But the problem was, we needed to get Dave and Brown Owl together and it wasn’t going to be easy. As far as we knew they’d never even set eyes on each other. But we had to start somewhere, so we decided to start with Dave.
Every time he saw us around school he kept on asking us if there was any word from Pamela yet, and telling us he was keeping Saturday free, and other silly things. So we decided we’d tell him about this person we knew, this grown-up friend of ours called Madeline, who really wanted to meet him.
We didn’t tell him she was our Brown Owl. As Kenny said, someone who wants to go out with Pamela Anderson might not be interested if he knows she runs the Brownies.
“So, what’s this friend like?” he asked.
“Nice,” we all said in chorus.
He rolled his eyes. “What does she do?”
“She works in a bank,” said Felicity. That seemed OK.
“How old is she?”
“About your age,” said Kenny, quick as a flash. Dave didn’t look convinced.
“She’s got her own car,” I said. He seemed impressed by that.
Then he asked us what she looked like. OK, so perhaps we exaggerated a bit, but like my grandma says, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
We got stuck when he asked us what music she was into. We hadn’t a clue.
“Blur, Oasis, I think,” said Felicity. Even I knew that was a mistake.
“That’s kids’ stuff,” said Dave, pulling a face.
“No, she’s got it wrong,” said Kenny. “I think she likes… classical music.”
He pulled an even worse face.
“It could be country and western,” I said. His face lit up.
“That’s right. It was country and western,” said Kenny. “I remember now.”
“At least she’s got good taste in music,” said Dave. We all nodded enthusiastically.
By now Dave was looking seriously interested, but the whistle had gone for lessons. We headed back to the classroom.
Felicity said, “I didn’t know Brown Owl liked country and western.”
Honestly, what is she like? She can be so dozy sometimes.
But we knew Dave was interested because after that he stopped mentioning Pamela Anderson every time he saw us and started asking how Madeline was. Felicity was so convinced we’d got it sorted that she started doing little drawings of what kind of bridesmaid’s dresses we would all wear.
“Look, don’t bank on it,” I said. “We still haven’t talked to Brown Owl.”
That night it was Brownies. Our Brownie pack meets in the church hall on a Thursday night. It’s not a very big pack but there are four sixes. Me and Kenny and Fliss are all sixers. Lyndz is my seconder and Rosie has joined Kenny’s six. At the moment we’re all working on our Brownie Highway. It’s the last of our Brownie journeys. Some of us are nearly old enough to leave Brownies. We’re writing a play and making puppets with Snowy Owl. We’re supposed to be doing a puppet show for our mums and dads, but it’s taken us weeks just to make the puppets.
We were all sitting round a table and Brown Owl came over to see how we were getting on. She sat down with us, so I grabbed the opportunity. I pretended to be dead laid back.
“Brown Owl, what kind of music d’you like?”
“All sorts,” she said.
“But what’s your favourite?”
She shrugged. “Jazz… opera…”
“Opera?” I said.
“Don’t you like Oasis?” said Lyndz.
“I’ve never heard them,” said Brown Owl. Lyndsey’s jaw dropped.
“What about country and western?” said Kenny, desperately.
“Yes, it’s OK. I like all sorts.”
We let out a sigh of relief.
“Brown Owl, how old are you?” Felicity asked.
“Felicity!” said Snowy Owl, shocked.
“Never you mind,” said Brown Owl, smiling. “It’s not polite to ask a lady her age.”
Fliss said, “Sorry.”
“I should think so too,” said Snowy Owl.
Why are grown-ups so funny about their age? I don’t get it. But at least it had made Brown Owl smile. Then Rosie went too far.
“Brown Owl, have you got a boyfriend?”
Brown Owl’s face went all serious and stern-looking and she got up and walked off. “You just concentrate on your puppets,” she told us, “instead of my love-life.”
“What did you have to go and say that for?” I hissed at Rosie.
“How else are we going to find out?” she hissed back.
Snowy Owl looked at us suspiciously.
“We were only wondering,” I said, trying to look innocent. “She just doesn’t seem very happy.”
Snowy looked over to make sure Brown Owl couldn’t hear her.
“She hasn’t got a boyfriend,” she whispered. “And it’s time she had. No one’s worth getting yourself that miserable over. I’ve told her that, but she’s not ready to hear it yet. So don’t you lot go upsetting her any more, d’you hear?”
We all nodded and looked at one another, but we didn’t say anything else to Snowy Owl. We just got on with painting our puppet heads. You can’t tell with grown-ups who you can trust and who you can’t. But at least one thing was clear, Brown Owl needed our help, even if she didn’t know it yet.
We thought we’d at least got Dave on our side. So it was a bit of a surprise that on Friday, when we mentioned it, he burst out laughing.
“Are you still on about that?” he said. “Don’t you think that joke’s wearing a bit thin?”
“But it’s not a joke,” said Kenny.
“We’re deadly serious,” I said.
“Deadly?”
