How to Get the Friends You Want by Jenny Alexander

coming over later.
    What she meant was that it would soon be over. Primrose would wash her face and put on some make-up, find a baggy sweater to hide in and melt into Matt’s arms.
    Mum didn’t stop to chat – you never feel like talking when you’ve been Primrosed. You feel like moving to the Antarctic and living with the seals.
    â€˜Hmm...’ I said, when she had gone. ‘This might not be pretty.’
    â€˜Are they going to have a big row, do you think?’ said Sasha. ‘Is she going to dump him?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ I shrugged.
    â€˜Perhaps it would be better if we weren’t here when he comes.’
    We played on the PlayStation after that, with the sound of Mum tidying up in the kitchen coming up from downstairs and Primrose flinging stuff around in her bedroom above.
    â€˜We don’t seem to have come on a very good day,’ Tammy said later, as they were leaving.
    â€˜Oh, it’s just the normal Sunday,’ I said. ‘Next week, you could come for lunch if you like.’
    â€˜You’d be most welcome,’ Mum said. ‘There’s always plenty to eat if you like winter veg!’
    The chance of Sasha, Tammy and Abina wanting to come again was about the same as the chance of Primrose and Matt making it to their six-month anniversary.
    It felt a bit sad but in a way, it really couldn’t have gone better.

Chapter 14
Young Voices and the Fifth Fact about Friends

    I didn’t go to Sasha’s after school on Monday or Tammy’s on Wednesday because they were practising their Young Voices and I said I was too. They probably thought I was practising with my team, but the truth was Toby and Jess hadn’t invited me and I didn’t want to keep asking.
    I was practising though, just on my own. I wrote my speech and re-wrote it, until it was the best Icould make it, and then I learned it by heart, like Sasha and her team, until I got it perfect.
    It was the Cornish regional final and the two top teams would be going on from there to the South West final in Bristol. When Mum and Dad and me arrived at the hall, it was already filling up.
    The teams had their own section of seating on one side at the front, and the judges’ chairs were in the middle, behind a long table.
    Mum and Dad went to find some seats and I took my place with Toby and Jess. We were in the row behind Sasha, Tammy and Olivia, and they turned round to wish us good luck. Everyone was very excited.
    Looking around the hall I saw Mum and Dad sitting near the back and a few rows down from them, Toby’s mum and dad with his little sister, Leah. Jess’s mum was close to the front but I couldn’t see her dad, so maybe he had to work late that night.
    By the time the judges filed in, the hall was packed. The first teams to go up were from Truro, Penzance and St Ives, and then it was Sasha’s turn. Her team looked perfect up there on the stage, a perfect matching set of school uniforms and tidy, tied-back hair.
    Their speeches were perfect too. They stuck to the correct timings for each part, even thebit where the Chair takes questions from the audience, which is tricky to time. They were so going to win.
    We had to go straight on after them. Toby was in shorts but at least they were proper grey ones, so it looked as if he was wearing school uniform from the knees up. Jess didn’t normally wear uniform to school – no-one knew how she got away with it, but she had her own versions of blue tops over grey skirts or trousers. So she’d had to borrow a school sweatshirt, and it was a bit too big. I was wearing my best school uniform because I wanted to do my best for Toby and Jess.
    As we went up on stage, I caught sight of Jess’s dad at the back of the hall. He must have arrived too late to get a place next to her mum. The head judge jotted something on his notepad and then nodded to us to begin.
    I hadn’t heard Toby’s