Secrets Read Online Free PDF

rockets and each time one burst into stars I made a wish.
    I wish I had a real best friend!
    I wished it ten times over and then I crept back inside the house, into the kitchen. The left-over party canapés were congealing on their silver trays.
    â€˜Blow
Sensible Eating
. I’m
not
a
Sparky Kid
,’ I muttered. I ate every single honey-glazed sausage and asparagus tip and quail’s egg and goat’s cheese tartlet and Thai chicken stick and
even
the caviar canapés, and
then
I went to the fridge and got a big carton of Loseley vanilla-and-ginger ice-cream and ate the lot. Then I went up to bed.
    I wasn’t sick. I
felt
sick – and I got up in the night to go to the bathroom just in case. The party seemed to have finished because it was quiet downstairs. It was very noisy in Mum and Dad’s bedroom. They seemed to be having a serious quarrel about Suzi.
    I felt so lonely I wondered about going into Wanda’s room. If she was still crying we could maybe comfort each other. But when I peeped round her door I saw she was fast asleep, her hair inky-black against her pillow, her long feet sticking straight out the end of her duvet. I decided it would be mean to wake her so I trailed back to my own bed and put the light on and started reading Anne Frank’s diary all over again to take my mind off my queasy stomach.
    The first part made me feel sadder than ever because Anne had so many friends when she was at school, before she had to go into hiding.
    Maybe we’re not soulmates after all.
    I absolutely
have
to get a proper best friend at school this year. I shall try harder with Maria. Maybe she’ll let me be her second-best friend. She might even get fed up with Alice and want to go around with
me
.
    * * *
    I can’t believe I wrote that. I HATE Maria now.
    I tried very, very hard the first day back at school. I sit over the other side of the classroom from Maria and Alice but I hovered by their desks before lessons and after lessons. I went along to the girls’ cloakrooms when they did and stood in the lunch queue with them, listening all the time. Whenever Maria said anything – for example:
    I got a new mobile phone for Christmas.
I’m seriously thinking of becoming a vegetarian.
Wasn’t
Buffy
good last night?
    I’d say:
    I’m going to ask for a mobile for my birthday. I’ll buy it all these little covers so it’s like it’s my doll and I can dress it up. Wouldn’t it be weird if your mobile developed its own personality and only let you chat to the people it really liked? It would tell everyone else to get lost in this funny little electronic voice.
I’m thinking about being a vegetarian too. I especially can’t stand the idea of eating lamb, can you, as they look so sweet – but it’s a bit unfair to think it’s OK to eat really hideous animals like eels – not that anyone in their right mind would want to. And they eat snakes somewhere, don’t they? Imagine!
Buffy
is my all-time favourite programme. Do you think there really are vampires? Wouldn’t it be great to be the chosen one? Mind you, it would be pretty exciting to be a vampire too.
    I thought my replies were a lot more interesting than Alice’s, which were:
    You are lucky.
Me too.
Yeah.
    But somehow Maria didn’t seem to think so. She started off the day nodding and smiling but by the time we were packing our bags ready to go home she was shaking her head and frowning all over her face. She didn’t
say
anything and when I said goodbye she said goodbye back. Alice said goodbye too – but then she added ‘and good riddance!’ the moment I’d turned my back. Maria went, ‘Alice!’ like that – but she burst out laughing. They both did.
    I walked across the playground with my head held high, pretending not to have heard them. I shan’t go near them tomorrow. I’ve never been that keen on Alice but I thought