Bertie, who is small and stripy
Bella, who is small and black.
Bertie is full of fun! The other night while we were asleep he stole a toilet roll from out of the bathroom and carried it all the way downstairs, then chewed it to pieces and spat out the bits. When we woke in the morning it looked like confetti! We thought someone had got married!
Bella is a sweetheart. She is very round and cuddly. She just loves her grub! Mum says she cannot decide whether she should be called Belle of the Ball or Bella the Ball!
Please tell me about your cat Horatio. I would love to see a picture of him!! Thank you for sending me your photo. I am sending you one of me. I hope it will not put you off!!!
I noticed in yours that there was another girl at the end of the row that looked just like you! Is she your sister?
Are you twins? I would love to be a twin! I think it would be so neat for there to be two of you and no one knowing which was which. I said this to Mum and she said you could get up to all kinds of mischief. But she also said, maybe it would not be quite as much fun as I seem to think. Is it??? Tell me about your mum and dad. My mum is a teacher, she teaches violin and piano. She does it partly in a school (not my one!) and partly at home. When she is teaching violin the house is full of unearthly screechings and scrapings and sometimes my cat Bella sits outside the door and joins in. She thinks she is a violin!
I love to draw! I am not very musical but I think when I grow up I will be an artist of some kind. What will you be?
Underneath your photo it says “Mrs Frost’s class”. But I counted up and there are only fourteen people! We have twenty-eight in my class. I go to St Saviour’s Juniors. Where do you go?
I hope you don’t think I am being too nosy but it is just because I am so interested. Whatever you want to know about me, you can ask!
I had better stop now in case I am boring you. Please, please, PLEASE, write back! If you would still like to be my pen pal, that is.
Lots of luv
From
Katie Saunders XXX
PS Where does an elf go to get fit? To an elf farm! Ha ha!
The minute I’d finished reading the letter I went hurtling back downstairs, thump thud bang! I sounded like Lily.
“Mum!” I cried. “I’ve got a pen friend!”
“Really?” said Mum. “That’s wonderful! Where did you find her?”
“If it is a her,” said Dad.
“Dad! Of course it is,” I said. I wouldn’t want to write to a boy! “Her name’s Katie and she’s the same age as me and she has two cats and her mum teaches the piano and she advertised in Go Girl for someone to be her pen pal!”
“So you wrote to her?” said Mum. “That’s very enterprising! Can I have a read, or is it private?”
I hesitated. “You can read this first one,” I said. “But after that they’ll be private!”
I thought that in future letters we would probably share all kinds of secrets that I certainly wouldn’t want Mum reading! But there wasn’t anything secret yet, and I was just so bursting with pride. Katie found me interesting! Katie wanted us to be pen pals! I thought if Mum read her letter it would make her happy and she would stop worrying quite so much about me living in Lily’s shadow.
I was right. It worked!
“She sounds lovely,” said Mum. “I think that was such an excellent idea, Violet! Finding yourself a pen friend. I see she lives with her mum… I wonder what happened to her dad?”
I said that I had wondered that, too. “Maybe they’re divorced?” I said. Lots of girls at school have mums and dads who are divorced.
Mum agreed that this was possible. “But you’d better not ask her,” she warned. “It might be something she doesn’t want to talk about. Wait till she feels ready to tell you.”
“Yes, I was going to,” I said. I am not like Lily! Lily always goes rushing in with both feet. “Where is your dad?” is probably the very first question she’d ask. I try to consider other people’s feelings, ‘cos I know how I would feel – which just makes it all the worse when I go and say stupid things like I did to Ayesha about her face.
Mum folded the letter and handed it back to me. “It’s nice she lives so near,” she said. “When you get to know each other better, you’ll be able to meet.”
I said, “Mm!” Doing my best to sound enthusiastic.
“In fact,” said Mum, “why don’t y —”
“Look!” I waved the envelope in the air. Quickly, quickly, before Mum could get carried away and start arranging things. “She’s sent me a photo! D’you want to see it?”
I was just handing the photograph to Mum when Lily came crashing into the room. Needless to say, she had to come bundling over to take a look.
“Who’s that?” she said.
I told her that it was a picture of my pen pal. “Katie.”
“Hm!” Lily studied it, critically. “Her nose is like a blob.”
“I think she looks rather cute,” said Mum. “Like a little pixie!”
Lily said, “Pixie,” in tones of deepest scorn.
“Munch munch munch,” said Dad, pretending to nibble a carrot.
Lily flushed bright scarlet. Our front teeth are just the tiniest bit rabbity, so that we have to wear a brace. Lily really hates it! She is really self-conscious about it.
“Well, I’m sorry, but people who live in glass houses,” said Dad.
Angrily, Lily said, “What’s that s’pposed to mean?”
“It means,” said Mum, “that we do not mock the way other people look unless we want to be mocked in return. What are you doing down here, anyway? I thought you were going to have a bath?”
“Am! Don’t want anything!” shouted Lily; and she slammed out of the room and went thudding back up the stairs.
“That girl!” said Mum.
I pointed out that it was all right for Mum, she was only her mother. “I’m her twin!”
I decided that I would
