though, I woke again and shot up in bed, slapping myself across the mouth to stop myself shouting out. This was the moment of inspiration, the one I just told you about if you were paying attention.
Thatâs why! was what I had to stop myself shouting. It had come to me in a dream, I thought, or else just as I woke up. I knew, suddenly, what my dad would do if he got an e-mail from a friend of his daughterâs that he had never heard of. I had no idea why I hadnât been able to imagine it during the daytime, since it was so obvious.
âWho the blazes is that? â heâd have muttered irritably. âMacla, what sort of a name is that?â
Macla is my e-mail username. In case you canât work it out for yourself, I will explain that it is made up from the first few letters of my real name and surname. Itâs cool, isnât it? Like a Celtic goddess, or a saint who was dead holy and built a lot of monasteries and led an army to defeat the heathen. Of course, my father knew what my e-mail name was, but Gillianâs dad obviously wouldnât know that. It was Gillianâs dad who would scrunch over his computer screen and mutter about the unknown Macla.
I snuggled down again under the duvet with a smile, pleased as punch with myself that Iâd worked it out. I hadnât forgotten my dad after all.
As I drifted toward sleep, I remembered what Gillian had said about having a teddy. I did have a teddy: Teddy Murphy he was called, after a cat we used to have, only the cat was called Murphy, not Teddy Murphy, obviously. I hadnât seen the old fellow since the move. Iâm too big for a teddy, of course, but still, Iâd like to know where he is. Iâd like to be able to put him on a shelf in my bedroom, just for decoration, and look at him sometimes. I wouldnât like to think of him being squashed in the bottom of a leftover tea chest or with his coat all dusty in the garden shed.
Gillian
She really has no sense, Mags. I suppose I have to make allowances for her age. But she comes out with things all jumbled up, and it can be very confusing. I didnât mean to go stomping all over her feelings in my size 12s, but how was I to know what she was on about? (She doesnât really wear size 12 shoes, by the way, but this is just the kind of very obvious figure of speech Gillian uses. To be quite fair, since weâre on the subject, her feet are not her worst point. Iâd say theyâre about a size 5, if you want to know. Signed: Mags )
âMy dad got a virus,â she said excitedly to me a couple of days after weâd sent the e-mail, when we met in this place she calls her den. Itâs just a clearing by the stream in the woods, with a sort of hidey-hole beside it. Very childish.
I was just opening up my lunch: peanut-butter sandwiches, because I was experimenting with vegetarianism.
âAbout a year and a half ago,â she was burbling on.
âWhat sort of virus?â I asked. I know you shouldnât ask questions about other peopleâs illnesses, but for goodnessâ sake, she was volunteering this information; she obviously needed to tell me. The least I could do was show a bit of interest.
âOh, I donât know.â She shook her hair in that impatient way she has. âThatâs not the point.â
âIâm sorry,â I said. âI didnât mean to intrude. You donât have to tell me about it, if itâs private.â I think that was fair enough. I wasnât going to poke my nose into her familyâs business, even if she insisted on taking a magnifying glass to mine.
âItâs not private,â she said. âIt was one of the ones you get by e-mail.â
âE-mail!â My God, I thought, she is all over the place, this child. âYou canât die of an e-mail virus!â
OK, OK, I made a mistake, but I ask you, what would you think if someoneâs dad has died, and
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley