Project Best Friend (4 page)

‘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 an 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.