Viva Alice!

  Praise for the ‘Alice & Megan’ series

  ‘Brilliantly observed’, Evening Echo

  ‘Girls and boys will warm to Judi Curtin’s funny stories about friendship’, The Sunday Independent

  DEDICATION

  For Dan, Brian, Ellen and Annie.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Big thanks to everyone at The O’Brien Press for their continuing support and enthusiasm. Extra-big thanks to super-editor Helen Carr – once again, you’ve been great.

  Contents

  Reviews

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  Other Books

  Chapter One

  ‘Omigod, Megan. You’ve got to come over to my place right now,’ said Alice, racing into the kitchen and grabbing my arm. ‘It’s an emergency.’

  Mum looked up from the bundle of broccoli she was washing.

  ‘I don’t care if it’s an emergency, Megan,’ she said. ‘You’re not going anywhere until you finish your porridge.’

  Mum has known my best friend for thirteen years. I guess she understands that Alice has drama queen moments. I shovelled the last few spoons of porridge into my mouth, and got up from the table.

  ‘Dishwasher,’ said Mum, without even looking up.

  I sighed and put my bowl into the dishwasher. My cat, who was curled up in the corner of the kitchen, looked up at me mournfully.

  ‘Sorry, Domino,’ I said. ‘No time for cuddles. Didn’t you hear? This is an emergency.’

  Domino put on her best sulky-cat face and went back to cleaning her paws as I followed Alice outside.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s my mum. She’s gone crazy.’

  I raised one eyebrow and Alice giggled. ‘OK, so she’s gone even crazier than usual.’

  Alice’s mum and my mum are both crazy in their own, very different, ways. My mum is obsessed with saving the world, and feeding my sister Rosie and me with tons of organic fruit and vegetables. Alice’s mum is obsessed with how she looks, and spends most of her time visiting hair and nail salons.

  ‘What’s she done this time?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s planning a party for Jamie’s birthday.’

  ‘What’s crazy about that?’

  ‘She’s invited half the kids in his class, and …’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘And she wants to have the party in our apartment.’

  Alice’s voice was all weird when she said the last words, and I couldn’t decide if she was trying not to laugh, or trying not to cry. Maybe it was a bit of both.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ I said.

  ‘Nope. Like I said, my mum’s finally slipped over the edge. She’s officially gone crazy.’

  I thought about arguing with her, but I couldn’t do it. It did sound like Alice’s mum had lost it. For most mums, having a party in your own apartment wouldn’t be a big deal. Alice’s mum isn’t like most mums, though. Her apartment is all white and shiny and perfect. Things like a crumb on the floor or a greasy handprint on a wall are like major disasters as far as she is concerned.

  When Alice was little, she was never allowed to have her parties at home – they always had to be in cinemas or restaurants or activity centres.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t your mum know that Jamie’s friends will trash the apartment? That’s going to drive her crazy.’

  ‘I tried telling her, but she won’t listen to me. Ever since I fell out of the tree and ended up in hospital, Mum’s been acting really weird. She says she feels guilty about what happened, and that she should have been a better mother to Jamie and me. She says that from now on, she’s going to be a “hands-on” mum. It’s going to end in tears, I just know it.’

  Once again, I couldn’t argue. Trying to be a better person is probably a good thing, but didn’t Veronica understand that it couldn’t happen overnight? There’s no such thing as an instant personality transplant – if there was, I’d book my mum in for one.

  ‘OK, Alice,’ I said. ‘For once, I have to agree with you. I think this might well be an emergency. We’d better go over to your place and see how bad things are.’

  * * *

  Alice’s mum, Veronica, was sitting at the kitchen table. Her hair was all messy and her usually perfect nails were all chipped and broken, like she’d been chewing them.

  She was flipping madly through a pile of pages she’d printed from the computer.

  ‘Second best won’t do,’ she muttered. ‘This party just has to be perfect.’

  ‘Do something, Megan,’ whispered Alice. ‘Please.’

  I’ve always been a bit afraid of Veronica, but I knew I had to be brave.

  ‘Er, Veronica,’ I said. ‘Maybe you need to rethink this whole party thing. Boys of Jamie’s age can be a bit wild sometimes. Maybe it would be better if you––’

  Veronica looked up at me with a scary look in her eyes. ‘It’s a bit too late for rethinking,’ she said. ‘I hand-delivered the invitations last night. No matter what happens, the party is going ahead tomorrow.’

  I gulped. ‘Tomorrow? Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

  Veronica gave a crazy laugh. ‘Why ever not? Your mother always has lovely parties for you and Rosie. How hard can it be?’

  Very hard?

  My mum always starts planning our parties weeks in advance.

  And she likes being around small kids.

  And she likes cooking.

  And she doesn’t care if our house gets trashed.

  I was wondering how to answer Veronica, when I realised it didn’t matter what I said. Veronica had already forgotten about me. She’d gone back to studying her printouts, and she was adding notes to a very long list.

  I knew it was time for damage limitation.

  ‘Maybe Alice and I could help you,’ I said. ‘I could even ask my mum to come over for a bit. She actually likes organising parties and she’s quite good at it. I know she’d be glad to––’

  ‘No,’ said Veronica in a high-pitched voice, like I’d just offered to stab her or something. ‘No need to involve your mother in this. Thank you anyway, Megan, but everything is under control. Leave it to me – Jamie is going to have a party he will never forget.’

  Chapter Two

  The next day, Mum wouldn’t let me go out until I’d done my history project on medieval castles. It took ages and ages and every time I thought it was finished, Mum thought of something else I should include.

  ‘I’ve got a great idea,’ she said, when I finally closed up my folder. ‘When you’re making your presentation, why don’t you dress up as a girl from medieval times? I’ve got some lovely material you could use to make a dress. You just wait here while I go and ……’

  Before she’d finished her sentence, she jumped up and ran out of the room. By the time I caught up wi
th her, she was halfway up the ladder into the attic.

  ‘Mum!’ I wailed. ‘I’m not in primary school any more. If I dress up, everyone will just laugh at me.’

  She came back down the ladder. ‘I was only trying to help,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘And I’m grateful, really I am. But trust me, my project is finished. I need to go to Alice’s place now, OK?’

  ‘We could make you a medieval headdress,’ she said. ‘That wouldn’t take long, and you’d look absolutely beautiful with a––’

  ‘Mum!’ I said. ‘Do you want me to look like a total loser?’

  She stopped arguing then. She doesn’t really know what a loser is, but I guess she knows it’s not a good thing.

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ I said again. ‘Now I really, really need to go. Alice needs me.’

  Mum hugged me, and finally I was free to leave.

  * * *

  Alice’s face was white when she met me at the door.

  ‘Don’t say anything,’ she said, as she led me inside.

  Veronica’s normally perfect apartment was a total mess. Limp balloons and tangled streamers hung from every corner. A big banner hung over the living room door. I read the words aloud – ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAM’. Alice gave a hysterical giggle. ‘The printer ran out of ink before it was finished,’ she said. ‘I thought about going to the shop to get more ink, but in the end I didn’t dare. I was afraid to leave Mum on her own.’

  I turned to look at the dining area. Every single surface was covered with dishes of weird-looking food.

  ‘It’s a total disaster,’ whispered Alice. ‘Nothing went right. The popcorn didn’t pop, the jelly didn’t set, the cupcakes sank and the birthday cake … it’s meant to be an aeroplane but …’

  She pointed at the birthday cake and didn’t say any more. She didn’t need to.

  If you looked very carefully, you could see that it was meant to be a plane – but it looked like one that had crash-landed from a long way up. A wing and a wheel had fallen off, and the front was all smashed up. Chocolate icing dripped down one side, and was spreading slowly across the table like lumpy brown lava. It was like something out of a very bad horror movie – the kind my mum doesn’t let me watch.

  In the corner of the room, Alice’s brother, Jamie, was curled up on a chair, flicking through the pages of a book about wizards. Usually he’s a bit wild, but now he just looked sad and miserable. I felt sorry for him.

  ‘He’s only little,’ whispered Alice. ‘But even he knows that this is shaping up to be the worst party in the history of the world. You’ve got to help us, Megan. You’ve just got to.’

  Before I could answer, the doorbell rang and Veronica appeared from the bedroom. She looked wild and crazy.

  ‘They’re here!’ she said in the high-pitched voice that scared me so much. ‘The guests are here.’

  Then she tottered towards the door, almost falling on her super-high heels.

  I thought about going to hide under Alice’s bed until the whole thing was over, but I knew I couldn’t do that. My friend needed me – so it was a pity that I had no idea how I was going to help her.

  Chapter Three

  Ten minutes later, seventeen small kids were gathered in the living room. Nobody was saying anything as everyone looked at the sad display of food.

  In the end a little girl with curly blonde hair spoke. ‘What kind of a stupid party is this?’ she asked in a spoiled voice. ‘The food is all messy and I don’t like it.’

  The boy next to her poked his dirty finger into a bowl of runny green jelly that looked a bit like frogspawn. ‘This is loser food,’ he said. ‘And I want to go home.’

  In a corner of the room, Alice and Veronica stood as if they’d been turned to stone. It was like they’d gone ahead and started their own private game of statues, without inviting anyone else to join in.

  I looked at Jamie. He was standing on his own at the end of the table. His bottom lip was wobbling and his eyes were filling up with tears. He can be a total pain sometimes, but the poor little boy didn’t deserve this. I figured I had about fifteen seconds to come up with a plan.

  ‘Hey, kids,’ I said suddenly. ‘Guess what?’

  ‘What?’ asked a small freckly boy.

  I hadn’t thought of an answer yet, so I played for time.

  ‘Come closer,’ I said. ‘Huddle up near me and I’ll tell you a big, huge secret.’

  The kids obediently came close and stood in a small circle in front of me. Seventeen pairs of eyes gazed up at me, as if I had something important to say. I really, really wished I had something important to say ‘Er … you’ll never guess what?’ I said again.

  ‘What?’ asked the freckly boy again.

  ‘Er … well … this morning … something totally amazing happened here.’

  ‘What was it?’ asked the blonde girl.

  ‘Well … you see … during the night … Jamie’s mum cooked all this super-special party food. It was so beautiful, people were going to come from a magazine to take pictures of it. It was going to be on a tv show, all about amazing parties.’

  ‘But the food isn’t amazing,’ said the freckly boy. ‘It’s all messy and horrible. It looks like a big stinky giant puked it up.’

  When he said this, some of the kids laughed, and the others screamed and made faces. I was thinking about giving up, when I looked at Jamie again. He was staring at me, like I was the only one in the world who could save his party. (The scary thing is, he was probably right.)

  I took a deep breath and went on with my story. ‘The food is messy because, before the tv and magazine people got here, something terrible happened.’

  ‘What?’ asked a little girl with huge blue eyes. ‘Hurry up and tell us.’

  I wouldn’t have minded hurrying up. The only problem was, I had no idea what I was going to say next. Veronica and Alice were staring at me, like I knew what I was doing. I looked frantically around the room, and spotted the wizard book that Jamie had been reading earlier.

  ‘A wicked wizard came here,’ I said quickly. ‘Right into this very room. His broomstick was broken and he wanted to steal the aeroplane cake to fly home on.’

  ‘How did he get in?’ asked a boy.

  ‘Through the door,’ I said. ‘Jamie’s mum left it open by mistake.’

  ‘That cake isn’t big enough for a wizard to fly on,’ he said.

  ‘It was a small wizard,’ I said. ‘Now, stop interrupting and let me get on with the story. The brave cake didn’t want to help the wicked wizard, so it deliberately crash-landed on the table and the wizard fell off and bumped his head on the floor.’

  ‘Yay!’ yelled all the kids together.

  ‘I can see the mark on the floor where the wizard bumped his head,’ said the freckly boy. ‘Amn’t I clever?’

  I ignored him. ‘And the wizard was so angry,’ I said. ‘He cast a spell on the beautiful food, and made it look all messy. Then he ran back out the door before anyone saw him.’

  ‘If no one saw him, how do you know it happened?’ asked the boy.

  ‘Because I know everything,’ I said, glaring at him.

  ‘I’m scared of wizards,’ said the girl with the big blue eyes. ‘Is he going to come back?’

  I smiled at her. ‘No, I don’t think so. Not if that silly boy stops asking silly questions. Now let’s play some games and after that we can eat all the delicious, magically-messy food. How does that sound?’

  ‘Yay!’ shouted all the kids together again.

  Alice came over and hugged me. ‘You’re a genius, Megan,’ she said. ‘A total genius.’

  * * *

  Alice helped me to organise lots of games. We played dead wizards and flying wizards and lost wizards and statue wizards. The kids were having a great time, and after a bit, Veronica recovered enough to want to join in.

  ‘Let’s have a competition to see who can make up the best spell,’ she said. ‘Who wants to go first?’

&nbs
p; No one said anything, and Veronica started to look nervous.

  ‘Whoever goes first can have a sweet,’ she said.

  ‘One sweet?’ said a boy. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘All right then, a whole packet of sweets,’ said Veronica.

  ‘OK, I’ll start,’ the boy said, grinning. ‘It’s a spell to turn girls into gross, slimy maggots.’

  All the girls started screaming and pretending to vomit, and all the boys laughed like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard in their lives.

  Then the boy continued. ‘All you need is a big bowl of cat’s wee-wee, and you mix that with a bowl of dog’s vomit, and then you get a stinky dirty nappy––’

  Now Veronica shrieked too. ‘That’s enough, you silly little boy. We don’t want to hear that kind of thing do we, children?’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ shouted another boy.

  ‘He’s making me feel sick,’ said a small girl. ‘I don’t like talking about rude things.’

  ‘I want my sweets,’ said the first boy. ‘You promised me. If I don’t get my sweets I’m going to––’

  I could see that things were getting out of hand.

  ‘Maybe it’s time for food?’ I said to Veronica.

  She nodded and ran to get matches to light the candles on the cake. I crossed my fingers, hoping she wasn’t going to burn the house down. After all my trouble, that would have been kind of a disappointing end to the party.

  * * *

  An hour later, all the kids had gone home, and Alice and I had helped Veronica to tidy up. Except for a few small chocolate stains on the carpet, the place looked pretty ok.

  Veronica hugged me.

  ‘Thanks, Megan,’ she said. ‘I think you might have saved all of our lives.’

  I blushed, but I didn’t argue. I think she might have been right.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Three more days till the Easter holidays,’ said Alice as she walked me home. ‘It’ll be nice to be off school, but I wish we were going somewhere nice. I wish we were …’