‘Hey, why the hell am I being brought into this? I’m just an innocent bystander,’ he called out from beside her.
They looked at each other, rolled their eyes and laughed. Sarah took up her usual position lying next to Alice in the bed.
‘You can’t stay mad at me for long, especially when I’ve brought you … pain au chocolat!’ Sarah held out a warm paper bag of sweet-smelling pastries. One sure-fire way to melt any of Alice’s negative emotion was to hand her something buttery and full of sugar.
‘God, you know me too well. I love you. Hand them over.’
Sarah leant in and kissed her on the head. ‘I love you too.’
Alice took the bag, and in less than one second had already stuffed half the pastry in her mouth.
‘You’re actually quite lucky you can’t see this, Alfie. Let’s just say Alice is a bit of an animal when it comes to eating.’
Alice, too distracted by the heavenly sensation of warm flaky pastry and oozing chocolate inside her mouth to care, half-heartedly nudged her friend in the ribs.
‘She must be enjoying it to be so silent,’ Alfie remarked.
‘So, what have you kids been up to today?’ Sarah asked.
‘Well, I’msoglad you asked, actually …’
He wouldn’t dare tell her.
‘Alice and I have been testing out my new schedule!’
‘Ooh, is that what this thing is?’ Sarah reached over to the curtain and pulled down the piece of paper. ‘Very good work, Chief Entertainment Officer – this looks like an incredibly detailed and full-on schedule! How was it? Did you learn anything new about each other?’
Alice realized she’d stopped chewing her pastry.
‘I certainly learnt a lot about Alice …’
NO.
Please, Alfie, don’t be a dickhead.
‘… mainly that she has an extremely limited knowledge of food and isn’t too seasoned in how to have fun.’
She didn’t even care that he’d insulted her; she was simply grateful that he hadn’t revealed her ridiculous answer to that ridiculous question.
‘Just because I’ve never played some stupid game before does not make me not fun.’ Alice swallowed her mouthful, wanting to shut down this conversation very quickly.
‘It was more the fact you had never readHarry Potter, actually. Can you believe that, Sarah? No concept of Hogwarts. No idea about The Boy Who Lived. Nothing.’ He sounded genuinely shocked and even a little bit offended.
‘Yeah,Sarah, can you believe that?’ She turned to her friend with a knowing look.
‘Oh no, don’t tell me you haven’t either?’
‘Look, Alfie, I’ll be upfront with you. I haven’t read it.’ Sarah was holding her hands up in confession. ‘I’m not proud of myself for it. Nor do I have anything against the book, I just never got round to it.’
‘Have you watched the films at least?’
‘Erm … no,’ Sarah said, wincing slightly.
‘Who am I even dealing with here!? I’ve never met anyone in my life that hasn’t at least watched onefilm. And here come two of the most incredible women who haven’t got a clue about anything! Does this mean I’m going to have to blow your mind too, and introduce you to a world of purely joyful yet deeply dark magic?’
‘I suppose it does.’ Sarah shrugged her shoulders in defeat.
‘Sit back and relax, ladies. We are going to take a little diversion from the planned schedule and dive straight back into story time. Prepare yourselves for what you’re about to hear.’
