LITMIR.BIZ

      “I gave them back last night!”

      “So where are they, then?”

      “How should I know? You took them!”

      “I beg your pardon, you were the one that took them!”

      Rachel then shouted that she was sick of Annie just helping herself to things that didn’t belong to her and if there was any more of it she was going to put a padlock on her bedroom door. “Because you’re a thieving little toerag!”

      Phew. I am sometimes quite glad that I am an only child.

      “Can we go upstairs now?” I said.

      “You can do whatever you like!” snapped Rachel. “I’ve washed my hands of you!”

      With that she stalked off in a huff and Annie and me went up to Annie’s bedroom.

      “Good riddance!” yelled Annie, as somewhere downstairs a door slammed shut. “I gave her back her stupid rollers! How should I know what she’s gone and done with them? W—”

      “Oh, look, just shut up!” I begged. “I want to hear what you talked to Lori about!”

      “Yes. Well!” Annie hurled herself down on to her bed. “I was telling her all about you, right? About you being a big fan, and everything. How you were doing this project for school. How you had all these books, and—”

      “Yes, yes, you told her that before!” I said.

      “So, OK, I told her again. I wanted her to know that you were this huge great admirer, and I said how it was your birthday on Saturday and how you really, really wanted this new book, this Feather thing—”

      “Scarlet Feather!”

      “Scarlet Feather, and—”

      “You weren’t trying to get her to send me one?” I said, horrified.

      “Why not? I thought you wanted one!”

      “I do, but not like that! That’s like begging.”

      “Well, it’s all right,” said Annie, “’cos she didn’t offer anyway. I thought she might have, ’cos I bet when books are published the authors get given loads of free copies, I mean like stacks and stacks, so it wouldn’t have hurt, but—”

      “It would’ve hurt me!” I said.

      Annie looked at me and shook her head. “You’re weird,” she said. “You know that? You’re really weird!”

      “Now she probably won’t ever want to talk to me!” I wailed. “She’ll think you were just trying to get a book out of her!”

      “No, she won’t,” said Annie. “I’ve got it all arranged.”

      “Got what all arranged?”

      Annie bounced upright, on the bed. She hugged her knees to her chest and grinned this big triumphant grin, almost splitting her face in two. “Your birthday present. I’m arranging it. Lori’s arranging it. With her mum.”

      “With Harriet?”

      Annie nodded, happily. “She’s really nice! Really friendly. Not a bit stuck up. She asked me if you’d ever met her mum, and I said no, but you would absolutely love to. I said if you could meet her it would be the most exciting thing that had ever happened to you – ’cos it would, wouldn’t it?” said Annie.

      I gulped. “Yes, it would!”

      “So Lori said, being as you’re such a huge great fan and you’re doing this project and everything, she’d ask her mum if it could be arranged. She’s almost sure her mum’ll say yes. So there you are!”

      Annie flung her legs in the air and exultantly rolled backwards on the bed. “You’re going to meet Harriet Chance!”

      “B-but … h-how?” I said.

      “What d’you mean, how?”

      “Well, I mean … she’s in London!”

      “No, she’s not.”

      “She used to be.”

      “So people move! We can get to her easy as anything on the bus. I didn’t give her your address,” said Annie, “’cos I know you’re not supposed to—”

      “She’s got it anyway,” I said. “I mean, Harriet has.” When I was ten I wrote her this creepy crawly fan letter, all decorated with hearts and flowers, and she wrote back, saying Love from Harriet, XXX, and I was so thrilled! I put the letter in a special frame and hung it on the wall. It’s still there, even now.

      “Yes, well, this is it,” said Annie. “I probably would have given it to her if she’d offered to send you a book, but all she did was just ask what part of the country we lived, and when I said Wiltshire she said was it anywhere near Salisbury, so I said yes, and she said in that case there was no problem. She’s going to ask her mum and see when to do it. It will be your birthday treat,” said Annie, all self-important. “A special present from me to you! You might try to look a bit happy about it.”

      I said, “I am happy! It would be the most brilliant birthday present I’ve ever had!”

      “So why are you looking worried?”

      “I’m just scared in case it doesn’t happen!”

      “It will happen. Lori’s promised.”

      “But why should someone important like Harriet want to see me?”

      “Because you’re her number-one fan! Because you’re doing this thing about her! Because it’s your birthday. I told you I was going to give you a really good present! You didn’t believe me, did you? You thought I was going to give you something stupid, like last year.”

      I bleated a protest. “I didn’t!” The reason I bleated was that I was in such a tremor my voice had gone. I’d swallowed my voice! “I didn’t,” I said, “honestly!”

      “Bet you did,” said Annie.

      “I did not. You always give me good presents!”

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