Project Best Friend (6 page)

The ‘for sale’ sign had been there for a couple of weeks. But today, there was a sticker on the sign that said SOLD.

Penelope started to walk faster.
Honestly, some days it was extremely difficult to hold onto her hopes
.

Penelope’s phone rang just as she was walking past the park. A picture of Grandpa George, with his big smile and his grey-speckled handlebar moustache, appeared on the screen. There were some children over in the rotunda, but both the swings were empty, so Penelope went over and sat down.

‘Sorry darling,’ Grandpa George said. ‘I just got your text. I’ve been in my dream analysis group.’

Penelope heard him say goodbye to his old friend Fred. Grandpa had once told her that Fred dreamed he was flying almost every night. The only thing that changed was the scenery below him. Fred said it was like travelling the world without ever having to buy a plane ticket. It seemed very lovely and funny to Penelope, and made her like Fred very much.

‘Tell Fred happy travels from me,’ Penelope said. She waited a moment while Grandpa delivered the message.

‘Fred says you’re a treasure,’ he relayed. ‘And I’ll second that.’

Penelope smiled but her smile was small. It was good to know that Grandpa and his friends thought she was a treasure, but most girls had people their own age who thought they were great.

‘Sweetheart,’ Grandpa said, ‘you can’t change your star sign. But there are many good things about being a Gemini. Are you having an existential crisis?’

Penelope had never heard the word ‘existential’ before. She had no idea what it meant. But that often happened with Grandpa, so Penelope had learned to make a good guess based on the words she
did
know. And she definitely knew what a crisis was.

Penelope let her legs dangle under the swing while she told Grandpa what had happened. She left out certain bits. For instance, she didn’t tell him about Project Best Friend because it would be too embarrassing to admit (even to Grandpa George) that she had to work so terribly hard just to make one single best friend. But she did tell him about Bob and the tour and the outburst.

Grandpa George was an excellent listener. It wasn’t just that he listened to the words she was saying. It was the way he listened
between
the words.

‘Darling, can you hold on a moment?’ he said, when Penelope had finished. ‘I’m just going to check your chart.’

While she waited, Penelope pushed off with her feet and started swinging. She could hear the rustle of papers as Grandpa George went through her charts. There was no telling how long he would be.

When Penelope looked up again, there was a little girl standing in front of her. She was wearing a frilly T-shirt and a denim pinafore. Her fine hair was in a fountain top knot.

Penelope supposed she was about three years old. Her half-sister Sienna was three years, two months and eight days old, so Penelope was basing her guess on that.

‘Can you push me?’ the little girl said, pointing at the empty swing next to Penelope.

Penelope nodded, but before the little girl could clamber up, the little girl’s mother came and whisked her away.

Suddenly Penelope felt lonelier than ever. She realised she hadn’t seen Sienna for a very long time. Penelope was very glad when her grandpa came back on the phone.

‘All right, my love,’ Grandpa George said. ‘There’s some indication here that you’ve been swimming upstream.’

‘Grandpa, I haven’t been swimming at all,’ Penelope said, confused.

Grandpa George laughed. ‘What that means, love,’ he said, ‘is that maybe you’ve been trying too hard. All indicators on your chart say the best thing right now is to go with the flow.’

Penelope walked home considering what Grandpa had said. She thought she might even discuss the matter with her mum. But when she got home, her mum and Harry were on the couch, glued to a TV show where people dare each other to do strange and dangerous things. They were laughing uproariously (though honestly, Penelope had no idea why), and Penelope didn’t want to interrupt.

Alone in her bedroom, Penelope sat at her lovely white dressing table drawing sketches of jewellery she would like to make in the future. It was a very calming activity – even though some of her Derwents were stubby. While some of Penelope’s brain was busy with Creative Ideas, another part now felt free to think about Grandpa’s suggestion.

The idea of going with the flow seemed very difficult. She was used to trying exceptionally hard and getting excellent results. She wasn’t the type to just let things happen. But Grandpa George’s charts were (mostly) accurate, and filled with very good suggestions.

As she finished a sketch of a bow tie with polka dots that would most likely become a terrific badge, Penelope felt that she could actually do this thing.

Tomorrow she would just have to try exceptionally hard to not try at all. She was going to go with the flow.

The next morning, Penelope woke at the usual time to the soothing strums of her harp alarm. She was quite surprised when she peeked into Harry’s room and saw that he was already up, and most likely on his way to soccer practice. The second surprise was her mum’s clompy footsteps coming down the hall.

Suddenly the idea of being woken by her mum seemed very appealing (even though it wasn’t really being woken, given that she was already awake), so Penelope jumped back into bed and pulled the cover over her head.

‘Morning, Poss,’ her mum said, peeling the covers down to Penelope’s chin. ‘You slept through your alarm. Are you OK?’

Penelope frowned. Now that it was morning, she felt anxious all over again. If the girls were still cross with her, today would be absolutely horrible, too. Her confidence from last night had faded. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure she’d be any good at going with the flow. And besides, what if she did manage to go with the flow, and Bob noticed her less, not more?

Penelope had heard that some kids occasionally had a day off school even if they weren’t actually sick. Perhaps it was because they had a problem and could better think of a solution from home. She decided to mention this fact to her mum.

‘Honey, if you want to take the day off, that’s OK,’ her mum replied. ‘It’s not like you do it all the time. Maybe you could treat yourself? Stay in bed or watch TV.’

Penelope noticed her mum looking at her watch. ‘Mum,’ she said, ‘are you late for something?’

Penelope’s mum slowly rubbed her hands together. ‘The big boss is holding a meeting for all staff at 7.45,’ she said.

Penelope’s eyes popped wide open. She quickly checked the time on her phone. Her mum had exactly twelve minutes to make it to work.

‘Go!’ Penelope said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

As her mother left, she snuggled back under the covers and closed her eyes.

Penelope jumped out of bed and started getting ready for school.

First up in the morning was a maths test. Penelope felt lucky to be thinking about multiplication and division instead of the other girls being cross with her and going with the flow.

After maths class came Penelope’s Least Favourite subject: Physical Education. There were only two cubicles in the girls toilets, so Penelope made sure to get there first so she could get changed in private. Even though she always wore bicycle shorts under her uniform, like most of the girls, she still had to take off her dress and put on her sports polo. She was just flattening down her collar when she heard some of the girls arrive. Through the gap under the cubicle door, Penelope deduced (by putting together several clues, such as shoe size and sock choice) that the feet belonged to Tilly, Bob, Rita and Joanna.

‘That test was super hard,’ came Tilly’s voice. ‘I reckon I got most of the answers wrong.’

Penelope frowned. Tilly often thought she was going to do badly on tests and then did quite well. She almost piped up to remind Tilly of that, but she wasn’t sure if that was going with the flow, so she decided not to say anything.

‘It was soooo hard,’ she heard Joanna say. ‘Don’t you wish, just sometimes, that you had Penelope’s brain? You’d get everything right.’

Penelope almost called out then. She got excellent results because she worked very hard. As Penelope had told her several times, Joanna was actually extremely clever. She just needed to focus. (Penelope knew this because she had coached Joanna in maths after school.) But before Penelope could say anything, Rita spoke.

‘Rubbish,’ she said. ‘Penelope doesn’t get
everything
right.’

Penelope sat on the bench seat and lifted her feet up in front of her. Suddenly, it seemed very important that no-one knew she was there. Her heart flipped around in her chest like a fish. For a moment, she thought Rita was going to say something humiliating about the Harry/Hugo mistake.

But what she said was worse.

‘Seriously, she totally cracked it yesterday, right?
This is a silly game. It’s absolutely ri-di-cu-lous.
’

Penelope’s face was f laming. She hugged her legs and put her head down on her knees. The girls’ laughter seemed to go on forever.

‘Penelope is the queen of cracking it,’ Rita continued. ‘I can think of at least six times when she’s lost the plot. In prep –’

‘Gosh, it wasn’t
that
bad.’ Penelope was surprised to hear Bob’s voice cutting Rita off. ‘I mean, Penelope seems very nice. Her school tour was very helpful. And I’ve definitely had bigger tantrums than her Dodgeball one.’