Secret Meeting

by Jean Ure

  “I do, but not like that! That’s like begging.”

  “Well, it’s all right,” said Annie, “’cos she didn’t offer anyway. I thought she might have, ’cos I bet when books are published the authors get given loads of free copies, I mean like stacks and stacks, so it wouldn’t have hurt, but—”

  “It would’ve hurt me!” I said.

  Annie looked at me and shook her head. “You’re weird,” she said. “You know that? You’re really weird!”

  “Now she probably won’t ever want to talk to me!” I wailed. “She’ll think you were just trying to get a book out of her!”

  “No, she won’t,” said Annie. “I’ve got it all arranged.”

  “Got what all arranged?”

  Annie bounced upright, on the bed. She hugged her knees to her chest and grinned this big triumphant grin, almost splitting her face in two. “Your birthday present. I’m arranging it. Lori’s arranging it. With her mum.”

  “With Harriet?”

  Annie nodded, happily. “She’s really nice! Really friendly. Not a bit stuck up. She asked me if you’d ever met her mum, and I said no, but you would absolutely love to. I said if you could meet her it would be the most exciting thing that had ever happened to you – ’cos it would, wouldn’t it?” said Annie.

  I gulped. “Yes, it would!”

  “So Lori said, being as you’re such a huge great fan and you’re doing this project and everything, she’d ask her mum if it could be arranged. She’s almost sure her mum’ll say yes. So there you are!”

  Annie flung her legs in the air and exultantly rolled backwards on the bed. “You’re going to meet Harriet Chance!”

  “B-but … h-how?” I said.

  “What d’you mean, how?”

  “Well, I mean … she’s in London!”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “She used to be.”

  “So people move! We can get to her easy as anything on the bus. I didn’t give her your address,” said Annie, “’cos I know you’re not supposed to—”

  “She’s got it anyway,” I said. “I mean, Harriet has.” When I was ten I wrote her this creepy crawly fan letter, all decorated with hearts and flowers, and she wrote back, saying Love from Harriet, XXX, and I was so thrilled! I put the letter in a special frame and hung it on the wall. It’s still there, even now.

  “Yes, well, this is it,” said Annie. “I probably would have given it to her if she’d offered to send you a book, but all she did was just ask what part of the country we lived, and when I said Wiltshire she said was it anywhere near Salisbury, so I said yes, and she said in that case there was no problem. She’s going to ask her mum and see when to do it. It will be your birthday treat,” said Annie, all self-important. “A special present from me to you! You might try to look a bit happy about it.”

  I said, “I am happy! It would be the most brilliant birthday present I’ve ever had!”

  “So why are you looking worried?”

  “I’m just scared in case it doesn’t happen!”

  “It will happen. Lori’s promised.”

  “But why should someone important like Harriet want to see me?”

  “Because you’re her number-one fan! Because you’re doing this thing about her! Because it’s your birthday. I told you I was going to give you a really good present! You didn’t believe me, did you? You thought I was going to give you something stupid, like last year.”

  I bleated a protest. “I didn’t!” The reason I bleated was that I was in such a tremor my voice had gone. I’d swallowed my voice! “I didn’t,” I said, “honestly!”

  “Bet you did,” said Annie.

  “I did not. You always give me good presents!”

  “Not as good as this. I’m your fairy godmother!” Annie sprang off the bed and did a little twirl. “I’m the one that makes your dreams come true!”

  I thought that meeting Harriet really would be a dream come true. I’d read once where she’d visited a school to talk about her books, and I had just been so jealous of the people at that school. Annie couldn’t understand, as her dream would be to meet someone from her favourite band, which at that moment was Dead Freaks.

  I thought Dead Freaks were really creepy! But Annie had all their albums, just like I have all of Harriet’s books, so sometimes I would listen to Dead Freaks and sometimes Annie would read Harriet Chance. That is what friendship is all about, sharing each other’s interests even if you don’t really understand them.

  “When do you think we’ll know?” I said.

  “Soon as Lori’s spoken to Harriet. Tomorrow, maybe? I said it would be best if it was in the afternoon, ’cos then we could go while old Bossyboots is out, so she wouldn’t be able to stop us.”

  “How d’you know she’ll be out?”

  “’cos she’s got this thing about one of the boys in Savemore. Tyrone.” Annie pulled a face. “He’s really gross! But she’s got the hots for him. So she has to keep going there every day to check her friend Jem hasn’t pinched him. See, they’re stacking shelves and she’s stuck here babysitting, which is why she’s in such a tetch. But it means we can go and meet Harriet and she won’t know anything about it! Well, not until we get back, and she won’t be able to say anything ’cos she’s not meant to leave us on our own. And I don’t think, probably, that we ought to say anything, either. Not even to your mum, ’cos I know what you’re like.”

  I said, “What am I like?”

  “You tell her everything,” said Annie.

  “I don’t tell her everything.” I’d never told her about hiding in the stationery cupboard. I’d never told her about the birds’ nests.

  “Well, you’d better not tell her about this,” said Annie. “Not unless you want her coming with us! She’s already going to listen in on Saturday. You don’t want her sitting there while you talk to Harriet, do you?”

  I had to admit, I didn’t. I definitely didn’t! If I was going to meet Harriet I wanted it to be private. Just the two of us. Well, and Annie, of course. But I didn’t mind Annie. She’s my best friend and we don’t have any secrets. But it would be really offputting if Mum was there!

  “Let’s listen to music,” said Annie; and she snatched up this one CD that is my least, least favourite of Dead Freaks as it is quite scary, well I think it is, but Annie just loves it. She doesn’t usually play it when I am around, but this time she said that I “owed her”, and I couldn’t deny it, so we were sitting there listening when the door crashed open and it was Rachel, shouting at us to “Turn that music down! They’ll complain next door, and I’ll be the one that gets into trouble!” She then added that she was going out and would be back in a couple of hours and we were to just behave ourselves or else.

  “Else what?” said Annie.

  “Else you’ll be in deep ****!”

  The reason I have put **** is so as not to write what she actually said, as what she actually said was quite rude and I don’t think really she ought to have said it; but as she was in this strop on account of having to baby-sit for me and Annie instead of stacking shelves with Tyrone, I forgave her. The minute she’d gone, Annie turned the music up again.

  “Now we can have fun!” she said.

  I was in a state of jitters again next morning, desperate to get round to Annie’s and discover if she’d managed to speak to Lori again, but I did my best to contain myself as I didn’t want Mum growing suspicious, thinking I was up to something. The minute she dropped me off, we raced upstairs to Annie’s bedroom. I could see that Annie was bursting with news.

  I said, “Well? Did you speak to her?”

  Annie’s face broke into a big beam. “Yes! It’s all arranged. We’re going to have tea with her!”

  I said, “Tea … ” I could hear my voice, all hushed and breathy, like it was going to be tea with the Queen. Only this was far more exciting! I wouldn’t have anything very much to say to the Queen. I’d got simply loads to say to Harriet!

  “We’re going o
n Thursday,” said Annie. “I thought Friday would have been better, ’cos of being nearer to your birthday, but Lori said her mum couldn’t manage Friday. And I said we couldn’t manage Saturday ’cos of your birthday party, so she said what about Thursday, and I said Thursday would be OK, so—”

  “Thursday is good!” I said. “Mum has to work late on Thursday!”

  “Anyway, we’ll be back ages before then,” said Annie. “It’s only tea. What we’ve got to do, she said, is get a bus to Brafferton Bridge—”

  “We go through there on the way to visit Gran!” I knew exactly which bus, and where to catch it: a number six, at the back of Market Square. “Is Brafferton Bridge where she lives?” I said, thinking that I would have to change the first bit of my biography.

  “Near Brafferton Bridge. She said her mum will meet us and take us back. Lori won’t be able to come ’cos she’s already doing something else, but—”

  “That’s all right.”

  I didn’t care about Lori; Harriet was the one I cared about. In fact I thought I might be a bit shy if Lori were there, so I was quite glad she wasn’t going to be.

  “She said maybe we could meet another time,” said Annie. “She sounds really nice! Oh, and it’s got to be kept a secret. She said her mum doesn’t usually meet her fans ’cos if she met all the people that read her books she’d never have time for writing.”

  “Yes.” I nodded. I’d read that somewhere, in one of the interviews that Harriet had given. She had said that she was a very private person. She loved to hear from her readers, and she always, always wrote back; but she didn’t very often make public appearances. I could understand that! That is probably how I would be, if I were a famous writer.

  “So we’ve not got to tell anybody,” said Annie. “In case it gets back to people and they all want to come.”

  “Absolutely!” I said. This was my treat. I could think of several girls in our class who would be really envious … but I certainly didn’t want them intruding on my birthday present!

  “I said what we’d do,” said Annie, “we’d look up the times of buses so I could tell Lori which one we were getting so Harriet doesn’t have to be kept waiting.”

  I was ever so impressed! Annie isn’t normally what I would call an efficient sort of person. Mrs Glover at school once told her she was “slapdash”. But because this was my birthday present, and she did so much want me to enjoy it, she was making this huge great effort. She even knew how to look up bus timetables on the Internet!

  “See, look? There’s one that gets to Brafferton Bridge at ten past two. I’ll tell her that one. Then you talk as much as you like, all about books, you could even do an interview, then we can have tea and come back home and nobody will ever know! Now you’re looking worried again. What’s the matter now?”

  “How are we going to recognise her?” I said.

  “Who, Harriet?”

  “There aren’t any photos!”

  I’d searched and searched, but being such a private person she obviously didn’t like having her photograph taken. (I agree! I don’t, either.) All these other old ugly authors had their pictures all over the place – well, they weren’t all old and ugly, but they weren’t very beautiful, either, which I suppose oughtn’t to matter as it is their books you are interested in, and not their faces, and even if Harriet turned out to be old and ugly I would still be her number one fan! But the only photographs I had been able to find were taken when she was young. I knew it was when she was young as she was holding Lori, and Lori was just a baby. Harriet had looked really pretty, then, with a nice little round squashy face and dark hair, with a fringe. I did hope she still looked like that! But I knew it was a long time ago, almost fifteen years. People could change a whole lot in fifteen years. I mean, anyone who had last seen me when I was, say, two, certainly wouldn’t recognise me as I am now. So I thought probably she was bound to look a little bit different.

  “We don’t want to get in a car with the wrong person!” I said.

  Annie rolled her eyes. “You are such a worrygut! Maybe she could hold a copy of one of her books? Or d’you think there might be hundreds of people waiting at Brafferton Bridge holding copies of books?”

  I giggled at that.

  “I’ll ask Lori,” said Annie. “Just leave it to me. And stop FUSSING!”

  RACHEL’S DIARY (THURSDAY)

  My sister is a brat. An obnoxious, odious, beastly little BRAT. She was playing music really loud this morning. So loud the floors were practically shaking. I told her to turn it down, but the minute I left the house she went and turned it back up again. I could hear it thumping and banging all the way down the road. Next Door’s going to create, I just know they are. Then Mum’ll say, “Rachel, how could you let her annoy the neighbours like that? You KNOW what Mrs Hawthorn’s like about noise!”

  And it will stand there looking all simpering and saintly, and pulling faces at me behind Mum’s back. It knows I can’t say anything. If I complain about it not doing what it’s told, it’ll go and tell Mum about me going off to meet Ty instead of staying here and playing nursemaid. It’s blackmail!

  Well, and what do I care? Seeing Ty is the only thing I care about.

  He’s asked me to go to a party with him on Saturday!!! I bet he never would have if it weren’t for me going in every day and sitting there right under his nose. He probably wouldn’t ever have noticed me! You have to work at these things, they don’t happen by themselves. Well, sometimes they do, if you’re lucky, but mostly I think you have to make a bit of an effort, specially if it’s someone like Ty that could have the pick of the bunch. He’s so gorgeous! He used to go out with Marsha Williams, but he doesn’t any more so it’s not like I’m stealing him. He was up for grabs! I wouldn’t have made a play for him if he’d still been going with Marsha. At least, I don’t think I would. But then again, I might have! All’s fair in love and war, and Marsha is a total dimbo anyway. She may have the boobs but she certainly hasn’t got the brains. She doesn’t deserve a boy like Ty.

  The brat and its friend are downstairs now, hatching plots. I know they’re hatching plots because whenever I come into the room they immediately stop talking and look guilty. MEGAN looks guilty. Annie looks furtive. When I ask what’s going on, Megan turns bright pink and Annie says, “Nothing. Why?” I say, “Because your eyes have suddenly bunched up and gone all shifty.” So then she crosses her eyes and sticks out her tongue, and I tell her she ought to have a bit more respect for those in authority – i.e. me – to which she retorts that I am not in the police force YET. I snap, “Service!” and flounce from the room; whereupon they both start giggling.

  They just don’t seem to teach kids any manners these days. I’m sure when I was that age I wouldn’t have cheeked my older sister like Annie cheeks me. If I’d had an older sister. If I had, I’d have paid attention and done what she told me. I would have taken the opportunity to LEARN. This one just doesn’t care. Well, and neither do I! Let them get on with it.

  Thursday came – the day of my birthday treat! I was so excited, but a bit nervous, as well. I had been Harriet’s number-one fan for so long! Ever since I was eight years old, and read Candyfloss. I just loved that book! I read it so many times that in the end it fell to pieces and Mum had to buy me another one. Now I was actually going to meet the person who had written it!

  I couldn’t make up my mind what to wear. I don’t have all that many clothes in my wardrobe, and I am not one of those hugely fashion-conscious people, like this girl at school, Rozalie Dunkin, who is trendy as can be and always dressed in the latest gear, which Mum won’t let me have. Or at least, not very often. She either says it’s cheap and tacky, or she says it’s not suitable. Meaning that she doesn’t approve of eleven-year-olds dressing up like they’re eighteen. She really is very old-fashioned, my mum. It doesn’t usually bother me as I don’t specially want to go round pretending to be eighteen, and am probably a little bit old-fashioned myself. Annie sometimes says I a
m. But I did want to look nice for Harriet!

  I dithered for ages, trying to decide. Most of the stuff in my wardrobe is stuff that Rozalie Dunkin wouldn’t be seen dead in. But I had to wear something! Mum was calling to me from the kitchen: “Megan, your breakfast is ready! What are you doing?”

  I stuck my head out of the door and yelled, “Getting dressed!”

  “Well, just be quick! I haven’t got all day.”

  Now it was Mum agitating to go, and me holding things up. I stopped dithering, grabbed a top which was not new but which I just happen to love – it is blue, with little bunched sleeves, and ties round the middle – and my best pair of jeans, which were new. So new I hadn’t yet worn them! They had beautiful embroidered bits round the bottom, bright reds and greens, all curling and swirling. I thought maybe they were the one thing I owned that Rozalie Dunkin might not mind being seen dead in. I didn’t have any trendy sort of shoes, so I just put on my trainers, which she definitely would not have been seen dead in! They were quite old and tatty, but I hoped that Harriet wouldn’t notice.

  Mum did! Well, she noticed the jeans.

  “You’re wearing your new trousers!” she said. “I thought you were keeping those for the party?”

  “I’ll probably wear a dress for the party,” I said. “I might get a bit hot in these.”

  “You’ll get a bit hot in them today! It’s going to be well over 20 degrees. If I were you, I’d go and put some shorts on.”

  I couldn’t go to tea with Harriet wearing shorts. I had this sudden great urge to tell Mum what I was doing, but I knew that I couldn’t. Mum is such a worrier! She might even tell me that I wasn’t to go. In any case, I had promised Annie not to say anything, and I couldn’t break my promise. Not when it was her birthday present to me, and she had worked so hard at it.

  “Well, it’s up to you,” said Mum. “Wear what you like, I don’t have time to argue! Now, I’ll be picking you up at 6.30 tonight, OK? So you’ll be having tea with Annie.”