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  When Dad came to collect me at half past seven, I rushed up to him too and hugged him hard. After we’d both said our thank-yous and goodbyes and were in the car, Dad turned to me.

  ‘What’s up, Tilly? Didn’t you like it there? Isn’t this Matty as nice as you thought she was?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘I loved it there. And Matty’s fantastic and the best friend ever,’ I said.

  ‘So why did you come rushing up to me like that?’ he asked. ‘You seemed desperate.’

  ‘I – I was just happy to see you,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Oh, Tilly,’ Dad said.

  His face screwed up. I couldn’t work out whether he was happy or sad. His hand reached out and he squeezed mine, but then he had to use both his hands for driving.

  The house seemed extra quiet and tidy when we got home.

  I was really looking forward to going to school the next day, and yet I was a bit scared too. Maybe Matty had changed her mind and decided she didn’t want me as a best friend any more. She didn’t go to breakfast club, so I just sat eating my cornflakes by myself as usual and then read my book. But when it was time to go out into the playground, Matty came haring through the gate, yelling my name.

  ‘Hey, Tilly! Didn’t we have a great time yesterday? You’re so good at playing. You’re brilliant at making things up. Promise you’ll come again soon? Mum says you can come any time you like.’

  ‘Great!’ I said. I felt great. I wasn’t that little shy quiet mousy girl with a secret any more. I was Matty’s best friend, Tilly, and I was suddenly a great big bouncy funny girl who was brilliant at making things up.

  Matty asked me back to tea that very day and I so wanted to, but Aunty Sue said it was too soon. She wouldn’t even let me phone Dad this time.

  I wished Aunty Sue wasn’t so strict and bossy. I’d never really liked her. Dad had put an advert in the local newsagent’s when we moved to our new house and I was about to start going to my new school.

  WANTED

  Kind reliable lady to collect my daughter from junior school on a daily basis and give her tea occasionally. Fair wage paid.

  Sid the newsagent read the advert and sucked his teeth.

  ‘Funny how times have changed. Kids used to walk themselves home from school and get their own tea. Ah well. I don’t expect you’ll get many replies, but here’s hoping.’

  We didn’t get any replies the first week. Then an old lady answered – a really ancient lady who rode a buggy and had a hearing aid and very thick glasses. Dad didn’t think she was suitable even before she accidentally drove over his foot. He wanted someone younger to look after me, but the next person was almost too young, a girl of fourteen called Shelley.

  I was in awe of Shelley, with her bright blonde hair and her perfect eyebrows and her very short school skirt. Dad wasn’t at all sure, but decided to try her out for a week. I had to wait a good half-hour for Shelley to pick me up because the Seniors finished school later than the Juniors, but I didn’t mind. I sat on the school wall and read my book, and sometimes drew extra little scribbly pictures of Matilda in the margins. But on Friday Shelley’s boyfriend met her after school, and they went up to the park and forgot all about me. The school secretary had to phone Dad to come and collect me when I’d been waiting more than an hour. That was the end of Shelley.

  ‘I think you’re going to have to go to after-school club,’ said Dad.

  I’d been to after-school club at my old school, after Mum left. I’d hated it because a boy called Jeremy kept breaking all my pencils and crayons and saying hateful things about my mum. I knew Jeremy wouldn’t be at this new school and no one there knew about Mum, but I was still sure I’d hate it. Breakfast club was bad enough. After-school club was longer and much worse.

  I couldn’t see why I couldn’t do what Sid said children did long ago. I rather fancied the idea of walking myself home and I could easily make myself a sandwich for tea. I was good at cheese on toast too, and I knew how to use a can opener if necessary. I begged and pleaded, but Dad said I couldn’t – and then Mrs Brown the beige woman knocked on the door and said she was answering our advert. She was quite old but not so old she used a buggy, and she certainly wasn’t going to go to the park with her boyfriend.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll get along fine and dandy,’ she said, giving me her best bright smile and patting me on the shoulder. ‘You must call me Aunty Sue.’

  Dad said Aunty Sue was a godsend. If that was so, I wasn’t surprised. God was probably happy to have got rid of her. I felt truly fed up now when I had to go home with her instead of going back to Matty’s house.

  When we lived at our old house and Sylvie sometimes collected me from school when Mum couldn’t, she let me do painting with her, proper painting with big tubes of colour. Sylvie didn’t care if I dripped paint on the floor or got it all over my school clothes. She just laughed when I tried painting my hair blue to copy hers.

  Painting was out of the question at Aunty Sue’s, though she didn’t mind if I did drawing or colouring. I kept some spare paper and my second-best set of felt tips at Aunty Sue’s house, so I drew a picture of the three Warrior Princesses and their tribes having a gigantic battle.

  ‘Is that homework, Tilly?’ asked Aunty Sue.

  ‘No, just a picture,’ I said.

  ‘You’ve been working on it for ages, dear. What are you drawing?’

  ‘Princesses,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, lovely,’ said Aunty Sue. ‘I liked drawing princesses when I was a little girl.’

  But then she came to peer over my shoulder, which was very annoying. I tried to cover my picture with my hands, but the paper was too big and my hands too small.

  ‘My goodness,’ said Aunty Sue. ‘Why have you coloured their faces such strange colours? Don’t you have a pink felt tip? And what are all these other monster things? And why are they biting and hurting each other?’ She sounded really bothered about it.

  ‘It’s just a picture,’ I said, and I shut my drawing book quickly. ‘Can I watch television now?’

  Aunty Sue and I watched Pointless together. It was her favourite programme. She tried to get me to join in and guess the answers. I hardly knew any of them. Aunty Sue didn’t either, but she still loved watching. She talked about Alexander and Richard as if they were her best friends.

  When Dad came to collect me, Aunty Sue murmured to him when she thought I wasn’t listening. I heard her say, ‘Very strange . . . violent . . . disturbing.’

  Dad didn’t say anything to me in the car or when we got home. He didn’t ask to see my picture. But when he came to tuck me up in bed, he sat beside me and said, ever so casually, ‘So how are you feeling, Tilly?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said.

  ‘You’re still getting along with Matty?’

  ‘Yes. She asked me to go to tea with her again! Mean old Aunty Sue wouldn’t let me.’

  ‘You can’t keep going to Matty’s house day after day.’

  ‘She says I can!’

  ‘Yes, but it wouldn’t be polite. And I think Aunty Sue might be getting worried that she’ll lose her job. I pay her to look after you.’

  ‘I wish you’d pay Angie, Matty’s mum!’

  ‘So you haven’t had any fights with anyone?’

  ‘What? Dad! I don’t fight!’

  ‘No one’s picking on you?’

  ‘No. Well, Cathy and Amanda said I was stupid wanting to be friends with old Carrot-Top, but they’re just jealous because I’m Matty’s best friend now.’

  ‘Miss Hope hasn’t been cross with you?’

  ‘No. In D and T she said my purse was very good. I sewed a cat on it. She said . . .’

  ‘Yes? What did she say?’

  ‘She said it would make a lovely present for my mum.’

  ‘Oh. Well, you can save it to give to Mum when you next see her,’ said Dad.

  I didn’t say anything. Dad didn’t either. We just stayed still in my very quiet bedroom. Then Dad gave me a kiss on the chee
k and went downstairs. I threw Blue Bunny out of bed and clutched Stripy.

  I couldn’t go to sleep for a while so I played my own favourite game inside my head. It wasn’t a wildly exciting game like Warrior Princesses. It was a pretend game called Wedding.

  My mum and my dad were getting married. Mum wore a long white dress that showed off her slim waist. She had her long fair hair coiled up and held in place with her pearl slide. She let me play with her pearl slide once when I was watching her put on her make-up. I ran my thumb up and down the pearls. I liked feeling the little bobbles. I thought they were real pearls once but they were only pretend. She had a veil too, very white and lacy. I wanted this wedding to be as traditional as possible.

  Dad wore a very smart suit, with a long black jacket and grey pinstripe trousers. He had a waistcoat too, black silk with gold embroidery. Dad never wore fancy clothes. It was hard work imagining him in anything but jeans or his suit for work, but it was his wedding after all and I wanted him to look wonderful. I made sure he was wearing a shirt as crisp and white as royal icing, and I polished his shoes until they were like black mirrors.

  Then I had to dress myself up too, because I was the bridesmaid of course. My bridesmaid’s dress varied. Sometimes it was very pale pink, sometimes hyacinth blue, sometimes delicate apricot. If it was winter I wore a red velvet dress with white fur round the hem, though I was worried I might look too much like Santa Claus. I never thought of dressing myself in raspberry pink, the best colour of all.

  We went to the church in a white limo. All the neighbours in Willow Road, where we used to live, came to their garden gates to have a good look at us. We gave them a wave and then we drove off to the church. I knew brides were meant to drive separately but we were a family, so it made sense for us all to go together.

  The limo had blackened windows. We could see out perfectly but no one could see in. Dad laughed and said, ‘Close your eyes, Tilly,’ and then he put his arms round Mum, careful not to crease her dress, and gave her a big film-star kiss. If I tried to draw this scene I’d have a fat little cherub flying above Mum and Dad’s head and a ring of little hearts above their heads like haloes.

  Then we drew up at the church. Dad sprang out first and then helped Mum. I gathered up all the skirts of her dress and made sure they didn’t get stuck in the car. Then we walked solemnly into church, Dad and Mum together, me walking behind, holding my bridesmaid’s posy.

  The church was crowded out with all our guests. Most of them were people we knew before, and children from my old school. But sometimes I added Aunty Sue, wearing a beige dress and a funny hat, and Miss Hope in the suit she wears on parents’ night, and Cathy and Amanda in ordinary clothes looking enviously at my beautiful bridesmaid’s dress. I added Matty and Lewis and Angie as special guests of honour, in the very front row.

  Then Mum and Dad promised to love and honour each other for ever and never ever part.

  Chapter Two

  I MADE MYSELF a special chart in my drawing book. I divided the page into seven sections, carefully pencilling down the page using my ruler, and then I ruled across the page from the top to the bottom, so I had lots of squares. I wrote a title at the top, using a different colour for every letter:

  IS MATTY STILL MY BEST FRIEND?

  I labelled each of the seven columns for the days of the week, and then, with my favourite green pen, did a big tick in the first box.

  I went on ticking day after day, week after week. It was very satisfying. I drew other pictures in my drawing book too, but decided not to attempt any further Princess Warrior scenes because I was worried about Aunty Sue having a sneaky peep and telling Dad. Sometimes, when I wanted to try out a scenario in my head before going to tea with Matty, I’d sketch out scenes in the back of my school jotter book. Soon dinosaurs crept along the bottom of most pages, jaws wide open, while soft animals screamed and ponies were savaged. I showed Matty and she was very impressed. She tried to invent a Warrior Princess scenario in her own jotter, but her dinosaurs looked like big pussycats and she tore out the page impatiently.

  Then, one day, we did a spelling test in our jotters. We all swopped our books at the end of the test. I marked Matty’s and she marked mine. She wasn’t actually a very good speller, so sometimes I squinted so I didn’t see the word properly and marked it with a tick. I often made a few mistakes too, but Matty was even kinder and marked me ten out of ten most times.

  But then Miss Hope got suspicious and asked to see the spellings in our jotters for herself. She gave Matty her jotter back with a telling off, but she kept mine, flicking through the pages. My heart started thumping. I knew what she was looking at.

  She asked me to wait behind at the end of the lesson. Matty stayed too, but Miss Hope told her to go out into the playground. I hopped uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

  ‘I’ve been looking at all these drawings in your jotter, Tilly,’ said Miss Hope.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Hope. I know we’re not really supposed to draw in our jotters. I won’t do it again,’ I gabbled. ‘Can I go and play now?’

  ‘Just a minute. These drawings are very . . . violent,’ said Miss Hope.

  ‘Well. They’re dinosaurs. They are violent,’ I said.

  ‘Not necessarily. Many dinosaurs were vegetarian, totally placid creatures who lived in harmony with other creatures.’

  ‘Yes, but mine are the Tyrannosaurus rex kind,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t know you were especially interested in dinosaurs, Tilly,’ said Miss Hope.

  ‘Oh yes, I am. That’s why I draw them lots,’ I said.

  ‘So what is this grey one called? And this one here with the spiky mane? And the one with big teeth carrying the pony in its mouth?’

  Matty simply called them Greyboy and Spiky and Toothache.

  ‘I can’t remember their proper names,’ I admitted.

  ‘Have you been to the Natural History Museum in Kensington to see the dinosaur exhibition there?’ asked Miss Hope.

  I shook my head.

  Dad once took me to the Victoria and Albert Museum in Kensington and I’d quite liked some very old wooden dolls with a whole cabinet of beautifully made little clothes. Then we went to Harrods and I liked the dolls there even more.

  ‘Have you been watching any dinosaur films?’ Miss Hope persisted.

  I shook my head again.

  She leaned nearer, not at all cross now.

  ‘Do you sometimes have nightmares about dinosaurs?’

  I had lots of nightmares. Sometimes they were about Mum. Sometimes they were about Dad disappearing. Nowadays they were mostly about Matty breaking friends with me, though I still ticked a box on my chart every night.

  Miss Hope was surprisingly close to me. I suddenly saw her as a person, not just a teacher. I liked the way she tied her hair up, showing her ears. She wore tiny silver earrings in the shape of a crescent moons. I wished I had pierced ears and could wear moon earrings. I wondered about saying all my secrets into her ear. Just for a moment it seemed possible.

  Then I changed my mind.

  ‘I don’t have nightmares about dinosaurs,’ I said truthfully.

  Miss Hope looked at me for a long moment. Then she just nodded and patted my arm.

  ‘All right. Off you go,’ she said.

  I thought she’d forgotten all about it, but one morning the next week she was in the playground when Dad dropped me off at school for breakfast club.

  ‘Can I have a word, Mr Andrews?’ she called.

  I hovered nearby. This time I couldn’t hear properly, but I saw Dad frowning. He glanced at me, looking worried. I stopped being scared and got furious instead. How dare Miss Hope tell tales and worry my dad!

  I flashed Dad a big cheesy grin. I was trying to reassure him, but he looked even more anxious. Perhaps he thought I was baring my teeth at him like one of my dinosaur drawings.

  I wanted to rush up and tell him that he mustn’t worry, that stupid Miss Hope and hopeless Aunty Sue were
getting in a silly state about nothing. But I didn’t get the chance. Dad just waved to me when Miss Hope was done and started hurrying away, pointing at his watch. I knew he was already late for work.

  Miss Hope tried to smile at me reassuringly. I didn’t quite dare say what I thought, but I glared at her and stamped off to breakfast club. I poured my cornflakes into a bowl and then bashed them into little golden crumbs with my spoon.

  I was still in a bad mood at the start of school. It turned out that Matty was in a bad mood too.

  ‘You’ll never ever guess what!’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mum’s insisting I’ve got to be a bridesmaid!’ Matty groaned. She mimed despair, her eyes screwed up, her mouth an O of anguish.

  ‘A bridesmaid,’ I repeated. ‘But that’s lovely, isn’t it?’ All my different dresses for my Mum-and-Dad-Wedding game flashed before my eyes as if they were hanging on a washing line.

  ‘No! It’s the absolute opposite of lovely. It’s totally foul. I absolutely can’t stand the idea of being a bridesmaid and looking a right idiot. I’ve told Mum I won’t but she says I have to, because it’s my Aunt Rachel getting married – she’s Mum’s younger sister, so I’m her niece, so I have to be a bridesmaid. And I’m going to look soooo stupid, because Aunt Rachel wants a pink-and-white theme. She’s wearing a white dress but she wants pink roses in her hair and a pink rose bouquet, and me and my cousin have to wear pink dresses. Pink, when I’ve got red hair!’ Matty chuntered on and on about it, before lessons, at playtime, and during lessons too.

  We were supposed to be working together, making up a poem about a feeling. It could be love or hate or fear. We had to list all the things we loved or hated or feared to help us get inspired.