dylan told me he didn't have any proper friends!”

  “Oh, that's a shame!” said Fee, with a frown. “WOW – it's really sweet of you to write a poem about him.”

  “Yeah…” Soph agreed. “Well, I know you feel sorry for Dylan, but don't forget, Indie, me and Fee are your bestest friends in the whole wide world!”

  “Dylan says ‘bestest’ isn't a proper word,” I mumbled, remembering what he'd told me yesterday.

  “Well, it isn't, but we just say it 'cause it's our own, special madeup word, don't we?”

  That was Fee, looking a bit hurt.

  Again.

  “Never mind about swot-boy Dylan,” said Soph, sounding kind of annoyed. “Us three are bestest friends – cross our hearts and hope to die!”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die!” I repeated, same as the other two.

  Though my head was too full of Dylan for me to remember to actually cross my heart.

  Which is maybe why everything went and weird between me and my best(est)friends by the end of the week…

  The Verr IMPORTANT Project

  Me, Soph and Fee usually spent Saturday mornings round one another's houses, watching cartoons, bands and silly stuff on TV.

  This morning, it was Fee's turn, so she'd have piled all the cushions from the sofa and chairs on the floor, ready for us all (and her cat Garfield) to splodge out on.

  But this particular morning, I wouldn't be doing any splodging. This particular morning, I'd phoned Fee and said I couldn't come.

  “Why not?”

  “'Cause,” I told her, “I have to meet a VIP!”

  “A Very Important Person? Like someone dead famous you mean?”

  I could imagine Fee's arched, gingery eyebrows frowning as she spoke. I realized I'd made it sound way too exciting and mysterious – she probably thought Madonna was coming round to our house to pick out a couple of gerbils to take home with her as pets.

  “No – I mean, a Very Important Project!”

  That's what I'd decided when I'd been lying in bed last night – everyone needs something interesting to do during the holidays, and I'd made up my mind that making Dylan more friendfriendly would be my Very Important Project for the week. I had absolutely no idea how I could do that, but I reckoned I'd have till Sunday – when I went over (as usual) to visit my dad, my step-mum Fiona and Dylan – to work something out.

  And then Dylan had changed my plans by phoning me first thing this morning.

  OK, he didn't so much phone me as photo-message me.

  Caitlin our lodger – who looks after me when Mum's working – had just made us both singed sausages and burnt beans for breakfast when I heard my mobile go

  And there on the display was a picture of Dylan in his room, holding up a piece of paper that read,

  Well, of course he was bored – he didn't have a best friend to hang out with during the holidays.

  So I texted him back, asking if he wanted to come round and help me walk the dogs in the park.

  He wrote back and said, Don't u mean they'll walk US in the park?!, which was pretty funny, and true.

  So half an hour later, instead of eating cheese on toast on Fee's cushions, I was in the park with Dibbles (dopey dog), George (skinny dog), Kenneth (dog that thinks it's a cat) and Dylan (human – I think).

  “She was a bit freaked.”

  “Who was a bit freaked about what?”

  Honestly, having a conversation with Dylan was seriously complicated. It was like being in a maze heading for the middle and then finding yourself on a path taking you back to the beginning again.

  No wonder he didn't have a zillion people fighting to be his best friend. And it wasn't just the fact that he could be hard work to chat to, it was also the clothes he wore. I mean, those terrible red trousers he had on, and that yellow T-shirt with the teddy bear logo on it… I know Dylan is kind of small for his age, but there's no excuse for dressing like a five-year-old.

  'Course I knew who was choosing his clothes for him: Fiona. And much as I liked my step-mum, I didn't like the way she tried to wrap Dylan up in a mountain of cotton wool, as if the bogey man or every germ in the world would get him if she didn't look out for him every second of the day.

  “My mum,” Dylan interrupted my thoughts, “She was pretty freaked out about me coming to the park on my own today.”

  I might have known.

  “But you're not on your own!” I blurted out. “You're with me, and three dogs, and about … about fifty other people!”

  The fifty other people included parents cooing over wailing, dribbly babies in pushchairs, parents shouting at toddlers who were hitting other toddlers, bunches of girls sitting chatting on benches, and groups of boys or older blokes enthusiastically playing games of football.

  “Yeah, that's what

  Mike – I mean your dad – told her,” said Dylan, picking up a stick and chucking it so the dogs could chase it (George and Kenneth bolted after it, but Dibbles was too dense to notice and went to sniff an empty crisp packet instead.)

  Poor Dylan.

  Y'know, it's every mum's job to worry, but Fiona really was an expert worrier – as well as being an expe
rt tidier and an expert cook.

  My mum, on the other hand, was pretty and sweet and ditzy and forgetful and smelled of hamster bedding a lot of the time. And when I say forgetful, I mean she sometimes forgot stuff like mealtimes 'cause she was so caught up in the animals she looked after. But me and our lodger Caitlin and the microwave managed fine, if she was in one of her disorganized moods. And Mum was maybe forgetful, but she always looked out for me and taught me the important stuff like being safe. In fact, she'd once scribbled me a Safe Stuff list and it was pinned to the fridge (and to the inside of my brain).

  It said …

  I was just about to tell Dylan about the Safe Stuff list when—

  “So how can I get friends?”

  He was off again, darting in a different direction (as usual).

  “Well …” I said thoughtfully (trying to hide the fact that I hadn't worked out a proper plan to help him yet), “… if you could choose, what would your best friend be like?”

  “Like one of them,” said Dylan, pointing shyly ahead.

  I looked past the three dogs in front of us (two of them twirling round in a pointlessly happy way, and one pooing) and realized that Dylan was pointing at some lads kicking a football around.

  The lads looked about nine or ten, and had on football shirts and cool, long-ish sk8tr-boi shorts. As they ran around, calling out to each other in a chilled-out way, you could tell they probably all had favourite bands and favourite football players and favourite styles of skateboard. Meanwhile, Dylan probably had a favourite fossil, a favourite type of sum and a favourite pair of Spider-Man pyjamas.

  And there wasn't anything wrong with fossils and sums and Spider-Man pyjamas … unless you wanted to fit in with boys as cool as that lot.

  “That's Matt and Zane and Rez and some other guys from my school!” said Dylan enthusiastically. “They don't really talk to me, but I'd really, really like to be friends with them!”