Free Viva Alice! by Judi Curtin Page A

plate.’
    ‘So what did you do with them?’ asked Alice. ‘Were you saving them for later?’
    ‘No,’ said Grace quickly. ‘I threw them over the hedge.’
    That wasn’t news to me, because I’d done exactly the same thing. I didn’t want to hurt Alice’s feelings, but there was no way I was going to eat those gross sandwiches.
    ‘That’s rotten,’ said Alice. ‘After all my trouble! Don’t you feel guilty about wasting the food I prepared for you?’
    ‘Not really,’ said Grace giggling. ‘My only worry is that maybe I poisoned the local wildlife. Sorry, Alice, but those sandwiches were just weird. I never would have told you, but you’rethe one who insisted on this stupid game.’
    Alice turned to me, and I could see that she was really mad. ‘What about you, Meg?’ she asked. ‘Did you throw my sandwiches away too?’
    ‘If I tell you, does that count as my secret?’ I asked.
    ‘No!’ said Alice crossly.
    ‘Well then,’ I said, avoiding her question, ‘My secret is …’
    My biggest secret was that I thought Gavin was kind of cool, but there was nooooo way I was telling Grace and Alice that. They’d tease me in front of him, and it would be totally, totally embarrassing.
    ‘Get on with it, Megan,’ said Grace. ‘What’s your big secret?’
    ‘OK,’ I said slowly. ‘My secret is – and I know it’s kind of stupid – I was really afraid about staying here tonight without your parents, Grace. I didn’t like the idea of being home alone.’
    Alice leaned over to me. ‘I already figured that out,’ she whispered. ‘So it’s not exactly a secret.’
    But she squeezed my hand, and I knew she wasn’t going to give me a hard time.
    ‘OK,’ she said then. ‘It’s my turn again. Last year, when I was staying at my dad’s place––’
    I soooo didn’t want any more of this game. I picked up a cushion, and whacked Alice on the head with it, and as soon as she had recovered she did the same to me. A second later, Grace joined in and we had a long cushion fight, that only ended when Alice collapsed on the couch and begged for mercy.
    It was totally cool.

Chapter Fifteen
    A fter the cushion fight we watched a DVD, and chatted some more. I was really tired, but it seemed a bit weird to go to bed when there wasn’t an adult around to tell me I had to. So I rubbed my eyes, and tried to keep up with what Grace and Alice were saying.
    In the end, when I thought I’d have to find some matchsticks to hold my eyes open, Alice gave a huge yawn.
    ‘Bedtime?’ she suggested, and no one argued.
    We checked that all the doors and windows were securely locked. (And when the others weren’t looking, I checked a second time, justto be sure to be sure.) Then we went upstairs and got ready for bed.
    I was just pulling back my bedcovers, and getting ready to dive in, when Alice opened the balcony door.
    ‘The sea is beautiful tonight,’ she said as she looked out. ‘Come and look, you two.’
    Grace and I went and stood beside her. Alice was right. The navy-blue sky was full of twinkly stars, and the moon was shining on the distant sea, lighting up a silvery pathway, like something out of a fairytale.
    ‘The three of us are so coming back here on our own when we’re older,’ said Grace. ‘We’d have an amazing holiday.’
    ‘That would be so cool,’ said Alice. ‘We should make a pact, and promise that we’re going to do it, no matter what.’
    ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Why don’t we take a photograph of the three of us here on the balcony? Our grown-up selves can look back, and see how totally cute we were when we were teenagers?’
    ‘We should take a picture in the same place every time we visit,’ said Alice. ‘We can watch ourselves growing up.’
    ‘That’s a brilliant idea,’ said Grace. ‘I’ll go get my camera.’
    So Grace got her camera from the bedroom, and she spent ages figuring out how to work the self-timer, and then she had to balance the camera on the patio