The Best of Friends by Alex Day (accelerated reader books .txt) 📕

my smile fixed on my face as if it hadn’t been for her in the first place, but for someone else entirely. The wind whips up anew, seizing a handful of the paper pieces that mark the trail and turning them into a feverish whirlpool of kaleidoscope colours.

How I wish there was something similar to this paper chase in the adult world of social interactions, a designated route to follow, carefully signposted, guaranteed to lead to the desired endpoint.

But of course there isn’t.

I’m suddenly acutely conscious of standing alone on the village green with an armful of coats and a heartful of loneliness. I clutch the garments tighter and trudge towards the finish line. The twenty or so minutes until the first runners return seems like an eternity. During the wait, the mantra ‘fake it until you make it’ runs through my head like an irritating radio jingle, and then changes to a refrain of ‘things can only get better’, and all the while I keep a welcoming and optimistic faux-smile plastered onto my face.

But deep inside, I long for Justin, or perhaps not even for him but for someone … a friend, lover, husband, anyone – just so as not to be always on my own.

Chapter 2

Charlotte

Red.

Bright, eye-catching harlot-red, poison-red, blood-red. Red that spells danger.

You stand out like a sore thumb in that unsuitable coat, which is why I notice you as soon as I arrive on the green. My imagination runs wild, thinking of all the – overwhelmingly negative – things that red symbolises. It must be tiredness, hallucinations brought on by having all my four boys home for the Easter holidays, eating non-stop, playing computer games until the small hours and fighting with an assiduity that would be admirable if it weren’t so exhausting.

I’ve been intrigued by you since Toby first came home with stories of a new family in the village – two boys the same age as him and Sam, and an absent dad. You’ve bought the terraced house at the less fashionable end of the village that was on the market for quite a while. It seems faintly ridiculous that such a small backwater as this should have such a thing as a ‘less fashionable end’ but there’s no doubt that the area has become markedly less desirable since the massive housing estate was built right in the middle of it, providing homes for commuters into the M3 corridor.

Toby, of course, has no idea of such subtleties as the ‘right’ postcode or the ‘wrong’ one, and he’s particularly taken with your Jamie in a way I’ve not seen in him before. So of course I’m interested in Jamie, too. Every mother wants their child to have friends, to be popular. And it’s useful for me to have some inside info on you, brought to me from the innocent mouths of my own children. Of course, like most pre-teen boys, when pressed for details about someone’s appearance or character, Toby has almost nothing to say beyond ‘I dunno’ and ‘just, like, normal’ but I got a little more from Sam and my imagination had already created a picture of you as a devastatingly attractive divorcee with an undertone of beguiling vulnerability.

Exactly the kind of woman I need to worry about. To keep tabs on.

Seeing you for real, though, I observe that, though you are undoubtedly good-looking, you don’t look like the guileful type, the type who preys on other people’s husbands. You look altogether more innocent than that, more ingenue than femme fatale: sweet, self-effacing, hopeful and above all, cold. It will take a bit of time for you to get used to our country weather if you’re a townie. There’s so much I’ll need to tell you, when we get to know each other, when we become friends. Which we will, without doubt. I’m sure of that already.

For a start, you should know that this is a cold place.

Our village nestles in what is known as a frost pocket and winter temperatures fall below what you’d expect for the south of England. A powdery dusting of hoarfrost coats cars, trees, and lawns in the mornings from November right through to May. As if to prove my point, the runners stream by, cheeks reddened not only by exertion but also by the chill north wind.

Spring is a long time coming this year, even longer than usual. Thank goodness for the only two things that have got the boys out of the house this Easter: football on the green and Miriam. I’ll tell you all about her, for sure, although she’ll probably seek you out before I have the chance. She likes to be at the centre of everything, to know all the comings and goings in the village. Miriam truly is Biglow’s uber-mother, always looking after everyone and everything, organising events from the fete to the flower show – and of course, the paper chases.

It’s her raison d’être to spend her time recreating a bygone age, bringing back to life the childhood pastimes of a distant halcyon era, one in which children befriend strangers on trains without fear that they might be child molesters, where obesity and ruinously overpriced, sugar-coated breakfast cereals are unknown and healthy outdoor pursuits eagerly partaken in by all. And whilst they do entail hours of chilly hanging around and making small talk with people I have no particular interest in, I always turn up to her events.

I like to show my appreciation of all she does, and to play my part in a way which befits the owner of the manor house. Feudalism may be long gone but people still like to know the pecking order and to have someone to kowtow to and look up to. How else do you think the royal family survives? But of course the main reason why I’m always there on the sidelines, however inclement the weather, is to support my boys, to cheer them on, to laud them whenever and however