Plus, it looked like Rita was doing most of the talking. She was probably going on about every detail of every boy in her favourite boy band. Once, last term, Penelope had (only one single time) called the lead singer Hugo instead of Harry, and Rita had made fun of her in front of everyone. Rita still sometimes brought it up. It made Penelope’s face burn.
Penelope would absolutely die if that happened in front of Brittany O’Brien.
She could wait outside the classroom so she would be the first in line when Ms Pike came, like she did most mornings. But that probably wouldn’t look so great to Brittany O’Brien either.
Oscar circled her again, so Penelope decided to concentrate on doing her best defence.
Penelope bit her lip. Class had started seven minutes ago. Ms Pike had finished the roll call, and still there was no sign of Brittany O’Brien. Penelope squashed down a terrible feeling. What if Brittany had changed her mind about coming to Chelsea Primary?
She glanced around the classroom. Alison was leaning over the table she shared with Eliza, doodling something on Eliza’s notebook. Eliza covered her mouth to hide a giggle. Rita Azul was whispering something in Tilly’s ear (which was always worrying). Underneath the table, Joanna (the naughtiest girl in the class) was tying her own shoelaces to Sarah’s. Normally, Penelope would do something to stop her. In fact, she suspected that was why Ms Pike had put Joanna on Penelope’s table – to teach Joanna how to behave better. But at that moment, with no Brittany O’Brien, she didn’t have the heart.
Penelope got out her English work and put her head down. She was decorating the heading with some very careful and complicated colouring in when she heard a breathless voice.
‘Sorry I’m late, Miss! No joke, my dad got lost about twenty times. It was crazy!’
Penelope looked up. So did the rest of the class. A couple of kids laughed.
Penelope did not gasp. It would not be polite to gasp at her new best friend. Still, seeing Brittany O’Brien was a bit of a shock.
It wasn’t her height that was a shock. Brittany O’Brien was only slightly taller than Penelope. It wasn’t her nose that was a shock, either. It wasn’t pointy, even from the side, but it did have a little ski jump at the end that was a tiny bit similar to Penelope’s nose. But her blonde hair was definitely not shoulder length. In fact, it was so short around her ears that it must have been cut with clippers. At the top, it stuck up high, a bit like a cocky’s crest.
Penelope collected her mixed feelings. She breathed them in and breathed them out slowly. Just because Brittany O’Brien had extremely short hair, and spoke to Ms Pike in a very casual way – like she was a friend, rather than a teacher – that didn’t mean that all Penelope’s hopes were lost.
‘My dad,’ Brittany O’Brien said with a smile, ‘can’t read a map for nuts. And the GPS was completely wonky, Miss.’
Eliza and Alison were both smiling, as though they found Brittany O’Brien very amusing. Penelope sat up very straight and smiled her Very Best and Brightest Smile, hoping that Brittany would look her way before she saw Eliza and Alison. Her heart was beating very fast. She took some more deep breaths.
‘Don’t worry about being late, Brittany,’ Ms Pike said kindly. ‘You can call me Ms Pike. Ms, not Miss.’
Brittany nodded.
‘While we’re getting names sorted, Ms,’ Brittany said quite loudly, as if to make sure the whole class could hear, ‘I don’t go by that name. Not ever.
‘Just call me Bob.’
Penelope frowned. Bob? Why would someone with such an elegant name want to go by their initials instead?
Penelope was examining this thought, and adding it to Brittany O’Brien’s very short hair and very casual attitude, when she saw Alison Cromwell put up her hand.
‘Ms Pike?’ Alison said. Then she paused, and giggled in a silly way. She pushed Eliza’s books across and Eliza moved to the next chair. ‘Can Bob sit with us?’
Penelope held her breath as Bob sat down between Alison and Eliza. She should have thought of that. But she had been doing too much examining to act quickly. That was a big mistake. Once she and Bob became best friends, she would surely be able to help Bob become a Brittany. But right now, Penelope had let a perfectly good chance go by. She was furious with herself.
Penelope tried to get on with her work. But it was difficult to concentrate. Joanna and Sarah were walking, three-legged, to get a pencil sharpener. And she could see Alison and Eliza in front of her, leaning on their elbows, talking to Bob as though they were already friends. Penelope was so distracted she made an error on a comprehension question. She had to rub out the answer and start all over again.
It seemed as though the morning had stretched out forever when Ms Pike finally called pencils down.
‘Penelope, could you stand up please?’ she asked.
Penelope stood behind her chair, pushing it in carefully. She noticed Bob turning around to look at her.
‘Bob, this is Penelope Kingston,’ Ms Pike said. ‘Penelope, I wonder if you would show Bob around at recess?’
Bob gave something like a salute, her hand whipping up to her eyebrows. It looked like a very friendly type of salute. Penelope’s heart skipped a beat. Ms Pike was the best, loveliest teacher on the entire planet – possibly even the universe.
‘Certainly, Ms Pike.’ Penelope made sure her voice was normal and her smile wasn’t too big. It wasn’t easy. This was definitely the best thing that had happened to her all morning.
As the class packed up, Penelope made a mental list of Things to Show Bob. Obviously, there were practical concerns, like where the girls toilets were. But there were also other important considerations.
Perhaps Bob would like to see the art room, where Penelope’s latest painting just happened to be on display? Her painting had been inspired by a Spanish artist, just as the art teacher, Mr Cattapan, had instructed. Penelope secretly thought that her picture was just as good as the original. At least the lady’s eyes were in the right spot.
She was just ordering her list from Most Important to Least Important when Oscar interrupted her thinking.
‘Hey Penny-lope, see you at the sausage sizzle at lunchtime. We’re on coleslaw duty. Hopefully we’ll end up with loads of gold coins to donate. Apparently the village is getting a well –’
‘Thank you Oscar, I’ll be there,’ Penelope said in her Very Busy voice, turning away from him.
She did not need to be reminded that she’d volunteered to help at the sausage sizzle fundraiser. Helping people less fortunate always made Penelope feel good. Plus, there was an extra bonus. When she helped out at sausage sizzles, Penelope got to make her own sausage, exactly the way she liked it. (With extra coleslaw and a tiny squirt of hot mustard.)
Right now, though, Penelope could not afford to get distracted. Bob had walked straight past Penelope and was heading towards the corridor with Eliza and Alison. She must have forgotten who was showing her around at recess.
Penelope rushed into the corridor. Bob had wandered into the area where the boys hung their schoolbags. Penelope would have been horrified to make such a mistake. She would be careful to tell Bob very quietly, so she wouldn’t be embarrassed. Penelope had to admit she did feel a tiny bit glad that Bob was in the wrong area.
For one thing, it meant that Alison and Eliza were finally away from Bob. Also, it gave Penelope a chance to tell her something helpful.
She reached in, avoiding the sea of boys around her, and tapped Bob on the shoulder.
When Bob turned around, Penelope was pleased to note that she was smiling.
‘Just to let you know,’ Penelope said in a very soft voice, ‘you’ve actually hung your bag in the –’
‘Oh my god! Bob!’ Eliza yelled, coming up behind them.
‘You’re in the boys area, dude,’ Alison squealed. ‘Get. Out. Of. There.’
Penelope could not understand why Alison, Eliza and even Bob were laughing. She did her best to laugh along with them.
For a moment Penelope forgot she was supposed to be pretending to laugh, but nobody seemed to notice anyway.
‘Actually,’ Penelope said after a few false starts – when she tried to speak but the girls were laughing too much to hear her – ‘the girls toilets are number one on my list of things to show Bob at recess.’
For some reason that set them all off again.
‘The library is just up those steps, Bob,’ Penelope said. She pointed, and spoke very loudly.
Several girls had (very annoyingly) joined Penelope’s tour and were chatting loudly among themselves. Rita and Tilly kept getting left behind and making everyone wait while they caught up. Alison and Eliza were in front of them, and Joanna and Sarah were directly behind.
At least Bob was walking next to Penelope, trying to listen. Joanna kept interrupting. She’d tapped Penelope on the shoulder to interrupt with something random three times already. The last tap had been in the art studio, while Penelope had been telling Bob where the paints and brushes were kept. Bob was probably just about to notice ‘The Crying Lady’ – and possibly even comment on how good it was. That tap had made Penelope very cross.
The fourth tap came when they were passing the gym.
‘What?!’ Penelope said.
She breathed deeply to calm herself. ‘What do you want to say now, Joanna?’ Penelope asked.
Joanna lodged herself between Penelope and Bob.
‘See that tree?’ she said, pointing to a tree with strong branches and a dense canopy of leaves. Bob nodded.
Penelope braced herself. She knew how that tree was used. This was not information to be shared with a student on her very first day.
Especially not Penelope Kingston’s Future Best Friend.
Joanna lifted a leafy branch to make a kind of doorway. Penelope and the others waited as she and Bob stuck their heads in.
‘If the teachers make you go on a run and you don’t want to, you can come in here and hide,’ Penelope heard Joanna say.
Penelope held her breath. She didn’t much like running, and sports were something she was not excellent at, unfortunately, but hiding in the tree was cheating. This was Very Bad Advice.
‘Of course, Bob,’ Penelope said as Bob and Joanna emerged from the tree, ‘you shouldn’t really use that hiding place. If you can’t complete a run, you’re supposed to tell the teacher.’
‘Chill Penelope, it’s not a big deal,’ Eliza chimed in.
Penelope wondered how Eliza ever got to be Class Captain with that attitude.
‘Yeah, Penelope, just relax,’ Rita added.
Penelope hated it when people told her to relax (particularly Rita). It had absolutely the opposite effect.
Truly, she was about to blow the lot out of her mouth.
Right there, in front of Bob.
After recess, Penelope finished a maths work sheet then finished colouring in the heading of her English assignment.
Then Ms Pike kicked off reading time by asking everyone to bring in their favourite books to share on Friday morning. She wrote a reminder on the board, too, so that students wouldn’t forget.
Please bring your favourite book to share.
Penelope instantly knew what she would bring: When We Were Very Young. In fact, she was quite excited to be able to share her favourite book, and wondered what the other kids would bring. But she didn’t say anything aloud. In Ms Pike’s class, reading time was silent time. Nobody talked. Even Joanna (the naughtiest girl in the class) was well behaved. That was one of the good things about Ms Pike. Most of the time, she was not a strict teacher. But when she said ‘no talking’, everyone knew she was serious.
The only problem with silent time was that it meant Penelope couldn’t communicate with Bob. She wanted to suggest that Bob wait for her while she worked at the sausage sizzle at lunchtime. Then they could take the tour again, just the two of them this time.
Unfortunately, Bob was still sitting between Eliza and Alison, so they had first dibs on speaking to her when silent time was finished.
‘Let’s quickly scoff a sausage, and then we can play Dodgeball,’ Penelope heard Eliza suggest. It was not a good feeling when Bob agreed straight away, sounding very enthusiastic. In fact, it made Penelope feel helpless (which was one of her absolutely least favourite feelings). It was as though all her nerve endings wanted to act straight away to change what was happening, but she couldn’t think of a single thing to say or do that would actually work. Which meant that the nerve endings were kind of pouncing with absolutely nowhere to go. Dodgeball wasn’t the sort of game you could join halfway through. By the time Penelope had finished working at the sausage sizzle, she would have lost her chance to spend any time with Bob. After the disappointing events of recess, that was unthinkable.
But Penelope wasn’t a fan of the game, so she had a hard decision to make. And she needed to make it very quickly.
Penelope was never very good at dodging. Today she was even worse. Penelope couldn’t stop thinking about Oscar’s face when she told him she wasn’t going to help out at the sausage sizzle. She could have handled it if Oscar was angry with her. In fact, that was the reaction she’d been hoping for. If Oscar got angry, Penelope could get angry straight back at him. After all, she hadn’t given him a proper reason for pulling out. For all Oscar knew, Penelope could be feeling extremely ill.
Just as she was thinking about Oscar’s disappointed face, Tilly pushed her. OK, she was actually pushing her out of the way of the oncoming ball. But Penelope had already slipped over twice by herself. And she did not like to be pushed. Just as she was struggling to control her anger, the ball thwacked her hard in the thigh.
Penelope grabbed the ball and held it against her so no-one could get at it. She could feel her leg throbbing.
There were words coiled down deep inside her. All the stress of the morning and all the things that had gone wrong with Project Best Friend had wound them up tight. Now they flew out of her mouth like a scary jack-in-the-box when the music stops.
‘THIS IS THE MOST STUPID GAME IN THE ENTIRE WORLD! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU GIRLS WANT TO PLAY SOMETHING SO ABSOLUTELY LAME AND RIDICULOUS.’
She looked at the girls, her eyes blazing. It was hard to focus through blazing eyes, but it looked like everyone was frozen to the spot. Bob started hopping around, stretching one leg at a time, but other than that, everyone was still. Still enough for Penelope to notice the mud on their legs and dresses. The mud on Penelope’s thigh had dried a little. She flicked it off with her free hand.
‘AND NOW YOU’RE GOING TO TRAIPSE MUD ALL THROUGH OUR CLASSROOM.’
She threw the ball to the ground and stormed off.
Penelope sat in her favourite booth in the library, by the window, and rubbed her thigh. It wasn’t throbbing any more. There would probably be a bruise, but the throbbing inside her head was way, way worse.
What she had done would not disappear like a bruise.
Bob hadn’t even known her for a whole day. She hadn’t got to know the good, sensible and calm Penelope before meeting the bossy, angry, frustrated Penelope. Who no-one could possibly want for a best friend.
Through the window, Penelope could see the girls. She could also see the courtyard, where the last remnants of the sausage sizzle were being packed up. But both sights were hazy because tears were welling in Penelope’s eyes. This was Truly Terrible. Crying in public was the second worst thing you could do. It was bad enough that she’d gone and done the VERY worst thing by having an outburst in front of everyone. The library booth was fairly private, but if Penelope didn’t get her tears under control, she would end up with red eyes and blotchy skin, which would be extremely telltale. Bob would probably think she was an absolute mess.
Penelope squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to think of kittens. Although she’d never had a kitten, she did have a kitten calendar at home. She conjured up a
n image of the white fluffy one with the pink bow. This particular kitten (from October) had helped her out several times before. Thankfully, it was working now, too.
Penelope wiped away the tears on her cheek. Although she had managed to stop crying, she was too upset to eat. Her tummy didn’t know that yet, though. Its rumble sounded like thunder. Which was appropriate, in a way, since she felt like a storm was going on inside her.
The rumble gave way to a thud. For a moment, Penelope thought that the thud might be part of the storm. But when it came again, she realised that pieces of bark were being thrown against the window.
It was Oscar. He had a sausage in bread in one hand. With the other, he was beckoning to Penelope to come down.
Oscar smelled like a barbecue. He smelled of sausages and onions and gold-coin donations for very good causes.
‘I saved this for you,’ he said, handing Penelope the sausage. Penelope didn’t say anything. After the last few things that had come out of her mouth, she wasn’t sure that speaking was a good idea. Instead, she took a bite of the sausage. Oscar had made it exactly the way she liked it, with extra coleslaw and a tiny squirt of hot mustard.
Penelope finished her mouthful.
‘I’m sorry Oscar,’ she said, very softly. ‘I’m so sorry for not doing the sausage sizzle with you. It was a bad decision.’
Oscar shrugged. A curl of hair flopped down over his forehead.
‘Don’t look so sad. It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘I got one of the older girls to help.’
Penelope managed a small smile. The older girls were always going on about how cute Oscar was. Personally, Penelope couldn’t see it. But suddenly she realised that the inside of Oscar Finley was very, very nice.
‘Penny, I don’t know what happened today,’ Oscar said.
Penelope was on the verge of correcting him when she stopped herself. She wanted to hear what Oscar had to say – even more than she wanted him to call her Penelope.
Project Best Friend Page 2