The Friends Forever Collection - Jean Ure

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was in the wrong, not me.

      Crazy! Anyway. This is the rest of my review:

       Candy is pretty, with bright blue eyes like periwinkles and bubbly blonde hair (as I already said, I don’t look like her. Alas!) but she never thinks of herself as pretty, having this quite low opinion of herself most of the time. Then there is this girl at school, Tabitha Bigg, who bullies her and tells her she is useless and stupid, and Candy believes her, until one day a TV director comes to the school looking for someone to play a part in a TV show he is doing. Tabitha Bigg is sure he will choose her, because she is convinced she is the cat’s whiskers and Utterly Irresistible. Candy is too shy to even show herself! She tries to hide in the lavatory, but she comes out too soon and the director catches sight of her and immediately forgets all about Tabitha Bigg.

      “THAT is the one I want!” he cries.

       So Candy gets the part and it is yah boo and sucks to Tabitha Bigg, who is as sour as gooseberries and totally gutted. But everyone else is really glad that she didn’t get chosen as they are all fed up with her.

       When the show goes out on television, Candy’s dad sees it (on the Net: he is in Australia) and he writes to Candy, and comes flying over to see her. It turns out that Candy’s dad is a big name in Australian TV. He offers to take Candy back with him and make her a Big Star, but she chooses to stay with her mum.

      Which is what I would do if ever my dad turned up! I wouldn’t want to be a Big Star, and Candy doesn’t, either. Another way that we are alike!

      After I had written my review I read it out loud to Mum, who said that Candy sounded “a very sensible sort of girl”.

      I wondered if I was a sensible sort of girl, and whether sensible was an exciting thing to be. I decided that it wasn’t, and that was why I needed Annie. I don’t think anyone would call Annie sensible. But sometimes she is exciting. Like when she gets one of her mad ideas!

      “When I go round there tomorrow,” I said, “to Annie’s, I mean, is it OK if I use her computer? Just to type out on?”

      “What’s wrong with your handwriting?” said Mum.

      “It’s horrible! No one can read it.”

      “Of course they can, if you just take care. Why don’t you write it out again, nice and neatly? You can write beautifully when you try!”

      I didn’t want to try. I wanted to do it on Annie’s computer! I wanted it to look like proper printing.

      “Everyone else’ll do it on the computer,” I said.

      “Everyone?” said Mum.

      “Well … practically everyone.”

      “I don’t believe you’re the only person in your class who doesn’t have their own PC.”

      “I said, practically everyone.”

      I think I must have looked a bit mutinous, a bit rebellious, ’cos Mum sighed and said, “Well, all right, if you really must. But I think it’s a great shame if people are going to lose the ability to write by hand!”

      “I don’t mind for ordinary homework,” I said, “but this is going to be made into a book. It’s going to go on display. Miss Morton’s going to put it in the library! So it needs to look nice, Mum. It—”

      “Yes, yes, yes!” Mum held up her hands. “Enough! You’ve made your point.”

      “I wouldn’t go into a chatroom,” I said. “Honest! All I’m going to do is just type out the review. I wouldn’t ever go into a chatroom,” I said. “’cos we’ve talked about it. And I’ve given you my word. And I wouldn’t ever break my word, Mum, I promise!”

      “Oh, Megan.” Mum reached out and patted my hand. “I know you think I’m a terrible old fusspot—”

      “I don’t, Mum,” I said. “Truly!” I mean, I did, a bit; but I wanted her to know that I understood and that it didn’t bother me.

      “It’s just that Annie is such a strong character—”

      Did Mum mean that I was a weak one???

      “— and you do tend to follow wherever she leads.”

      “Not always!” I said.

      “Most of the time,” said Mum.

      “Only when it’s something funny! I wouldn’t do anything bad.”

      “I’m sure you wouldn’t mean to. But it does worry me that Annie’s parents are so lax.”

      I crinkled my forehead. “What does it mean? Lax?”

      “They’re not very strict with her. They let her do things that other parents wouldn’t. Like going into chatrooms without supervision, or—”

      “She knows not to give her address!” I said.

      “Even so,” said Mum. “She’s only eleven years old. You can do very silly things when you’re that age.”

      “Did you ever do silly things?” I said.

      “Of course I did!” said Mum. “Everybody does. You don’t have the experience to know any better.”

      “What were some of the silly things that you did?” I said.

      “Oh, come on, Megs! You really don’t want to hear about them.”

      “I do,” I said. “I do!”

      So then we got sidetracked, with Mum telling me how she’d once tried to turn herself blonde by using a bottle of household bleach – “I had to have all my hair cut off!” – and how another time she’d plucked her eyebrows almost raw, trying to look like some movie star I’d never heard of.

      “Mum! To think you were so vain,” I said.

      “You’d be hard put to believe it now, wouldn’t you?” said Mum, tweaking at the side of her hair where it is just starting to turn grey. “At least it’s one thing I wouldn’t accuse you of.”

      It is true that on the whole I am not a vain sort of person, which is mainly because I don’t really have anything to be vain about. Maybe if I was in a competition to find the human being that looks most like a stick of celery I might get a bit high and mighty, since I would almost certainly win first prize; or even, perhaps, a competition for the person with the most knobbly knees. My knees are really knobbly! A boy at school was once rude enough to say that my knees looked like big ball-bearings with twigs sticking out of them. Some cheek! But I have to admit he was right. So this is why I am not vain, as it would be rather pathetic if I was.

      I told Mum about the celery competition and the ball-bearing knees, and Mum said, “Oh, sweetheart, don’t worry! You’ll fill out,” as if she thought I needed comforting. But I don’t! I don’t mind looking like a stick of celery. I don’t even mind knobbly knees! If ever I start to get a bit depressed or self-conscious, I just go and read one of my Harriet Chances. Every single one of Harriet’s characters has secret worries about the way she looks. April Rose, for instance, has no waist. Me, neither! Victoria Plum has “hair like a limp dishcloth”. Just like me! Then there is

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