Lauren wasn’t in school the next day and she didn’t call me either. Which was fine because I didn’t want to speak to her anyway. Since I’d decided I wasn’t going to be a misery guts who upset her family any more, I didn’t tell Mum or Chloe or anyone about falling out with Lauren; instead, I focused on being helpful and not grumpy. So when Mum got back from school I volunteered to make tea while she had a bath. I was halfway through when I heard Lucy squealing in the sitting room.

‘Quick! Quick! Come and look!’ she shouted.

That’s the sort of thing she says when she’s taken off a plaster or found a hairball the size of a melon under the sofa, but I put down the knife I was using and stuck my head into the sitting room just in case it was actually something interesting for once. Lucy was pointing at the TV and Chloe was standing frozen in front of it. On the screen was a boy’s wide, grinning face. Thunder.

It was a local news feature on the new youth squad and how they hoped they were training the stars of future Rugby World Cups. It only lasted thirty seconds, but Thunder did get to say that he thought the coaching at the club was ‘awesome’.

‘You didn’t tell us Thunder was going to be on the telly,’ I said to Chloe.

‘I didn’t know,’ she said in a tight voice. ‘I didn’t know because he didn’t tell me and he didn’t tell me because he’s the worst friend in the world.’ She clenched her jaw and her fists.

‘Or maybe he was afraid to tell you because he knew you’d look like that,’ I said. I hoped she wasn’t going to start punching things because somehow, whenever one of my sisters starts trashing the place, it’s me that gets the blame because I’m the oldest. Like that means I can keep any of them in check.

‘Or maybe he forgot about it,’ Lucy said. ‘Maybe he had other things in his head. He does spend lots of time talking about what’s for tea. I forget about stuff when I’m thinking about important things. Like sweets or turning into a dinosaur.’

Chloe wasn’t listening. ‘I can’t believe it. Thunder gets to do everything. He gets to be on the squad and on TV. I’m better at rugby than him! I’d be better on TV as well.’

I actually felt sorry for Chloe; it did seem really unfair. ‘You totally would,’ I agreed. ‘Your whole face could fit on the screen and, unlike Thunder, your nose looks nothing like a potato.’

She twitched out of her trance.

‘Yours is more like a carrot,’ I went on.

She gave a half-smile. ‘Yeah, well, at least I haven’t got cauliflower ears like you.’

‘No, you just smell like Brussels sprouts.’

Then she twisted my arm behind my back and I knew I’d managed to cheer her up.

‘What are you going to say to Thunder?’ I asked, shaking her off.

She flexed her muscles. ‘I’ll just let my fists do the talking.’

I was pretty sure that she was mostly joking. ‘Seriously though, don’t fall out with him. You two have only just got things sorted out after you said you didn’t want to go out with him.’

‘I know and after he stopped all that nonsense we agreed that we were going to stay as best friends. Friends are supposed to tell each other things.’

‘It is quite hard to tell people things when you know they’re going to be cross,’ Lucy said. ‘Like when the arm popped off that old doll of Mum’s. I didn’t want to say because she’d shout at me.’

Chloe and I looked at each other.

‘Lucy!’ Chloe said. ‘You broke Annabella and didn’t tell anyone?’

Lucy stared calmly back at us. ‘That’s what I’m saying. I didn’t tell so Mum wouldn’t be cross with me.’

‘When did this happen?’ I asked.

‘Last week.’

‘You mean Mum’s got no idea that her most precious thing from when she was little has lost an arm?’ Chloe demanded.

Lucy nodded.

‘You’d better show me,’ I said to Lucy. ‘And if I can’t fix it then you’re going to have to confess.’

Lucy scowled, but we made her tiptoe upstairs so Mum wouldn’t hear us from the bathroom. She showed us where she’d hidden poor Annabella under her bed. I managed to squeeze her little plastic arm into its socket and then I snuck into Mum’s bedroom and quickly put her back in her box in Mum’s wardrobe, before Mum got out of the bath.

‘No more touching Annabella till you’re twenty-five,’ I said to Lucy.

Lucy tutted. ‘I’ll be practically dead by then.’

‘Good. Maybe you’ll be too weak to break her again.’

‘I think you’d better go and tidy the Pit to make up for what you’ve done,’ Chloe said to Lucy.

My mum still calls our basement room the playroom but the rest of us call it the Pit because it’s always such a mess in there with books and toys all over the floor and all the furniture that’s too shabby to be anywhere else in the house. Actually, during half-term, Lucy had completely tidied and redecorated the whole room because she had this crazy idea that Dad, Suvi and Kirsti could live there. It was really sad to realise that Lucy wants to live with Kirsti so much that she was prepared to spend hours tidying up all that mess. Obviously, Mum and Dad had to explain that Kirsti wouldn’t be coming to live with us and, in the weeks since that happened, the creeping tide of tiny plastic toys has already washed back over the floor of the Pit.

‘Good idea,’ I said to Chloe. ‘Having to sort out Sylvanian shoes from Lego pieces and My Little Pony brushes is enough to drive anyone to good behaviour.’

We went back into the kitchen and Chloe helped me finish making the chilli.

‘I could understand him not wanting to tell me bad news,’ she said while crunching on a piece of red pepper.

‘Are we back to Thunder?’ I asked.

‘Yes. Bad news I understand, but you’d think he’d want to share good news with me, like being on TV.’

I searched in the drawer for the tin-opener. ‘But, if he had, what would you’ve said?’

‘I’d have said, “That’s really unfair. I’m better at rugby than you and I ought to be the one on TV.” ’

‘Hmm.’

‘But then I might’ve been able to say, “I saw you on TV and your voice only squeaked a little bit when you were talking to the interviewer.” ’

‘He’ll be sorry to have missed out on such high praise.’

Chloe shook her head. ‘Friends are supposed to share things.’

She had a good point. I stirred a tin of tomatoes into the pot and wondered why Lauren didn’t seem to want to share things with me any more.

‘Maybe you should talk to him about it?’ I suggested.

‘Oh, I will. This is all he’s going to hear about tomorrow.’

Maybe I should take my own advice and talk to Lauren. I missed her. But she was the one who was being unreasonable. She should be calling me. I pushed thoughts about my best friend out of my head and went back to the chilli.

Later, when we were in bed, Chloe whispered, ‘Suvi says I shouldn’t give up on getting girls on the rugby squad. Do you think she’s crazy?’

I do think Suvi is a little crazy. I used to think that she was crazy-mean and that she’d stolen my dad away from my mum; now I know that’s not true but I still think she’s a bit crazy; she doesn’t eat sugar and she likes maths and she says TV is bad for you, but I don’t mind those things so much any more.

‘You’d have to be crazy to want to be a part of this family,’ I said.

‘Yeah, but I mean about the rugby squad. She says that I should make them put girls on the squad; I can’t do that, can I?’

I wriggled further down under my duvet. ‘I don’t know. Can you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Maybe you should find out.’