Bonjour Alice Read online

  Mum beamed at her.

  ‘That’s a lovely idea, Alice. I’ll pack it into a plastic bowl for you.’

  Mum got up and went into the kitchen. I followed Alice around to the front where our bikes were.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked. ‘We don’t need to bring food. Surely you don’t think we’re going to get lost on the way to the village?’

  Before she could answer, Mum was back, with the stew all packed up in a bowl with a lid. She handed it to Alice, who strapped it on to the back of her bike.

  ‘I’m so glad it’s not going to waste,’ said Mum.

  Alice smiled at her.

  ‘You can rely on me, Sheila,’ she said. ‘I promise not one single scrap will be wasted.’

  I shook my head in wonder. Had Alice spent so long with our family that she was actually losing her mind?

  Anyway, I had no time to wonder, as Alice was already half way up the road.

  ‘Bye, Mum,’ I called as I jumped on my bike. ‘We’ll be back in an hour. We promise. And this time we mean it.’

  * * *

  We got to Bruno’s house, and Alice knocked on the door. Bruno answered. He was wearing denim shorts and a nice white t-shirt.

  ‘Hey. Cool clothes,’ said Alice, and Bruno smiled shyly.

  ‘Is Pascal around?’ asked Alice then.

  ‘You want see Pascal?’ asked Bruno.

  Alice nodded.

  ‘But …’ Bruno said.

  ‘But …’ I said too.

  Alice ignored us.

  ‘I only want to see him for one minute,’ she said. ‘There’s something I need to show him.’

  Bruno looked at me.

  I shrugged. How was I supposed to know what she was on about? She’s only been my best friend for thirteen years.

  ‘Whatever,’ said Bruno, and I smiled. That was one of the words I’d taught him.

  Bruno went inside and a few minutes later he was back with Pascal following a few steps behind him.

  Pascal was fixing his hair as usual.

  ‘What you want show me?’ he said to Alice.

  Alice smiled at him.

  ‘It’s over here,’ she said, propping her bike against the garden wall. ‘It’s a surprise.’

  Pascal walked towards her. As he passed Bruno, he gave him a sneering smile, as if to say, See, I’m the cool one. I’m getting to see the surprise.

  Pascal stood beside Alice with his arms folded.

  ‘What is surprise?’ he said impatiently.

  Alice unstrapped the bowl of lentil stew from the back of her bike.

  ‘It’s called lentil stew,’ she said. ‘It’s an Irish delicacy.’

  We all watched as she took the lid off the bowl, and held it towards Pascal. He looked in, sniffed, and said,

  ‘I not like.’

  I smiled. I agreed with him about that.

  Then, before anyone could move, Alice gave a big laugh.

  ‘You not like?’ she said. ‘Tough luck.’

  Then in one quick movement, she lifted the bowl, flicked her wrist, and dumped the entire gooey, disgusting stew all over Pascal. It dripped down his precious hair, onto his face, and down on to his white t-shirt.

  ‘Ooops,’ said Alice happily. ‘Sorry about that. My hand slipped.’

  Pascal didn’t say anything. Maybe he was afraid that if he opened his mouth, some of the stew might get in. He tried to wipe the stew off his face, but there was too much of it. The more he wiped, the messier it got. So in the end he just stood there, with slimy stuff dripping off him, into little brown puddles at his feet. He looked like an escapee from a horror movie.

  I looked at Bruno. He was standing still with his mouth open, like he was in shock or something.

  ‘It’s funny,’ I said. Then, suddenly he started to laugh, and as he laughed, Alice and I joined in.

  ‘It very, very funny,’ said Bruno, and we all laughed some more.

  Pascal had had enough. He walked quickly in the side entrance of the bakery, slamming the door behind him.

  Suddenly, there was a big screech from inside the bakery and Pascal came running out again, chased by a very cross-looking woman, who was shouting loudly in French.

  ‘Is my mother!’ said Bruno, ‘She say Pascal make the floor not clean. He not happy! He has fear of my mother!’

  Now Pascal was standing obediently in the garden, while Bruno’s mother turned on a tap, and picked up a hose.

  ‘She wouldn’t!’ gasped Alice, just as Bruno’s mother turned the hose on Pascal.

  Pascal screamed, but by now Bruno’s mother was holding him tightly by one arm and he couldn’t escape. He stood there shivering as every last drop of lentil stew was washed off him onto the ground. As soon as he was released, Pascal shook himself like a wet dog, and then ran inside again.

  As soon as the rest of us had finished laughing, I turned to Bruno.

  ‘I hope he won’t give you a hard time over this,’ I said.

  Bruno laughed.

  ‘It not matter. Is worth it. Anyway, he leave tomorrow. Now you please wait here and I get something.’

  He ran into the bakery and returned with a bag of pastries. The three of us sat in the square eating them. Bruno wanted to hear all about our night in the forest. Alice talked most, and listening to her, it sounded like a fun adventure, instead of the totally scary experience it had really been.

  After a while Alice got up.

  ‘I want to see the church one more time,’ she said.

  Since when had Alice been so interested in churches? I went to stand up, but she pushed me down again.

  ‘You wait here,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back in three minutes.’

  Suddenly I knew that she wanted to leave me on my own with Bruno. As she walked away, I wondered desperately what I should say to him.

  Sorry for thinking you were a loser?

  Sorry for laughing at your shorts?

  Sorry for using you just because we wanted to get close to Pascal?

  Nothing sounded right, so I just said ‘sorry about before’, and Bruno didn’t even ask why I was apologising. He just said ‘is OK’ and that seemed to be enough.

  By then Alice was back.

  We’d better go,’ she said. ‘Can’t get your mum and dad worried again, can we?’

  Bruno and I stood up. And we all walked over to where our bikes were propped against the wall of the bakery.

  Bruno turned to Alice.

  ‘Au revoir,’ he said, and he kissed her on both cheeks, the way the French do.

  Then he turned to me.

  ‘Au revoir,’ he said, and he kissed me too – first one cheek, and then the other. And then my tummy started to do funny, jumpy things, and I could feel my face going red.

  Bruno went inside, and Alice turned to me.

  ‘You like him,’ she said. ‘You really like him. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  I was going to deny it, but then changed my mind. After all, Alice and I had been through a lot together, so it wasn’t right to have secrets from each other. I sighed.

  ‘I didn’t tell you before, because I didn’t know until right this second.’

  Alice laughed.

  ‘That is sooo cool. Call him back, or run after him or something.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘We have to go. Mum will be going crazy. Looks like I left it a bit too late.’

  Alice thought for a minute.

  ‘When we get home, will I pretend my ankle is really sore, and your mum and dad will have to get a doctor for me, and then you’d have time to race back here to say a proper good-bye to Bruno?’

  What was she like? I could see that Alice was perfectly serious.

  I shook my head.’

  ‘Thanks, Al, but no thanks. I think I’ve had more than enough excitement for this holiday.

  Alice sighed.

  ‘Whatever.’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  When we got back to the house, Mum was waiting for us. />
  Alice handed her the empty bowl from the stew.

  Mum smiled at her.

  ‘Well, how was the stew?’

  Alice beamed back at her.

  ‘It was perfect. Just perfect,’ she said, and Mum looked so happy I thought she was going to cry.

  As soon as she recovered. Mum pulled us inside.

  ‘Girls, come in and see what we bought for Lucy to say thank you for lending us the house,’ she said.

  We followed her inside, and Mum held up a huge painting.

  ‘What do you think?’ she said. ‘Don’t you think Lucy will love it?’

  It was like my worst nightmare. It was a picture of a table covered with a big heap of vegetables.

  ‘Er … It’s … lovely,’ I said.

  ‘Lucky Lucy,’ said Alice.

  Mum seemed happy with that, so she went off in to the kitchen to hang the picture over the sink.

  ‘It’s bad enough Mum feeding us heaps of vegetables all the time,’ I said. ‘Without her buying pictures of them as well. I’m sorry, Alice, that my mum is so totally embarrassing.’

  Alice looked at me.

  ‘Megan,’ she said. ‘I think your mum is totally great.’

  At first I thought she was joking.

  ‘What about the crazy hair, and the crazy clothes, and the crazy ideas about chick peas and stuff?’

  Alice laughed.

  ‘That’s only small stuff. Trust me, Meg, she’s great. You’re lucky to have a mum like her.’

  And all of a sudden, I realised that she was right.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, we were all packed up and ready to leave. Just as Mum was locking the front door of Lucy’s house for the last time, Alice’s phone beeped. She looked at the screen.

  ‘It’s a text message from Grace, she said, as she pressed the buttons. Then she read aloud,

  ‘Hi Al and Meg. Lanzarote wasn’t much fun this year. Hope your holiday wasn’t too boring.’

  Alice looked at me, and I looked at her, and then we laughed until the tears streamed down our faces.

  Then we all climbed in to the car, and set off for home.

  About the Author

  JUDI CURTIN grew up in Cork and now lives in Limerick where she is married with three children. Judi is the best-selling author of the ‘Alice & Megan’ series and of Eva’s Journey; with Roisin Meaney, she is also the author of See If I Care, and she has written three novels, Sorry, Walter, From Claire to Here and Almost Perfect. Her books have been translated into Serbian, Portuguese and German.

  The ‘Alice & Megan’ series

  Alice Next Door

  Alice Again

  Don’t Ask Alice

  Alice in the Middle

  Bonjour Alice

  Alice & Megan Forever

  Alice to the Rescue

  Alice & Megan’s Cookbook

  Other books

  Eva’s Journey

  See If I Care (with Roisin Meaney)

  Copyright

  This eBook edition first published 2013 by The O’Brien Press Ltd,

  12 Terenure Road East, Rathgar, Dublin 6, Ireland

  Tel: +353 1 4923333; Fax: +353 1 4922777

  E-mail: [email protected]

  Website: www.obrien.ie

  First published 2008.

  eBook ISBN: 978–1–84717–374–4

  Text © copyright Judi Curtin 2008

  Copyright for typesetting, layout, editing, design

  © The O’Brien Press Ltd

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  A catalogue record for this title is available from The British Library

  Illustrations: Woody Fox

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  The O’Brien Press receives assistance from

  THE ‘ALICE & MEGAN’ SERIES

  BY

  JUDI CURTIN

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