Shrinking Violet. Jean Ure

impressed, though I knew it was only ’cos Yvonne was jealous. She hates it if she’s not the centre of attention. (She hardly ever is, which is maybe why she is so bad-tempered all the time.)

      I try very hard not to be jealous as it is such a horrid feeling, you get all twisted up inside and it gives you a headache and makes you sick. Well, it does me. I once got so twisted up when we had a birthday party and I thought Lily was getting all the attention (which she was) that I had to go to the bathroom and put my head in the toilet and throw up. That is so disgusting! I didn’t want it happening while I was at school, so I did this little hum to myself – “Ho di ha di ho!” – and went over to my desk, where I started arranging all my felt tips in order of colour. Pink ones, orange ones, red ones …

      I WAS NOT GOING TO BE JEALOUS.

      Yellow ones, green ones –

      Ho di ha di ho! Blue ones, mauve ones –

      “Violet?” Pandora prodded at me. “Isn’t Tony the one you like?”

      I made a mumbling sound.

      “Isn’t he?’

      The trouble with Pandora is that once she’s started there’s no way of stopping her. She’s a bit like Horatio when he decides that he wants something. Usually food, in his case. He’ll just keep on and on nagging at you until he gets it.

      Like he’ll spread himself out across your homework that you’re trying to do, or walk about yowling and winding himself round your feet. Pandora just prods and pokes and keeps asking the same question over and over.

      “Isn’t he? The one that you like?”

      Ho di ha di ho! Black ones, brown ones –

      “Yes.”

      Gold ones, silver ones –

      “Wouldn’t you have liked to meet him?”

      “Yes!” I slammed down my desk lid. I’m not usually impatient with Pandora, but I was really trying so hard. I didn’t want to be sick!

      Lily’s voice came clanging across the room.

      “…going to be a PA when I leave school.”

      “What’s a PA?” said Pandora.

      I said, “Pompous airbag!” and fortunately at that moment the door opened and Mrs Frost, our teacher, came in.

      At first break the airbag was still telling everyone who would listen how she had been smiled at. I kept as far away as possible. I could see that even Sarah and Francine were getting a bit sick of it. The thing with Lily is, she just never knows when to stop.

      Me and her went home together at the end of school. We don’t always. Sometimes Mum picks us up, sometimes Dad, sometimes we get the bus and sometimes the airbag goes back with one of her friends. Today we went on the bus together and she started off all over again about Tony and how he had smiled at her – “At me!” – but I just took a book out of my bag and sat there pretending to read it. Not that it stopped her, but at least I was able to make like I wasn’t listening. Which in fact I wasn’t, as far as I could help it. I mean, bits of it kept breaking through but mainly what I was doing was wondering when I would hear from Katie and whether she would want to be my pen pal …

      I’d posted the letter on Saturday, but I knew the postman wouldn’t have come and taken it away until today. But I’d made sure to put a first-class stamp on it, so by tomorrow it would be with the magazine, and if they sent it on straight away it could be with Katie by Wednesday, and if she wrote back immediately – which was what I would do – then on Friday morning I could have a letter!

      The post comes really late in our house. It comes after we’ve left, so that all of Friday I was, like, counting the hours, waiting for the moment when I could get back home and find out if my letter had arrived!

      It hadn’t. All there was, was a bill for Dad and a seed catalogue for Mum.

      It didn’t come Saturday, it didn’t come Monday, it didn’t come Tuesday. By Wednesday I was feeling quite despondent. I kept trying to remember what I’d written. If I’d written anything that might have put her off. I wished I’d kept a copy! Maybe I shouldn’t have said about being eleven in April; maybe that had been too much like boasting. Or maybe I’d just sounded totally dim and boring.

      Maybe she’d had so many thousands of replies she’d simply picked out the ones that sounded like they’d be most fun. Maybe she hated Riverside. Maybe I should have mentioned that my favourite band is Flying High, except that Lily says it is a nerd’s band and anyway not many people have heard of it.

      Maybe she’d taken one look at my photograph and thought, “Puke! Purlease!”

      Maybe I was doomed to just never have a real proper friend ever, and that was all there was to it.

      And then I got home on Wednesday, and there it was, waiting for me … my letter!

      Lily said, “Who does she know that writes letters?”

      “None of your business,” I said.

      “Who’s it from?”

      “Not telling!”

      I turned the envelope over in my hands. It was pink and smelled of fruit and had two little furry cat stickers in one corner.

      “Aren’t you going to open it?” said Lily.

      “Not right now,” I said.

      “Why not?”

      “Because I don’t want to!”

      “So w —”

      “Lily, just leave Violet alone,” said Mum. “Letters are personal! How would you like it if she pried into yours?”

      Lily tossed her head. “Wouldn’t ever have one! Don’t know anyone who still writes them!”

      She can say what she likes. I enjoy having letters! I like seeing my name on the front of the envelope and I like looking at the stamps and studying the postmark and trying to guess who could have sent it. (Though I have so few that I almost always know!) I could guess that this was from Katie by the little cat stickers; and anyway, who else would be writing to me?

      I waited till we’d finished tea then I rushed upstairs to my room and tore open the envelope. I’d gone all trembly because I had this fear she might be going to say, “Thank you for writing to me but I’m afraid I have found someone else to be my pen pal.” Someone who sounded like more fun!