LITMIR.BIZ

      We didn’t have Mrs Rowe then, which is just as well or she’d have made one of her remarks like “I see we nearly stumbled at the first hurdle, Rebecca!” She said that to Sarah once, when Sarah wrote the date wrong. She can be ever so sarcastic.

      And she always always calls us by our full names: Rebecca, Joanna, Suzanne. It’s like she’s scared of being too friendly. She says, “You do not shorten my name. Why should I shorten yours?”

      It’s hard to think how you could shorten Rowe. Sarah sometimes calls her Rosy, only not to her face. I don’t think anyone would dare call her that to her face!

      She’s all right, really, Mrs Rowe. She’s very fair. She doesn’t pick on people or have favourites, like some teachers. I think she’s one of those that Gran would have said their bark is worse than their bite. I wonder if she’d be one of the guests?

      She might be! When I was off school last year she came to see me, which not everybody did. When I told Sarah, Sarah pulled a face and said that if she was off school a visit from Rosy was the last thing she’d want.

      “Freeze the blood in your veins, that would!”

      But she was really nice and not at all sarcastic. Also, she brought me a book of ballet photographs and a get-well card with a picture of Darcey Bussell on it. I wonder how she knew that Darcey is my ace favourite dancer???

      Maybe she’s seen the photos I’ve got pinned inside my locker! But she still must have gone out and bought it specially. Not everyone would have done that. So now I think that seeming to be cold and unfeeling is just her manner, like Sarah is always laughing and making jokes so that maybe you would think she doesn’t care about things, but that would not be true. We wouldn’t be best friends if she didn’t care. For instance, she cried ever so when her favourite goldfish died.

      He was called Golden Boy and it was particularly terrible and tragic as her little sister Tasha took him out of the tank when no one was looking and he squiggled through her hands and fell on the floor, and instead of putting him back she got scared and ran screaming for her mum. By the time her mum got there it was too late and he had expired (which is simply another way of saying died).

      Sarah was really sad. She said that although goldfish don’t have much in the way of personality it is very upsetting to think of them suffocating on the living-room carpet. I can see that it would be. Especially if it happens to be your favourite one.

      We once wrote out long lists of all our favourite things, Sarah and me. We made scrapbooks and stuck them in there, with little drawings and pictures that we’d cut from magazines. Of course we were only young then. I expect if I looked at my list now I would cringe and think “How childish”. I mean, for instance, when I was six years old my favourite food was – jelly babies!

      I wonder if it would be fun to make up a new list, now that I am more mature? I think I will!

      List of my Favourite Things

      Favourite colour – Blue. I don’t know why, but it makes me happy. It is just one of those things.

      Favourite book – Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, even though it is old-fashioned. And my favourite character from Ballet Shoes is Posy, because she is the one who becomes a dancer!

      Favourite ballet – Swan Lake. Odette is what I want to dance more than anything else! My favourite part is where she is on point, leaning back against Prince Siegfried, and he has his arms round her.

      I think that is so beautiful and romantic!

      Favourite TV programme – Ask Auntie. I have to say that because it is Mum’s programme! I like it because I like to watch Mum. I suppose if Mum wasn’t in it I might say … General Practice. I really like that.

      Sarah says it’s fuddy-duddy. That is an expression she recently read in a book and now she keeps repeating it like a parrot. Everything that she thinks dull and boring is fuddy-duddy. She says that General Practice is for old people. It is true that there are quite a lot of old people in it, but sometimes there are children and that is interesting. Zoë likes it, too. We have thought of writing an episode together and sending it to the BBC.

      Favourite Film – Little Women. I have seen it three times and would like to see it again, even though I always drench about ten hankies when Beth gets sick after holding poor Mrs Hummel’s baby. This is because I know that she is going to die, though she doesn’t actually do so in the film. (But I have read Good Wives and that is how I know.) Last time I watched it Mum got worried and said it was too upsetting for me. She would like it if I only watched things that made me laugh, not things that make me weep. I know she means well but you cannot cocoon people. “Wrap them in cotton wool” is what Gran used to say. I don’t want to be wrapped in cotton wool. I want to watch Little Women again and again!