Secret Meeting by Jean Ure Page A

said Annie. “It’s only
tea.
What we’ve got to do, she said, is get a bus to Brafferton Bridge—”
    “We go through there on the way to visit Gran!” I knew exactly which bus, and where to catch it: a number six, at the back of Market Square. “Is Brafferton Bridge where she lives?” I said, thinking that I would have to change the first bit of my biography.
    “Near Brafferton Bridge. She said her mum will meet us and take us back. Lori won’t be able to come ’cos she’s already doing something else, but—”
    “That’s all right.”
    I didn’t care about Lori; Harriet was the one I caredabout. In fact I thought I might be a bit shy if Lori were there, so I was quite glad she wasn’t going to be.
    “She said maybe we could meet another time,” said Annie. “She sounds really nice! Oh, and it’s got to be kept a secret. She said her mum doesn’t usually meet her fans ’cos if she met all the people that read her books she’d never have time for writing.”
    “Yes.” I nodded. I’d read that somewhere, in one of the interviews that Harriet had given. She had said that she was a very private person. She loved to hear from her readers, and she always,
always
wrote back; but she didn’t very often make public appearances. I could understand that! That is probably how I would be, if I were a famous writer.
    “So we’ve not got to tell
anybody
,” said Annie. “In case it gets back to people and they all want to come.”
    “Absolutely!” I said. This was
my
treat. I could think of several girls in our class who would be really envious … but I certainly didn’t want them intruding on my birthday present!
    “I said what we’d do,” said Annie, “we’d look up the times of buses so I could tell Lori which one we were getting so Harriet doesn’t have to be kept waiting.”
    I was ever so impressed! Annie isn’t normally what I would call an efficient sort of person. Mrs Glover atschool once told her she was “slapdash”. But because this was my birthday present, and she did so much want me to enjoy it, she was making this huge great effort. She even knew how to look up bus timetables on the Internet!

    “See, look? There’s one that gets to Brafferton Bridge at ten past two. I’ll tell her that one. Then you talk as much as you like, all about books, you could even do an interview, then we can have tea and come back home and nobody will ever know! Now you’re looking worried again. What’s the matter
now
?”
    “How are we going to recognise her?” I said.
    “Who, Harriet?”
    “There aren’t any photos!”
    I’d searched and searched, but being such a private person she obviously didn’t like having her photograph taken. (I agree! I don’t, either.) All these other old ugly authors had their pictures all over the place – well, they weren’t all old and ugly, but they weren’t very beautiful, either, which I suppose oughtn’t to matter as it is their books you are interested in, and not their faces, and even if Harriet turned out to be old and ugly I would still be her number one fan! But the only photographs I had been able to find were taken when she was young. I knew it was when she was young as she was holding Lori, and Lori was just a baby. Harriet had looked really pretty, then, with a nice little round squashy face and dark hair, with a fringe. I did hope she still looked like that! But I knew it was a long time ago, almost fifteen years. People could change a whole lot in fifteen years. I mean, anyone who had last seen me when I was, say,
two
, certainly wouldn’t recognise me as I am now. So I thought probably she was bound to look a little bit different.

    “We don’t want to get in a car with the wrong person!” I said.
    Annie rolled her eyes. “You are such a worrygut! Maybe she could hold a copy of one of her books? Or d’you think there might be hundreds of people waiting at Brafferton Bridge holding copies of books?”
    I giggled at that.
    “I’ll