Project Best Friend (2 page)

Penelope awoke to the soothing harp sounds of the alarm on her phone. She changed into her school dress and made her bed carefully, so there wasn’t a single wrinkle.

She was just arranging two teddies on her pillow (side by side, but not quite touching) when Harry’s alarm sounded in the next room. Penelope breathed deeply, trying to block out the motorbike sounds. This was an important day in her life. She was determined to stay good, sensible and calm. Today had to be perfect.

Unfortunately, the kitchen was terribly messy, with all the dishes from last night’s dinner still out on the bench. Penelope opened the fridge and sniffed the carton of milk. It didn’t smell too bad, but she decided to play it safe, opting for wholegrain toast rather than cereal.

Penelope forced herself to pay no attention to Harry’s alarm, which was still buzzing at regular intervals. Ignoring an alarm, even if it did sound more like a mosquito than a motorbike at this distance, was extremely difficult. But, truly, Penelope had enough to do this morning preparing to meet Brittany O’Brien.

If Harry kept on pressing the snooze button, it
shouldn’t
be her problem.

As she waited for her toast, Penelope sent her dad a screenshot of her timetable for the week. It hadn’t changed much from last week, except that her Wednesday art session was being replaced by a music lesson. But Penelope liked her dad to have up-to-date details about her days. That way, when he thought about her, he would be able to picture her in the right place at the right time.

Penelope ate her toast sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen bench. She could see her reflection in the stainless-steel fridge. She tried to imagine she was seeing herself for the very first time. As though she were Brittany O’Brien.

She sat up very straight, trying to make herself look taller. Although her grandpa always said that good things came in small packages, Penelope was very impatient to have a proper growth spurt. Sitting up straight definitely helped.

The girl in the ref lection had a neat, dark brown bob. From the side, her nose was a little pointy, but from the front Penelope thought it looked rather nice.

Penelope made a mental note to face Brittany O’Brien front on.

After breakfast, Penelope packed her school lunch. She put in a wholemeal roll with cheese, an apple and a tub of yoghurt. She was pleased to see that (this time at least) her mum had bought everything she had put on the shopping list.

As she fastened the seals on her lunchbox, Penelope wondered about Brittany’s height and hair and nose. It might be nice to have a tall friend. Then again, it would be lovely to have a friend her own size.

Then another muffled motorbike/mosquito noise broke into Penelope’s thoughts, causing the image to fade. Penelope looked at the time on her phone. As annoying as Harry was sometimes, Penelope couldn’t stand the thought of him being late to school again. A few weeks earlier Harry had received a detention for being late, and had missed an important soccer game. He’d been very upset.

Penelope could not resist for one more second. She traipsed up the stairs. Then she pinched her nose to manage the pong of smelly socks and opened Harry’s bedroom door. Ignoring her brother’s groans, she pulled the doona right off him and put it over by the door. He’d have to get up to put it back on.

Next, Penelope went into her mum’s room.

‘Morning, Poss,’ Penelope’s mum greeted her.

Her mum was sitting on the edge of her wrinkly, unmade bed, pulling on her shoes. There was a messy tangle just under the surface of her hair. Penelope found a brush under the jumble of things on her mum’s dresser and pointed out the spot.

‘Thanks, love,’ her mum said. She gave the spot just three strokes of the brush, even though Penelope was sure it would need at least seven or eight to untangle the knot properly.

When her mum stood up, Penelope noticed that her shirt (which was mauve, and quite pretty) was missing the second button from the bottom.

Penelope tried
extremely
hard not to mention the button. In fact, she struggled for thirty-two seconds. For the first seventeen seconds she reminded herself that she needed to get to school early. She was helping out with a sausage sizzle at lunchtime, and wouldn’t be able to spend time with Brittany until that was finished. So she wanted to make sure she was the very first person Brittany O’Brien met today.

But then Penelope imagined her mum getting in trouble for her missing button.

Penelope fought the image for fifteen seconds before deciding that she
had
to warn her.

‘Mum,’ she said, pointing to the place where the button wasn’t, ‘you can’t possibly go to work like that.’

Her mum just smiled and tucked her shirt into her skirt.

‘
Voila!
’ she said, and threw out her hands as though the problem was solved. Which it obviously wasn’t.

Penelope could still tell there was a button missing. The shirt clearly separated towards the bottom. Besides, it could always come untucked during the day, and then everyone would see.

Penelope considered saying this. But her mum was already putting on her lipstick, humming as though nothing was wrong.

Penelope watched her for a moment. She sometimes felt like a totally different species to her mum and Harry. They hardly ever got stressed about anything. They didn’t understand Penelope’s feelings – not one tiny bit. And both of them had
loads
of friends.

That thought made Penelope even more stressed. She wondered if she had enough time to go into her room and use one of her top-secret calming techniques. Re-reading
When We Were Very Young
was usually extremely helpful. Her dad used to read aloud from the book, before he left and got a new family. And even though Penelope was (clearly) not very young any more, she still found the poems lovely and funny.

Drawing pictures or patterns was another excellent calming technique. (Though, some of her precious Derwents were getting small and stubby from being used over and over. Penelope had to stick a thick sponge under them in her favourite mug so they looked the same height.)

Penelope pulled out her phone to check the time. She was running far too late for a calming technique. If Brittany O’Brien came across Eliza or Alison first, she might get sidetracked and choose the wrong best friend.

The thought was unbearable.

‘I’ve got to go,’ Penelope told her mum.

‘OK,’ her mum replied. ‘And, Poss, please don’t worry about me and my shirt. I promise, we’ll both be fine.’

Penelope shrugged, because sometimes she just had to. Then she kissed her mum goodbye and was very patient during a hug that went for a full five seconds (cat and dog). Straight after that she rushed downstairs, grabbed her bag and walked
extremely
fast all the way to school.

The school grounds were deserted except for one lone figure on the basketball court.

‘Penny! Penny! Over here!’

Oscar Finley held up a basketball in the palm of one hand. The other hand was rolled up and pressed to his lips like a megaphone.

‘Penny!’ he repeated.

Penelope marched across the basketball court. Oscar Finley was one of those kids who just seemed to pop up everywhere. And wherever he popped up, he did something to get on Penelope’s nerves. If Brittany O’Brien arrived at school right this moment, she might actually think Penelope’s name was Penny! She had asked Oscar several times not to shorten her name, but it seemed she would have to ask him again. Clearly, Oscar Finley was a slow learner.

As Penelope marched, she felt the
good, sensible, calm Penelope
being taken over by the
BOSSY, ANGRY, FRUSTRATED ONE
.

She was going to give Oscar a very good talking to. But as she walked, Penelope recalled that Oscar Finley had voted for her to be Class Captain. He told her he’d voted for her. Ms Pike hadn’t revealed the actual scores, but Penelope (who was very good at figuring things out) suspected that she had only won two votes – hers and Oscar’s. Everyone else would have voted for Eliza Chung.

By the time she reached Oscar, Penelope had calmed down.

‘Oscar,’ she said patiently, ‘please can you remember to call me by my full name?’

‘Sure,’ Oscar said. He didn’t seem to understand how serious she was, but Penelope didn’t have time to comment. Oscar seemed to be all around her at once, dribbling the ball and switching it from hand to hand.

‘Defend me,’ he urged, ‘then I’ll try to make a fast break.’

Penelope wasn’t certain she knew
how
to defend, but she supposed she could do this favour for Oscar. The basketball court was a good place to keep an eye out for Brittany O’Brien. And besides, it would be good to look busy when Brittany arrived. Penelope stepped in front of Oscar and stuck her hands up in the air.

Oscar circled her, bouncing madly. Penelope turned with him.

‘Good defence,’ Oscar said, ‘but now I’m breaking free!’

Penelope followed, swatting at the ball as Oscar dribbled towards the goal. One of his bounces was so high, the ball hit him in the chin. It then bounced into Penelope’s shin, but she absolutely failed to grab hold of it. Oscar didn’t even seem to notice. When he got the ball back and took his shot, it only reached halfway to the ring before falling back to the court and rolling away. Oscar scooped it up and ran back to Penelope for another go. Penelope looked around, feeling self-conscious. It would be terribly embarrassing if Brittany O’Brien had arrived in time to see all that clumsiness!

‘Try a bit harder, Oscar,’ she urged, already holding her hands up for a better defence.

Penelope watched out of the corner of her eye as other kids began to arrive. She saw Alison and Eliza, Rita and Tilly. As she defended Oscar again, doubt knotted in Penelope’s stomach. Perhaps she should go and stand with the girls? But sometimes when Penelope tried to join in, the other girls talked and giggled together and didn’t seem to hear her. It wouldn’t be good if Brittany saw that.

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.