Friends Forever! by Grace Dent Read Free Book Online Page A

let’s see.” Cressida placed one finger to the corner of her mouth to ponder. “Oh, yes, you’re getting cheated on by Jimi Steele with Suzette Laws because she doesn’t squeal like a pig every time he puts his hand up her T-shirt. Ha ha ha!”
    â€œWhat?” I said, my face crumbling.
    â€œOh, sorry!” said Cressida patronizingly. “Didn’t you know that? Me and my big mouth! You should play tennis with Panama—she knows all the best gossip.”
    â€œYou . . . evil cow!” I shouted as Cressida sped out of the room heading for the Year 11 lockers with me on her trail. “You won’t get away with this, Frodo!” I yelled. “I’ll die stopping you!”
    â€œLay one grubby unmanicured finger on me again and my daddy will sue you,” Cressida laughed over her shoulder as she bustled away, her gray muslin skirt billowing behind her, with me close at her heel still baying for blood. Then, just we turned the corner into the locker area where Claude and Fleur were chatting, Cressida let out this weird theatrical moan followed by pitiful blubbering.
    â€œClaude! Fleur!” Cressida whined, wrapping her sweater sleeves over her hands and dancing from foot to foot like a smacked toddler. “Waaaaahhhh! Ronnie is being so negative and aggressive with me over this silly misunderstanding!”
    Thick streams of tears were trickling down Cressida’s cherubic little face. “I’m so sorry if I’ve accidentally caused bad karma. So vewwwwy sorry!”
    I knew, in a flash, that no one would believe me about Cressida’s evil little outburst. In fact, within seconds both Fleur and Claude were hugging the little minx, trying to calm her down.
    By the end of lunch break, it was agreed that to solve further problems, we should all have our astrological charts cross-referenced.

hell
    Silly old Panama Goodyear! Apparently she’d got it “all mixed up” about Jimi and Suzette Laws. They hadn’t been getting together twice weekly since January for clandestine groping and snogging sessions.
    No, of course not!
    Jimi assured me, amid all the crying and screaming, that he and Suzette were “just really good friends” who’d “grown closer” during the stressful run-up to the A-level exams. This led to them “hanging out” in each other’s bedrooms late into the night, “studying” and “chatting.”
    Something I wasn’t allowed to do.
    Weirdly enough, however, the very moment I went crazy and dumped Jimi over this . . . he and Suzette announced they were going out together!
    But remember, Jimi hadn’t cheated on me and broken my heart. No, he’d waited until we’d “officially had closure” before getting freaky with another girl.
    Oh, purrrrrr-leeeeeease! Which Christmas tree did they both think I’d fallen off?
    After all the sobbing and hurling subsided, I just felt angry and stupid. I began staring into the mirror for hours at a time, imagining parts of me I’d alter if only Magda and Loz would buy me a birthday gift voucher for the Transform Clinic.
    New nose? Yes, please.
    Perkier bum? Absolutely.
    Bigger boobs? Yes, big humongous boobs, definitely. Not tiny little feeble swellings that sit there adding nothing to my shape.
    I hated Jimi Steele for making me feel so ugly and charmless. (Okay, I didn’t hate Jimi Steele. I felt like I’d love him forever. Mum, on the other hand, truly hated Jimi Steele and had to be physically restrained from giving him a backhander across the face in Safeway.)
    The only good thing about splitting with Jimi was that Cressida Sleeth got out of my face for a couple of weeks and let Fleur and Claude get on with making me feel better.
    If I’d not had the LBD during that fortnight, I don’t know what would have happened. I never wanted another boyfriend as long as I lived.
    Â 
    Â 
    The GCSE exams began