‘Alice, it’s Mum. The doctors say there is no reason why you should not make a good recovery, but head injuries can be complex and there are lots of things we don’t yet fully understand. Well, I don’t fully understand any of it. I can’t see how you would come to fall down a flight of stairs at one o’clock in the morning, all by yourself. If I could turn the clock back I would never have let you go to that sleepover. I’d have kept you close where I could look after you. I love you, Alice. Please come back to us soon …’
‘Alice!’ a voice roars. ‘Alice! Come back here at once!’
A firm hand tugs at my shoulder and I turn around to see the Duchess, grim-faced, a squalling baby wrapped in a blanket held firmly against her shoulder.
‘I must get ready for the Queen’s croquet match,’ she says. ‘Here. I want you to look after this.’
She shoves the squirming baby at me, and I hold it at arm’s length, unimpressed. It is a very ugly baby, with big flapping ears and a squashed red nose. I look more closely: I am holding a small, grunting pig. As I watch, the pig squirms and jumps right out of my arms, trotting off towards the woods, its curly tail waving, and I begin to follow.
‘Alice, come back!’ the Duchess bellows behind me. ‘Come back here right now!’
The Monday after Savvy Hunter had told me she might invite me to her sleepover, I was sitting alone in the corner of the school canteen as usual, picking at the remains of a veggie lasagne and killing time before rehearsals. A shadow fell across the table, and Savvy slid into the seat beside me, lining up her tray alongside mine.
Erin, Lainey and Yaz followed, filling the empty seats around me. Savvy, as always, radiated a shiny, smiley aura of happiness. The others were less enthusiastic, flicking uneasy glances at me and picking listlessly at their plates of salad. It was awkward.
‘So, I was thinking,’ Savvy began. ‘We’ve never got to know one another properly, have we, Alice? And I’d really like to, because I actually think you’re pretty cool.’
My first impulse was to laugh; big mistake.
As if to destroy Savvy’s misconceptions before she went any further, I ended up half-choking on a spoonful of fruit salad; Savvy patted me on the back and said something kind about how the canteen fruit salad couldn’t really count as salad because it seemed to be all apple and orange with never anything exciting like strawberry or kiwi. I just coughed and went a dark shade of crimson.
‘So yeah, I’m really interested in all your drama stuff and everything,’ Savvy ploughed on. ‘You’re just, like, soooo talented! Lainey and Yaz have been telling me how you had the lead part in the school play back at primary …’
I could just imagine.
‘Anyway, like I said, I’m having a sleepover this weekend,’ Savvy went on. ‘To celebrate the start of the Easter holidays and stuff. I’d love it if you could come – I’ve made you an invite, and everything!’
She took out an envelope with a photocopied image of Alice in Wonderland stuck to the front, pushing it across the table towards me.
‘It’s an Alice-themed sleepover,’ she explained, looking round at the girls. ‘We like to do cool, quirky stuff like that, don’t we? And I thought that if we were asking you, an Alice theme would be just perfect! We can have a Mad Hatter’s tea party and dress up and stuff …’
I looked across at Lainey, Yaz and Erin, who seemed uneasy, unimpressed.
‘You can be Alice, obviously,’ Savvy declared. ‘I mean, you probably have a costume and everything, don’t you? Or you could get something from the drama group. I just think it would be awesome, don’t you?’
I couldn’t work out if Savvy honestly thought the idea of an Alice-themed sleepover was cool, or if it was some kind of elaborate joke designed to make fun of me. I noticed that Lainey was shaking her head slightly as if she really didn’t approve of what was going on.
That was my clue, surely. The girl who’d been getting her minions to bully me for the last year was raising the stakes, stepping things up a level. Savvy was a game player; she wanted to lure me right in, laugh at me, humiliate me. Did she really think I’d be stupid enough to fall for it?
I opened the envelope and looked at the homemade card inside, cut into the shape of a teacup. I tried to imagine Savvy decorating it with collaged Alice in Wonderland images, writing out the date, time, address and dress code in her cool, curly handwriting. It was a lot of trouble to go to, to make someone feel bad.
And an Alice in Wonderland theme – well, maybe that was a sign that I should take a risk and go? I couldn’t be sure.
‘Please come,’ Savvy was saying, and she turned that doe-eyed gaze on me again, the one that made me forget that behind the shiny, smiley mask she was a cold-hearted bully. ‘I think we’d really get on. I think we could be friends!’
I opened my mouth to say no, I really did.
‘That would be awesome,’ I said.