“Hello! Hello!” Mum cries, wafting into the room.
She’s the only one of us who’s actually dressed, as she’s going off to open the shop as soon as she’s finished eating. As always, she looks stunning. She’s wearing an emerald-green shift dress that goes perfectly with her auburn curls. Whenever I wear green, I have the horrible feeling that I might look just like a walking Christmas decoration, but Mum always manages to style it out. She walks around the table, kissing each of us on top of the head. “And how are we all this fine December morning?”
“We are all just tickety-boo, thank you,” Elliot replies in his poshest voice.
“Splendid!” Mum replies in an even posher voice. She goes over to Dad and kisses him on the back of his neck. “It smells amazing, darling.”
Dad spins around and grabs her in a hug. We all avert our eyes. I guess it’s good that my parents still get on so well—that they don’t sit in bitter silence for hours on end like Elliot’s—but sometimes their PDAs are a little bit cringey.
“Are you still OK to help Andrea out in the shop this afternoon?” Mum asks, coming to sit next to me.
“Of course.” I turn to Elliot. “Do you fancy a trip around the Lanes this morning?”
Tom immediately groans. He hates anything to do with clothes and shopping—which is probably why he’s currently wearing a vile orange football top and red pajama bottoms.
“Of course,” Elliot replies. Elliot is most definitely my soul brother.
“And a trip to the 2p machines on the pier?” I add hopefully.
“Of course not,” Elliot replies with a frown. I flick him with my napkin. As Mum gets up to fetch some maple syrup from the cupboard, Elliot leans in close to me and whispers, “OMG, your blog last night was amazing. Did you see all the comments?”
I nod and grin, feeling stupidly proud.
“I told you it would go down well,” Elliot says smugly.
“What went down well?” Mum asks, coming back to the table.
“Nothing,” I say.
“The Titanic,” Elliot says.
? ? ?
Two hours later, Elliot and I are on the end of the pier playing the 2p game.
“I’m sorry,” Elliot says, raising his voice over the sound of ringing slot machines, “but I just don’t see the point of this dumb game. At. All.”
I insert another coin and clench my hands together as I watch the tray of coins slide forward. The coins on the edge of the tray quiver—but stay put. I let out a loud sigh.
“I mean, it’s a bit like Myspace, isn’t it? Or porridge? There’s just no point to it!”
I insert another 2p and start singing “la, la, la” inside my head to drown out Elliot’s moaning. The truth is he loves to hate the 2p game as much as I love to play it. The tray slides forward and at first it looks as if I’ve lost again. But then one of the coins hanging over the edge drops and this sparks an avalanche. I clap my hands for joy as a load of coins clatter down into the tray.
“Yes!” I cry, hugging Elliot just to annoy him even more.
He frowns at me but I can tell from the way his eyes are twinkling behind his red-rimmed glasses that he’s trying really hard not to grin.
“I’ve won!” I scoop the money from the tray.
“So you have.” Elliot looks down at the coins in my hand. “Twenty whole pence. What on earth are you going to do with such a life-changing sum?”
I tilt my head to one side. “Well, first I’ll make sure that my family is all taken care of. Then I’ll buy myself a mini convertible. And then I think I’ll buy my good friend Elliot a sense of humor!” I shriek with laughter as I dodge his play-punch. “Come on; let’s check out the Lanes before I have to start work.”
? ? ?
The Lanes are my favorite part of Brighton—apart from the sea of course. Their labyrinth of cobbled streets and quaint little shops make you feel as if you’ve turned a corner and journeyed two hundred years back in time.
“Did you know that the Cricketers’ Arms used to be called the Laste and Fishcart?” Elliot says, as we walk past the old pub.
“The Last Fishcart,” I say, absentmindedly, as I watch a girl walking toward us. She’s wearing an amber trilby hat with a full-length printed jumpsuit. She looks amazing. I instantly want to take a picture, but I’m a second too late and she disappears around the corner.
“No, not the Last Fishcart—the Laste and Fishcart,” Elliot says. “A laste is the measurement they used for ten thousand herrings—back in the day when Brighton was a fishing village.”
“All right, Wiki,” I say with a grin.
Elliot truly is a walking, talking Wikipedia. I don’t know how he manages to store so much random info in his head. His brain must be the equivalent of a six-terabyte hard drive. (A six-terabyte hard drive is currently the biggest hard drive in the world—another random fact I learned from Elliot!)
I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. It’s a text from Megan. I instantly think of what happened yesterday in JB’s and my mouth goes dry. But her text is surprisingly friendly.
Hey, are we still on for tonight? Xoxo
I’d totally forgotten about tonight. Earlier in the week I’d suggested we have a sleepover like we used to. I was partly joking, and partly trying to get our friendship back onto its old, easier ground, when everything seemed so blissfully uncomplicated.
“Who is it?” Elliot asks as we make our way past one of the Lanes’ many jewelry shops. The window curves out from the front, as if it is literally bulging with trays of silver necklaces, bracelets, and rings.
“Megan,” I mutter, hoping Elliot won’t hear—or won’t care.
“What does she want?” he says.
My heart sinks. “Oh, just to see if we’re still on for tonight.”
Elliot stares at me. “What’s happening tonight?”
I look down at the cobbled street. “I asked her to come over for a sleepover.”
“A sleepover? Er, hello, we are in Year Eleven now.”