Viva Alice! (2 page)

Chapter Three

T
en minutes later, seventeen small kids were gathered in the living room. Nobody was saying anything as everyone looked at the sad display of food.

In the end a little girl with curly blonde hair spoke. ‘What kind of a stupid party is this?’ she asked in a spoiled voice. ‘The food is all messy and I don’t like it.’

The boy next to her poked his dirty finger into a bowl of runny green jelly that looked a bit like frogspawn. ‘This is loser food,’ he said. ‘And I want to go home.’

In a corner of the room, Alice and Veronica
stood as if they’d been turned to stone. It was like they’d gone ahead and started their own private game of statues, without inviting anyone else to join in.

I looked at Jamie. He was standing on his own at the end of the table. His bottom lip was wobbling and his eyes were filling up with tears. He can be a total pain sometimes, but the poor little boy didn’t deserve this. I figured I had about fifteen seconds to come up with a plan.

‘Hey, kids,’ I said suddenly. ‘Guess what?’

‘What?’ asked a small freckly boy.

I hadn’t thought of an answer yet, so I played for time.

‘Come closer,’ I said. ‘Huddle up near me and I’ll tell you a big, huge secret.’

The kids obediently came close and stood in a small circle in front of me. Seventeen pairs of eyes gazed up at me, as if I had something important to say. I really, really wished I had something important to say
‘Er … you’ll never guess what?’ I said again.

‘What?’ asked the freckly boy again.

‘Er … well … this morning … something totally amazing happened here.’

‘What was it?’ asked the blonde girl.

‘Well … you see … during the night … Jamie’s mum cooked all this super-special party food. It was so beautiful, people were going to come from a magazine to take pictures of it. It was going to be on a tv show, all about amazing parties.’

‘But the food
isn’t
amazing,’ said the freckly boy. ‘It’s all messy and horrible. It looks like a big stinky giant puked it up.’

When he said this, some of the kids laughed, and the others screamed and made faces. I was thinking about giving up, when I looked at Jamie again. He was staring at me, like I was the only one in the world who could save his party. (The scary thing is, he was probably right.)

I took a deep breath and went on with my
story. ‘The food is messy because, before the tv and magazine people got here, something terrible happened.’

‘What?’ asked a little girl with huge blue eyes. ‘Hurry up and tell us.’

I wouldn’t have minded hurrying up. The only problem was, I had no idea what I was going to say next. Veronica and Alice were staring at me, like I knew what I was doing. I looked frantically around the room, and spotted the wizard book that Jamie had been reading earlier.

‘A wicked wizard came here,’ I said quickly. ‘Right into this very room. His broomstick was broken and he wanted to steal the aeroplane cake to fly home on.’

‘How did he get in?’ asked a boy.

‘Through the door,’ I said. ‘Jamie’s mum left it open by mistake.’

‘That cake isn’t big enough for a wizard to fly on,’ he said.

‘It was a small wizard,’ I said. ‘Now, stop
interrupting and let me get on with the story. The brave cake didn’t want to help the wicked wizard, so it deliberately crash-landed on the table and the wizard fell off and bumped his head on the floor.’

‘Yay!’ yelled all the kids together.

‘I can see the mark on the floor where the wizard bumped his head,’ said the freckly boy. ‘Amn’t I clever?’

I ignored him. ‘And the wizard was so angry,’ I said. ‘He cast a spell on the beautiful food, and made it look all messy. Then he ran back out the door before anyone saw him.’

‘If no one saw him, how do
you
know it happened?’ asked the boy.

‘Because I know everything,’ I said, glaring at him.

‘I’m scared of wizards,’ said the girl with the big blue eyes. ‘Is he going to come back?’

I smiled at her. ‘No, I don’t think so. Not if that silly boy stops asking silly questions. Now let’s play some games and after that we can eat
all the delicious, magically-messy food. How does that sound?’

‘Yay!’ shouted all the kids together again.

Alice came over and hugged me. ‘You’re a genius, Megan,’ she said. ‘A total genius.’

Alice helped me to organise lots of games. We played dead wizards and flying wizards and lost wizards and statue wizards. The kids were having a great time, and after a bit, Veronica recovered enough to want to join in.

‘Let’s have a competition to see who can make up the best spell,’ she said. ‘Who wants to go first?’

No one said anything, and Veronica started to look nervous.

‘Whoever goes first can have a sweet,’ she said.

‘
One
sweet?’ said a boy. ‘Is that all?’

‘All right then, a whole packet of sweets,’
said Veronica.

‘OK, I’ll start,’ the boy said, grinning. ‘It’s a spell to turn girls into gross, slimy maggots.’

All the girls started screaming and pretending to vomit, and all the boys laughed like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard in their lives.

Then the boy continued. ‘All you need is a big bowl of cat’s wee-wee, and you mix that with a bowl of dog’s vomit, and then you get a stinky dirty nappy––’

Now Veronica shrieked too. ‘That’s enough, you silly little boy. We don’t want to hear that kind of thing do we, children?’

‘Yes, we do,’ shouted another boy.

‘He’s making me feel sick,’ said a small girl. ‘I don’t like talking about rude things.’

‘I want my sweets,’ said the first boy. ‘You promised me. If I don’t get my sweets I’m going to––’

I could see that things were getting out of hand.

‘Maybe it’s time for food?’ I said to Veronica.

She nodded and ran to get matches to light the candles on the cake. I crossed my fingers, hoping she wasn’t going to burn the house down. After all my trouble, that would have been kind of a disappointing end to the party.

An hour later, all the kids had gone home, and Alice and I had helped Veronica to tidy up. Except for a few small chocolate stains on the carpet, the place looked pretty ok.

Veronica hugged me.

‘Thanks, Megan,’ she said. ‘I think you might have saved all of our lives.’

I blushed, but I didn’t argue. I think she might have been right.

Chapter Four

‘T
hree more days till the Easter holidays,’ said Alice as she walked me home. ‘It’ll be nice to be off school, but I wish we were going somewhere nice. I wish we were …’

She stopped talking – probably because I’d grabbed her arm and was squeezing it tightly.

‘Hey, that hurts,’ she said. ‘Why are you …?’

Instead of answering, I used my free hand to point along the road.

‘Oh,’ said Alice. ‘Now I get it.’

The meanest girl in the world was walking
towards us. I walked slower and slower, but even so, we were soon face to face with her.

‘Hi, Megan. Hi Alice,’ she said.

‘Hi, Melissa,’ we both replied.

I’ve known Melissa since we were in primary school together, and I’ve always been a bit afraid of her. When we all started secondary school, and she decided to go away to boarding school, I felt like she’d given me a huge present. She comes home most weekends, though, and I always seem to bump in to her. Sometimes I think it’s like she’s stalking me or something.

Once Melissa had a moment of weakness and told me that she hated boarding school, but mostly she just brags about the fancy swimming pool and the fancy riding stables and the fancy chefs who cook fancy food for the students. When she gets tired of bragging, she usually starts to pick on me. She always gives me a hard time about my mum’s weird environmental ideas. Last time we met, she’d mocked me because I was wearing the scarf
Mum had knitted for my thirteenth birthday. (I admit the scarf is fairly gross, but that’s not really the point.)

‘So what’s happening around here these days?’ asked Melissa now. ‘All boring stuff, I suppose.’

‘I’m just walking Megan home after Jamie’s birthday party,’ said Alice.

‘Oh,’ said Melissa with a big fake smile. ‘Poor Megan, I guess you never get asked to proper parties so you just go to little kids ones.’

‘Megan was helping to organise the party,’ said Alice. ‘And she was really good.’

Alice was trying to help me, but I knew she was wasting her time.

‘How nice,’ said Melissa in a sick, sweet voice. ‘Let me guess, Megan. Did you knit a birthday cake and crochet a pizza and make a jug of yummy nettle juice to wash it all down?’

I wanted to say something smart back, but when Melissa’s around, it’s like my brain goes into slow motion. I opened my mouth and no
words came out. As usual, Alice came to my rescue.

‘That doesn’t even make sense, Melissa,’ she said. ‘I know you’re always kind of dumb, but I see you’re making a special effort today. We’re honoured, aren’t we, Megan?’

I giggled.

‘Totally,’ I said.

Melissa’s mouth went all wrinkly, like she’d just sucked a super-sour lemon. She loves saying mean stuff to me, but she doesn’t much like it when people do the same to her.

‘You’re so immature, you two,’ she said, and then she tossed her golden curls and marched off, with the heels of her fancy boots making loud clicky-clacky sounds on the footpath.

‘Thanks for that, Al,’ I said.

She smiled at me. ‘No worries. As long as I’m around, Melissa will never get away with being mean to you.’

‘Thanks,’ I said again.

She was being nice, but her words scared me
a bit. Alice isn’t super-glued to my side, and I wondered if I’d ever be brave enough to stand up to Melissa on my own.

An hour later, I was lying on my bed reading when the doorbell rang. From the hall, I could hear my friend, Grace, fighting off Mum’s efforts to give her a glass of carrot juice and a sugar-free cookie. Then I heard her explaining to my little sister Rosie why she couldn’t go into her bedroom and play dressing-up. Finally she arrived in my room.

‘Hey, Megan, I’ve got brilliant news,’ she said. ‘Mum and Dad have decided to book a last-minute Easter trip to our villa in Lanzarote.’

‘That’s so cool,’ I said. ‘You’re really lucky. Alice and I were saying how nice it would be to go away for the holidays.’

‘I haven’t told you the best news yet,’ said Grace. ‘Mum and Dad said I can bring two
friends … and …’

She stopped talking while she took off her jacket and threw herself onto the end of my bed.

I hardly dared to hope. Grace has heaps of friends, so what were the chances of her choosing me?

‘… and,’ she continued when she was comfortable. ‘Louise is going to stay with her cousins for Easter and Kellie is going to pony camp, so even if I asked them, they wouldn’t be able to come.’

I let myself feel the tiniest bit excited.

‘And I called over to Alice’s place a few minutes ago,’ she continued. ‘And she’s allowed to come and I was kind of wondering if …’

I sat up straight.

Was Grace going to say what I hoped she was going to say?

Was this going to turn into the best Easter holidays ever?

Grace was lying there, twiddling her hair,
like what she had to say wasn’t really all that important. I felt like shaking her, but decided that wasn’t a good plan. Finally she finished her sentence. ‘… if you’d like to come too?’

‘OMG,’ I squealed, as I threw myself on top of her. ‘I’d
so
love to come. It would be totally amazing. It would be the best thing ever. It would be …’

I stopped and stood up slowly. It was never going to happen. Flights to Lanzarote were bound to be expensive, and Mum was saving up for a new greenhouse.

‘There’s a half-price flight sale on at the moment,’ said Grace, like she could read my mind.

My hopes rose again before she ruined things with her next words. ‘The sale ends at midnight tonight.’

My mum would never make up her mind that quickly. First she’d have to contact the FBI to make sure no one in Grace’s family had ever, ever done anything wrong. Then she’d have to
do a big research project on the quality of the organic vegetables in Lanzarote. Then she’d have to worry about crime and sunburn and food poisoning and insect bites. It was hopeless.

Once again Grace read my mind. ‘Why don’t you ask your mum and dad now?’

‘Yeah, why not?’ I said.

Might as well get it over with, so when they say no, Grace can go ahead and ask someone else.

Grace followed me into the kitchen where Mum and Dad were sitting at the table drinking some gross-smelling herbal tea.

‘Grace has invited me to go to Lanzarote with her family next week,’ I said quickly. ‘Can I go? Please? Please? There’s a flight sale, so it won’t even be expensive, and I’ve saved some of my Confirmation money, so I could pay half if you want. Please Mum and Dad, please can I go?’

As usual, Dad didn’t answer. He just looked at Mum and waited to see what she had to say.

As usual, that was a lot.

‘That’s very kind of you and your family, Grace,’ she said. ‘But Donal and I have a lot to think about before we say yes or no. It’s all a bit of a rush, and I’m not sure we’ll have time to make an informed decision.’

I put my head down. I should have known I was wasting my time. The holiday would be over, and Grace and Alice’s suntans would be faded by the time my mum finished her investigations.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I know it’s not going to happen. I shouldn’t even have asked.’

Mum didn’t say anything else. She stared at me and I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking.

‘Come on, Grace,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

Grace followed me back to my room. ‘Your mum didn’t actually say no,’ she said. ‘Maybe you should give her a chance to think about it.’

I shook my head. ‘You don’t know her like I do. I’m sorry, Grace, but maybe you’d better
start thinking about who else you could ask to go to Lanzarote with you. What about one of the girls from your class? Or maybe …’

Tears came to my eyes and I couldn’t finish. Why did I have to be stuck with the weirdest, fussiest mum in the history of the universe?

It just wasn’t fair.