LITMIR.BIZ

      “Else what?” said Annie.

      “Else you’ll be in deep ****!”

      The reason I have put **** is so as not to write what she actually said, as what she actually said was quite rude and I don’t think really she ought to have said it; but as she was in this strop on account of having to baby-sit for me and Annie instead of stacking shelves with Tyrone, I forgave her. The minute she’d gone, Annie turned the music up again.

      “Now we can have fun!” she said.

      I was in a state of jitters again next morning, desperate to get round to Annie’s and discover if she’d managed to speak to Lori again, but I did my best to contain myself as I didn’t want Mum growing suspicious, thinking I was up to something. The minute she dropped me off, we raced upstairs to Annie’s bedroom. I could see that Annie was bursting with news.

      I said, “Well? Did you speak to her?”

      Annie’s face broke into a big beam. “Yes! It’s all arranged. We’re going to have tea with her!”

      I said, “Tea … ” I could hear my voice, all hushed and breathy, like it was going to be tea with the Queen. Only this was far more exciting! I wouldn’t have anything very much to say to the Queen. I’d got simply loads to say to Harriet!

      “We’re going on Thursday,” said Annie. “I thought Friday would have been better, ’cos of being nearer to your birthday, but Lori said her mum couldn’t manage Friday. And I said we couldn’t manage Saturday ’cos of your birthday party, so she said what about Thursday, and I said Thursday would be OK, so—”

      “Thursday is good!” I said. “Mum has to work late on Thursday!”

      “Anyway, we’ll be back ages before then,” said Annie. “It’s only tea. What we’ve got to do, she said, is get a bus to Brafferton Bridge—”

      “We go through there on the way to visit Gran!” I knew exactly which bus, and where to catch it: a number six, at the back of Market Square. “Is Brafferton Bridge where she lives?” I said, thinking that I would have to change the first bit of my biography.

      “Near Brafferton Bridge. She said her mum will meet us and take us back. Lori won’t be able to come ’cos she’s already doing something else, but—”

      “That’s all right.”

      I didn’t care about Lori; Harriet was the one I cared about. In fact I thought I might be a bit shy if Lori were there, so I was quite glad she wasn’t going to be.

      “She said maybe we could meet another time,” said Annie. “She sounds really nice! Oh, and it’s got to be kept a secret. She said her mum doesn’t usually meet her fans ’cos if she met all the people that read her books she’d never have time for writing.”

      “Yes.” I nodded. I’d read that somewhere, in one of the interviews that Harriet had given. She had said that she was a very private person. She loved to hear from her readers, and she always, always wrote back; but she didn’t very often make public appearances. I could understand that! That is probably how I would be, if I were a famous writer.

      “So we’ve not got to tell anybody,” said Annie. “In case it gets back to people and they all want to come.”

      “Absolutely!” I said. This was my treat. I could think of several girls in our class who would be really envious … but I certainly didn’t want them intruding on my birthday present!

      “I said what we’d do,” said Annie, “we’d look up the times of buses so I could tell Lori which one we were getting so Harriet doesn’t have to be kept waiting.”

      I was ever so impressed! Annie isn’t normally what I would call an efficient sort of person. Mrs Glover at school once told her she was “slapdash”. But because this was my birthday present, and she did so much want me to enjoy it, she was making this huge great effort. She even knew how to look up bus timetables on the Internet!