Dance-off! by Harriet Castor Page B

then. She was trying to put a brave face on it, but I could tell she felt just awful.
    “It was an accident,” I said to her quietly, when she passed me on her way to the bathroom. “Don’t blame yourself.”
    “Thanks, Rosie,” she said. “I know you want to be nice, but don’t pretend. It was my fault, and I know it.”
    The next morning, on the way home in the car, I told Mum what had happened.
    “Poor Felicity,” said Mum, shaking her head. “And poor Nikki, too.” (Nikki is Fliss’s mum.) “I can just imagine how stressed she must have been. If this had happened when you were all at our house…” Mum shuddered.
    After a minute, we stopped at some traffic lights and she turned to me with a serious look. “Rosie,” she said. “I hope you girls will realise now just how dangerous your messing about can be.”
    “Yes, Mum,” I said.
    “You have to try and see the consequences of things,” she went on as the lights changed. “Try to think . I know you’d like me to treat you more as a grown-up sometimes, but this is exactly what being a grown-up is about…”
    Blah, blah, blah. I expect you can imagine the rest, so I won’t bore you with it. Mum’s lovely, but she doesn’t half go on sometimes, especially when something worries her. We got all the way home before the lecture finished, and bythen I’d said “Yes, Mum” about ninety times. Yawn!
    That afternoon, I had a phone call from Frankie. “I’ve had an ace idea,” she said, “for cheering Fliss up.”
    “Spill,” I said.
    “Tomorrow, we all take to school loads of stickers and glitter and coloured pens and stuff, and at break we can decorate her cast, and make it look really cool.”
    “Excellent!” I said. “I’m not sure whether I’ve got any stickers, though. It’s a shame it’s Sunday or I could go and buy some.”
    “Just bring whatever you’ve got,” said Frankie.
    So I spent the rest of the afternoon turning my bedroom upside down, looking for anything sparkly or spangly that might help jazz up Fliss’s plaster cast. I did find some stickers – some really beautiful cat ones that I’d been given for my last birthday. I hesitated over them, because I’d been saving them up for something really special. To be honest with you, I didn’t want to part with them. Who would know, after all, if Ijust told the others I hadn’t got any stickers? But then I felt mean, and I put them in my school bag along with my glitter-glue pens and some sequins I’d found in my sewing box.
    On Monday morning Fliss caused a big stir, hobbling into school on crutches. As she made her way through the playground half our class trailed after her, most of them wanting to have a go on her crutches.
    “She’s loving it!” Frankie whispered to me. And it was true. Fliss was basking in the attention, a big smile on her face.
    “I know why, too,” I said, nudging Frankie and pointing to one of the people clustered round Fliss. “Suddenly Ryan Scott’s interested!”
    At break time, Frankie, Kenny, Lyndz and I persuaded Fliss to park herself on a bench while we went to work on her cast with all our decorations.
    “It’s so sweet of you guys!” she giggled.
    “It’s the least we could do, Fliss,” said Kenny earnestly. “Here, look – I’ve brought yousomething to keep your toes warm.” She held up a large sock with a picture of a birthday cake on it. “When you press like this…” she said, jabbing at the cherry on top of the cake, “… it plays ‘Happy Birthday’!”
    The buzzy little sound, coming from something as ridiculous as a sock, made us all crack up. “It’s awful!” said Fliss. “Brilliantly awful! Where did you get it?”
    “It’s my dad’s,” said Kenny. “But don’t worry,” she added, when she saw Fliss’s nose wrinkling, “he’s never worn it.”
    What with the sock, the stickers, the glitter, and all the swirls Kenny drew with her silver and gold pens, Fliss’s cast ended up looking like a