“I told you. I’m going dancing.”
I look at his suit again and his shiny black shoes. “Basil. Have you met a bloke?”
He smiles, and he’s made of trouble. We should have dropped him in the Thames in a bag of stones. We should have left him out for the fairies.
“Something like that.”
57
AGATHA
I’m sitting at Penelope’s counter, spreading pink icing on another gingerbread lady.
“Why do the gingerbread girls have to wear pink?” Penny asks.
“Why should the gingerbread girls feel like they shouldn’t wear pink?” I say. “I like pink.”
“Only because you’ve been conditioned to like it by Barbies and gendered Lego.”
“Lay off, Penny. I’ve never played with Lego.”
Hanging out with Penny is actually going better than I thought. When she cornered me in the courtyard before we left for break, I thought she was going to chew me out for abandoning Simon.
“Hey,” she said, “I heard that Simon isn’t coming over for Christmas.”
“Because we’re not dating anymore, Penelope. Happy?”
“Generally,” she said, “but not because you broke up.”
It’s impossible to end a conversation with Penny. You can be rude, you can ignore her—she’s unshakable.
“Agatha,” she said, “do you honestly think I want tobewith Simon?”
I think Penny wants to be the most important person in Simon’s life, so is that a yes or a no? “I don’t know, Penelope. But I know you didn’t wantmeto be with him.”
“Because you both seemed miserable!”
“That wasn’t any of your business!”
“Of course it was!” she said. “You’re myfriends.”
I rolled my eyes at her, very obviously, but she kept going.
“This isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said briskly. “I heard Simon isn’t coming to your house for Christmas. And he can’t come to my house because my mum’s pissed off at the Mage, but I thought maybe you and I could still get together and make biscuits and exchange gifts.”
We always do this, every year, the three of us. “Without Simon?”
“Right, like I said, my mum’s got a bee in her bonnet about Simon.”
“But we never hang out without Simon,” I said.
“Only because he’s always around,” Penny said. “Just because you guys broke up doesn’t mean we’re not still friends, you and me.”
“We’re friends?”
“Nicks and Slick, I hope so,” Penny said. “I only have three friends. Ifwe’renot friends, I’m down to two.”
***
