Penelope Perfect: The Truly Terrible Mistake, Page 4

  Penelope looked at her very best friend, expecting Bob to say something comforting about Penelope’s rights as a director or perhaps even apologise for not helping pull Joanna into line.

  Instead, Bob shook her head. ‘That was way harsh, Pen,’ she said.

  Then she turned and followed Joanna out of the studio.

  The lunch bell went very soon after Bob left to find Joanna. As Penelope went to collect her lunch, she held on to her anger. Joanna had pushed her too far this time. She had been terribly rude to insist on playing Likeable Lucy in that silly way. On top of that, she’d called Penelope (the director!) bossy. Which, the more Penelope thought about it, was just ridiculous. The director was supposed to be the boss. She was quite keen to point that out to her very best friend.

  The locker area was very busy, like it normally was at the start of lunchtime. Practically everyone in Penelope’s class was there, opening and closing lockers and getting out lunches.

  But one thing was definitely Not Normal.

  Bob wasn’t there.

  Penelope looked around. Every lunchtime since they’d become very best friends (unless one of them was sick) Penelope and Bob got their lunch from the lockers and walked to the bench in the courtyard to eat. Most of the time, they walked from Ms Pike’s classroom together. But if they had separate activities, Penelope and Bob would meet there.

  Penelope bit the inside of her lip. She waited for Bob as kids got their lunches and the corridor cleared out.

  But Bob didn’t show up.

  Penelope got her lunchbox out of her locker. Today, as well as her cheese-and-salad sandwich and her Pink Lady apple, she had packed two brownies. One for her and one for Bob.

  But Bob still wasn’t there.

  Penelope tried not to think or feel too much as she took her lunch to the bench in the courtyard. Thinking and feeling were probably not going to be good for her right now.

  She told herself Bob would be there, on the bench in the courtyard, waiting for her.

  For sure.

  It was just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other until she got there.

  When Penelope arrived at the courtyard, Eliza Chung and Alison Cromwell were there. They were laughing about something. Penelope had no idea what. It was probably a private joke, between good friends.

  But there was no Bob.

  Rita and Sarah were in the playground area with a few other kids. Rita was wobbling the wobbly bridge while Sarah tried to get across. That was pretty much how Rita was all the time. She loved making other people feel wobbly. Penelope was not (even a tiny bit) tempted to join them.

  But there was no Bob.

  Penelope felt more and more robot-like as she went to check the oval. She hadn’t spent a (single) lunchtime alone since Bob became her very best friend. The idea of that happening again was something she TOTALLY didn’t want to think about.

  Even if she just found Oscar looking at bugs under a magnifying glass she would (probably, even though he was a boy) join him!

  But Oscar was playing handball with Felix Unger. And there was still no Bob.

  She walked up the stairs to the library. By herself.

  She snuck into her favourite booth. It was a very nice booth with a window and not too much rude graffiti. The same very nice booth where she’d sat by herself at lunchtimes, writing Likeable Lucy: The Extremely Popular Girl.

  Before she had her very own best friend.

  Through the window, Penelope could see the courtyard and the oval. In the courtyard, Alison was plaiting Eliza’s hair. A game of dodgeball was beginning on the oval. Penelope was not a fan of dodgeball. But the shouts and laughter rising up from the game made her feel like she was missing out on something. Again.

  Penelope knew that the lunch break had been the normal length (50 minutes, 1.15 pm–2.05 pm). But this lunch break seemed to stretch out much longer. In the olden days (before she had her own very best friend) Penelope hadn’t minded staying in the library. (It was a very nice library booth.)

  Now, though, things were different. Penelope could never (not ever) go back to spending her lunchtimes there.

  So, after lunch, when Bob (finally) walked into class with Joanna, Penelope smiled at both of them so they would know she was ready to patch things up. Joanna poked out her tongue, but that was pretty normal for Joanna. Penelope was relieved to see that Joanna seemed OK.

  ‘Where were you at lunchtime, Bob?’ Penelope asked brightly as her very best friend (which she still was!) sat down next to her. ‘You didn’t show up at the courtyard and I looked for you everywhere.’

  Bob looked at Penelope. There was no Bob-smile.

  ‘Mostly in the toilets with Joanna,’ Bob said. Her voice sounded cold. ‘She was pretty cut up by what you said.’

  Penelope had a sinking feeling in her chest.

  ‘Ah, but –’ she began. ‘I just got cross because Joanna wasn’t playing Likeable Lucy the right way. We were going to pull her into line, Bob. Don’t you remember?’

  Bob sighed.

  ‘You weren’t just cross, Pen,’ she said. ‘You chucked it. And you were really mean.’

  Penelope gulped. This was certainly NOT what she wanted to hear from her very best friend. But Bob wasn’t finished.

  ‘And I didn’t want to pull Joanna into line because I thought she was doing a good job,’ Bob continued.

  She waited for a moment, but Penelope couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘Just because people aren’t doing things your way, Pen,’ Bob said finally, ‘that doesn’t mean they’re not doing it right.’

  That night, as Penelope got ready for bed, she had some very complicated emotions.

  She felt sorry that she’d hurt Joanna’s feelings. Even though Joanna was naughty and not good at taking direction, she was never mean.

  But she also felt worried that she was losing control over her lovely play. It was absolutely possible that Joanna might sink the play completely. Then Penelope would NEVER get to make up for her Truly Terrible Mistake. It was very bad timing that Grandpa George was away on his silent meditation retreat. Penelope wasn’t even allowed to text him. She knew that it was possible to phone the retreat in an emergency. But, even though this was actually a kind of emergency, Penelope didn’t want to interrupt his trip.

  As Penelope took Blue Teddy off her pillow and climbed into bed, lying nose-to-nose with him, she saw the edge of the astrology note Grandpa George had given her. She reached for her iPhone and switched on the flashlight app so she could read it.

  If her grandpa had been home, Penelope would have texted him to ask what that actually meant. But, since Grandpa was away, Penelope typed the first four words into Google on her iPhone. Then she tapped ‘images’.

  A lot of things came up. But there were two images in particular that were interesting. The first was just writing.

  The second had a picture of pencils (sharpened and sitting points-up in a mug just like Penelope’s own).

  Penelope still wasn’t quite sure she understood what all that meant. But she decided, right there and then, SPONTANEOUSLY, to try Grandpa’s advice.

  She got out of bed, switched on the light and walked over to her bookcase. At the moment, her books were arranged in alphabetical order according to the author’s surname. Since her old colouring books had no actual author, she’d put them in with the Cs.

  Penelope pulled out the one that had been her favourite the year she turned four. It had been a year of big changes. When Penelope was three, her dad still lived with them. By the time she was four, he didn’t live with them anymore. But he had sent her the colouring book for her birthday.

  The pages were filled with peaceful scenes of houses, rainbows, birds and hills. Penelope had coloured them in with her beloved Derwent pencils. Every sky in the book was done in the same shade (Spectrum Blue). Every cloud was the same shade (Chinese White). Every patch of grass was the same shade (Grass Green).

  Penelope looked at each pi
cture. Page after page. Even though it had been a long time since she’d worked on this colouring book, she remembered how much care and effort she’d put into getting everything exactly right. There was not a single place where she’d gone outside the lines.

  She also remembered what she’d told herself while she was putting in all that time and effort. That if she did an excellent job, and there was not a single bit of colour outside any of the lines, her dad would come back to live with them.

  That had been a crazy thing to tell herself. And perhaps even four-year-old Penelope hadn’t believed it. Because on the very last page of the colouring book was a picture of a lovely cottage in the forest.

  And it was not coloured in. At all.

  At first, she had to force herself to do it.

  For the sky, she used Orange Chrome. When she held the picture out at arm’s length, Penelope was surprised to find that she didn’t mind it.

  For the trees in the forest, Penelope chose Imperial Purple. Then she added extra branches that were completely out of the lines. As she chose a colour for the tree trunk (Rose Pink), Penelope thought about Joanna’s approach to playing Likeable Lucy. Obviously it wasn’t what Penelope had imagined when she created the character, but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Perhaps it was a bit like having an orange sky. Or purple trees with pink trunks.

  As she worked on the sun (Emerald Green), Penelope thought about Joanna as Likeable Lucy, jumping onto the cross on the floor and flicking her hair back with both hands.

  Bob was right. Penelope had been too harsh. If she could take back what she’d said to Joanna, she’d do it right away.

  Penelope breathed deeply as she looked at her finished picture. It should look terrible and all wrong, but it actually looked sort of lovely in its own (slightly weird) way. Maybe it wasn’t a masterpiece. But it did make the other pictures seem a bit boring.

  Maybe things could be different from the way you thought they should be, but still work out somehow …

  Really, it would have been nice if Grandpa’s astrology note had been a little more to the point, rather than leaving Penelope to discover the meaning behind it.

  Perhaps she should let Joanna do things her own way, even if it didn’t seem correct to Penelope. Was it possible that Joanna could make the play better?

  Penelope couldn’t unsay what she’d said to Joanna.

  But she could try to fix things.

  First up the next day was PE. Penelope did not love PE. She especially did not love PE when Mr Joseph made them go for a (very long) cross-country run. But today, Penelope had a plan.

  Joanna was always way better behaved when she was doing something sporty. Very long cross-country runs seemed to calm her down and make her more sensible. Joanna had won several awards for cross country.

  It would take effort and energy and perhaps all the puff Penelope had, but she was going to stick beside Joanna on the run. At least until they’d talked about getting the play back on track.

  ‘All right, troops,’ Mr Joseph said as they assembled at the gym.

  When everyone was paying attention, Mr Joseph fired the starting gun (even though it was absolutely unnecessary, and he could have just used his voice so no-one got a fright).

  Penelope started strongly. She moved through the runners until she was side-by-side with Joanna.

  ‘Joanna,’ she puffed, ‘I wanted to talk to you about that drama class.’

  It was very difficult to keep up. Penelope had to take two steps to every one of Joanna’s. But she was determined to sort this out. ‘I’m,’ she puffed, ‘sorry if I …’ puff, ‘hurt …’ puff, puff, ‘your feelings, Joanna.’

  ‘It’s all right, Penelope,’ Joanna said, without a single puff in her voice, as though a (very long) cross-country run was easy peasy. ‘I’m over it now. I’m pretty used to it anyway. People are always telling me I’m stupid.’

  That made Penelope’s tummy feel tense. She normally tried to make people feel BETTER about themselves, not WORSE (except when she was having an outburst and things sometimes came out quite wrong and a teensy bit mean).

  Admittedly, Joanna did put effort and energy into odd things. The tongue-touching-the-nose thing was a very good example of this. But Penelope thought Joanna was quite clever when she focused properly.

  Having a tense tummy, though, was not ideal when it was combined with feeling EXTREMELY puffed out. It was difficult for Penelope to explain things to Joanna while she was panting. Penelope had to stop then, as she was doubled over with a stitch.

  ‘OMG, Penelope,’ Joanna said, stopping too. ‘You went too fast too early. You’re supposed to pace yourself with cross country. You look like you’re going to cark it.’

  Joanna looked around in the way Penelope had witnessed many times before. It was the look she had whenever she was about to do something naughty.

  Only a couple of metres away was the biggest tree in the whole school. It had strong branches and a very dense canopy. Penelope knew it was naughty to hide in there, but she was too puffed to protest when Joanna lifted a leafy branch and led her into the famous Chelsea Primary hiding place. Lots of other kids used the tree to hide from the teachers during class (which Penelope knew was Very Wrong).

  Penelope had seen the space before, but she’d never actually been inside. She had to duck her head to get in, but once she had done so, the space opened up.

  Joanna steered Penelope over to a sort of natural bench made by the roots of the tree. Penelope sat down to recover her breath.

  In any other circumstances, Penelope would have got out of there as quickly as possible. But she glanced up and there, stuck on the tree trunk, was the (laminated) script from the play!

  ‘I’ve been sneaking in here whenever I can,’ Joanna explained. ‘Learning my lines.’

  Penelope heard the thumping sound of runners passing the tree. It was very kind of Joanna to stay with her. Being in here would most likely mean that Joanna wouldn’t even finish the run – let alone win it. Part of Penelope wanted to push her out so she could get back into the race.

  But even though Penelope had recovered her breath, and even though hiding there was definitely naughty and they should both get back out there so Joanna could go and win the race, Penelope didn’t want to leave. Not yet.

  ‘Joanna,’ she said shaking her head, ‘that is very dedicated.’ It seemed that she had really underestimated Joanna this time.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I need to try to explain why I got so worked up about how you were playing Likeable Lucy. It’s a very complicated thing and it will probably be hard for you to understand.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Joanna said. She reached inside a hole in the tree and pulled out a giant stick of bubblegum. This gave Penelope a pretty good clue about how the script was staying stuck. ‘Want some?’ Joanna asked.

  Penelope shook her head. Just being in there, skipping the race, was naughty enough for her.

  ‘Right, go on,’ Joanna said, shoving a piece of bubblegum in her mouth.

  ‘Way back, a long time ago when I wrote the play,’ Penelope began, ‘things weren’t going so well for me at school.’

  She paused while Joanna reached over and grabbed a drink bottle from her stash in the tree. ‘At least,’ she continued, ‘some things weren’t going so well.’

  Penelope paused again. Finding the right words was difficult.

  Joanna blew a bubble that was possibly one of the largest Penelope had ever seen. It was definitely the largest she’d ever seen on school grounds (where bubblegum was totally not allowed).

  ‘I reckon I get it,’ Joanna said, pushing the lump of gum to one side so that it bulged inside her cheek. ‘Before Bob came to Chelsea Primary, you were lonely. So you made up this character called Likeable Lucy, who was lonely but then became super popular. Someone who does things her own way, but triumphs in the end. That’s the whole deal about the song at the end, right? “ The Greatest Love of All” is about learning to love yourself.’ />
  Penelope was stunned. Doubly stunned, actually. She was stunned by Joanna fishing the bubblegum out of her mouth and stuffing it back into the packet.

  But she was more stunned by Joanna’s Very Deep Thoughts. That Joanna even had Very Deep Thoughts made Penelope feel much better about letting her play Likeable Lucy her way.

  ‘You do realise that the characters are entirely fictional?’ she asked, just to be sure.

  ‘Er, yeah,’ Joanna said. ‘Obviously picking up a little kid who’s fallen down in the playground isn’t going to make anyone crazy popular in real life. And geez, even Ellen Semorac isn’t as popular as Likeable Lucy, and she’s the most popular girl in the whole school.’

  Penelope wasn’t quite sure she agreed with that. She actually thought that helping a kid who’d fallen down in the playground could be a great way to become popular (maybe if the whole school could somehow witness the good deed). It just so happened that she had an award at home called ‘The Watchful Eye’ for performing exactly that good deed. She had to admit, however, that it hadn’t improved her popularity.

  But there was no need to argue about it. She’d made her decision.

  ‘Joanna,’ she said, ‘you have my permission, as director, to play Likeable Lucy however you want,’ Penelope said.

  ‘Cool,’ Joanna said, taking one last swig from her drink bottle, ‘cos I was going to do it my way anyway.’

  Penelope decided not to react to that comment either. She lifted the tree canopy to peek outside, then turned back to Joanna.

  ‘Thanks for looking after me,’ she said. ‘I know you could have won the race.’

  Joanna shrugged as though it was no big deal.

  ‘And,’ Penelope continued, ‘you are absolutely NOT stupid.’

  As soon as she said that, Penelope felt lighter. In fact (and this was very weird), even though it was clearly naughty to be hiding in the middle of a cross-country race, somehow, suddenly, it felt OK.