The kitchen was about the size of my whole house. Everything seemed to be made of metal or glass or shiny marble. It hurt my eyes a bit.
Melissa’s mum and dad were sitting at opposite ends of the kitchen table, looking really busy typing stuff into their laptops.
‘Hey, Mum and Dad,’ said Melissa. ‘These are my friends, Alice and Megan, and you know Grace already.’
‘Hello, girls,’ said both parents, without even looking up.
Then we all stood there for a bit, feeling totally awkward.
In the end, Grace pulled something from her pocket, and unfolded it. ‘Here, Melissa,’ she said. ‘Here’s the new brochure from our school – the one I was telling you about. Look, there’s a picture of the new hockey pitch. It’s got this super-modern surface – we’re the first school in Munster to have one like it.’
‘That’s really cool,’ said Melissa. ‘Let’s have a look.’
I wasn’t paying much attention to the brochure, or to Melissa. I was watching her parents, who hadn’t looked up from their work, not even for a single second. While Melissa studied the brochure, the only sound was the clicking of laptop keys.
Sometimes my mum drives me crazy, the way she wants to know every single detail about my life. When I bring friends over, she force-feeds them with healthy treats and asks totally inappropriate questions about their feelings.
Suddenly I felt that was a bit better than Melissa’s parents, who didn’t even seem to know that we were there.
I could see that Alice was getting edgy. She pulled the brochure from Melissa’s hand and held it in front of her mum’s laptop screen.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘You should read this, so you can see all the great things about our school. There’s a page on the drama society, and the music society, and here’s a bit about a school trip to the science fair, and here’s the home ec room – our teacher is brilliant, and home ec is my favourite subject, and I think I’m quite good at it, and here’s …’
Melissa’s mum finally looked up. She stared at Alice like she was a bit crazy.
Grace stepped forward. ‘It’s a great school,’ she said. ‘We came second in the hockey league last year, and our debating team is in the national finals next week.’
Alice was nudging me, and I knew I had to say something. Only trouble was, Grace and Alice had already said all the things I’d planned to say. My mind was a blank, which is never really a good thing.
Everyone stopped talking, like they were waiting for me to say something very clever.
I looked desperately around the room, and saw a newspaper on a chair in the corner. Suddenly I had a flash of inspiration.
‘Er … I saw something amazing about our school in the newspaper last week,’ I said.
‘What was that?’ asked Alice smiling at me like I was some kind of idiot.
‘Er … it said that one of our past pupils has just been made vice-president of the biggest computer firm in America. It’s a brilliant job, and she was really lucky to get it.’
Now, for the first time, Melissa’s dad looked up from his laptop. ‘That’s very interesting,’ he said. ‘Computers are the future. If you want to get on these days, a good grounding in computers is essential.’
‘Vice-president?’ said Melissa’s mum. ‘That’s very impressive. You can always tell a good school by where the graduates end up.’
Alice grinned at me, and I was starting to feel good, when her mother said, ‘Now, Melissa, as you can see, Dad and I are rather busy, and we’ve wasted enough time with this chit-chat. Maybe you’d like to take your friends into the living room, and you can watch the DVD I bought you yesterday.’
‘Great,’ said Alice. ‘I love watching DVDs, but first ……’
Melissa was madly shaking her head at Alice. I could see that she’d changed her mind about the plan. I could see that she was still too scared to tell her parents how unhappy she was at her boarding school.
Alice ignored her, though, and continued, ‘I think Melissa has something she wants to say to you.’
Melissa looked like she was going to die, but Alice gave her a look that managed to be sympathetic and scary all at the same time. When she looks at me like that, I know there’s no point in resisting.
‘Mum, Dad,’ said Melissa, in such a weird voice that both her parents looked up at the same time.
‘I need to tell you something,’ she said.
‘What is it, darling?’ said her mum, in a concerned voice, looking at her watch at the same time.
‘I don’t want to go back to boarding school for second year. I want to change to the local school, where Grace and Alice and Megan go.’
‘But that boarding school is the best in the country,’ said her mum.
‘And you’re so happy there,’ said her dad.
‘And you’ve made so many friends,’ said her mum.
Now Melissa’s voice was all choky. ‘I’m not happy there,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been happy there.’
‘But you said …’ began her mother.
‘After you spent all that money on fees, I didn’t want to tell you the truth,’ said Melissa. ‘I didn’t want to make you angry. So all this time I’ve been pretending. I haven’t got any friends in boarding school – not a single one. I hate it there. I want to leave. Please let me leave.’
Now Melissa collapsed into loud sobs. Her skin went all red and blotchy and she didn’t look perfect or confident or scary any more. She just looked sad and lost. I wondered how I’d ever been afraid of her.
‘You poor baby,’ said her mum.
‘My little darling,’ said her dad.
They both came over and hugged her for a long time. They patted her hair and stroked her back and whispered in her ear. It was a bit embarrassing, standing there watching them. I guessed they had forgotten we were there.
I looked at Alice and Grace. It was time for us to leave. As the three of us tip-toed towards the door, Melissa and her parents untangled themselves.
‘I didn’t realise that the local school was so good.’ Melissa’s mum was saying. ‘It must have improved after your sister left.’
‘I didn’t realise it either,’ said her dad. ‘Vice-president of a huge computer company, I have to say I am impressed. I’ll phone the school tomorrow and see about enrolling you for September, Melissa. How does that sound?’
Melissa started to jump up and down, making these funny, giggly noises.
Alice, Grace and I didn’t wait to hear Melissa’s answer. Our job was done. We closed the door behind us, and left.
* * *
‘You did it, Alice!’ said Grace as we walked along. ‘You really did. You’re amazing.’
‘It wasn’t just me,’ said Alice. ‘You two did as much as I did.’
‘But it was your idea,’ I said. ‘You’re the one who wanted to help Melissa in the first place, and you’re the one who came up with the plan.’
‘I didn’t think it was going to work at first,,’ said Alice. ‘I was beginning to think we were wasting our time. Melissa’s parents didn’t seem to care about the new hockey pitch, or the debating team or the music society.’
‘Yeah,’ said Grace. ‘I thought it was turning into a total fail. I thought maybe we were making things worse for Melissa instead of better.’
‘You’re the one who made it work in the end, Meg,’ said Alice. ‘It’s so lucky you’d seen that thing about the super-computer woman in the newspaper.’
I didn’t answer.
‘Meg?’ said Alice. ‘Did you hear what I said? Don’t you think it’s totally lucky that ……?’
Alice stopped walking and stared at me. Sometimes she has this funny way of looking at me, like my thoughts are on the outside, just waiting for her to notice them.
‘No way,’ she said.
I smiled.
‘OMG!’ said Alice. ‘Just OMG!’
‘What?’ asked Grace.
‘Megan made up the whole thing about the computer vice president. You’re a genius, Meg. You really are.’
‘Thanks,’ I said sweetly.
‘How did you think of it?’ asked Alice.
‘Well I was desperate,’ I said. ‘You and Grace were saying all this amazing stuff, and none of it was working. Melissa’s parents were barely listening to a word you said. And then you nudged me to say something, and all I could see was the newspaper and their two laptops, and suddenly I realised that the only way to their hearts was through their computers.’
‘That was clever,’ said Grace. ‘But won’t Melissa’s parents find out that you made the whole thing up? And what’s going to happen then?’
Alice grinned. ‘Hopefully, by the time Melissa’s parents discover the truth, it’ll be too late. Melissa will have got what she wanted. She’ll be in our school.’
‘Oh,’ I said, suddenly remembering what we’d just done. ‘Melissa is going to be in our school.’