Viva Alice! (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

W
hen Melissa finally let me go, I felt all weird and dizzy, like I’d been on a merry-go-round and had got off too quickly.

Melissa seemed fine though, like nothing strange had happened at all.

‘I’ll walk you home,’ she said. I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea, but I was so used to being afraid of her, I didn’t argue.

‘There’s not much I’ll miss about boarding school,’ she said as we walked. ‘The swimming pool looks good on the brochure, but it’s never warm enough – and they put too much chlorine in it. The bedrooms are kind of
small and dark. Most of the teachers are really cross. The only one I really like is the science teacher. She’s big into the environment, and she’s always telling us about how we should be saving the planet. She’s really cool. Actually she … she reminds me a bit of your mum.’

I opened my mouth but no words came out.

Was Melissa actually saying that my mum was cool?

Was this the freakiest day of my whole life?

By now we were outside my house. We stood there for a second and it was a bit awkward. I wondered if I should invite Melissa in.

I tried to picture her sitting at the kitchen table, eating sugar-free cookies, and drinking pomegranate juice.

I tried to picture her having a discussion about global warming with my mum.

Some things are just too weird to imagine.

In the end, Melissa rescued me.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘Sorry again and thanks again. See you around.’

‘Er…. bye Melissa,’ I said, but she was already halfway down the road, flicking her hair as she went.

Just as I opened my gate, Alice came running out of her house.

‘OMG,’ she said. ‘Jamie is going to drive me totally crazy. One of his friends gave him a drum for his birthday, and he won’t stop playing it. You’ve got to rescue me, Meg. You’ve got to take me for hot chocolate. I think that might be the only thing that will save my life. If I don’t …’

She stopped when she saw Melissa disappearing into the distance.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Is that Melissa?’

I nodded.

‘What’s she doing around here?’

‘We were having a chat.’

‘Was she picking on you again? That’s totally
mean, especially after all we did for her.’

‘But––’

‘Maybe we should go around to her place and do a lot of crazy stuff and try to make her parents change their minds about sending her to our school.’

‘She wasn’t––’

‘Maybe we should start a rumour that our school is going to close down because the teachers were caught stealing from the hockey-pitch fund. Or we could say that there’s this weird virus leaking out of the science room. We could …

She stopped talking when she noticed that I was laughing. Trust Alice to race off into crazy-plan mode, without stopping to find out if it was necessary.

‘You only have to say the word, Meg,’ she said. ‘Say the word and I’ll sort Melissa out for you. I’ll get Grace and Louise and Kellie and––’

‘Thanks, Al,’ I said. ‘But that won’t be necessary. It’s sorted. Everything’s sorted. I’m not
afraid of Melissa any more.’

‘Megan!’ she said as she hugged me. ‘That’s amazing. I’m so proud of you.’

‘Now are we still going for that hot chocolate?’ I asked. ‘Or are you going to hug me to death?’

She let me go. ‘Hot chocolate,’ I think.

‘Then give me one minute.’

Suddenly I realised that I didn’t have the quinoa any more. I must have left it on the wall when I’d been talking to Melissa.

‘OMG,’ I said. ‘Mum’s going to kill me. Don’t go anywhere. If the shopping’s gone I’m going to need a bodyguard.’

I raced back to where I’d left the quinoa. Luckily it was still there. I guess organic quinoa isn’t the kind of thing that gets stolen a lot.

I ran back home and went inside. I gave Mum the quinoa, stroked Domino, took off my scarf and hid it under the stairs.

When I went outside, Alice was still leaning on the gate.

‘Ready?’ she asked,

I nodded, and then I set off for town with my very best friend.

JUDI CURTIN grew up in Cork and now lives in Limerick where she is married with three children. Judi is the best-selling author of the ‘Alice & Megan’ series and the ‘Eva’ series; with Roisin Meaney, she is also the author of
See If I Care
, and she has written three novels,
Sorry, Walter, From Claire to Here
and
Almost Perfect.
Her books have been translated into many languages.

The ‘Alice & Megan’ series

Alice Next Door

Alice Again

Don’t Ask Alice

Alice in the Middle

Bonjour Alice

Alice & Megan Forever

Alice to the Rescue

Alice & Megan’s Cookbook

The ‘Eva’ series

Eva’s Journey

Eva’s Holiday

Leave it to Eva

Eva and the Hidden Diary