The Friends We Keep(5)
“Not yet but I think I might go now. Do you want to come?”
Victoria shook her head. “I’ll stay and put up the posters. Look! Aren’t they brilliant?” She unrolled pastel-colored illustrations of cats, complete with hearts all around.
“Brilliant!” said Evvie, backing out of the room and escaping down the narrow stairs to the common room.
The common room was very brown, very bare, and empty apart from a girl who was slouched in a chair, her feet up on another chair, watching television and quietly crying as she picked out the large round candy from a big bag and ate them, through her sobs. The first things Evvie noticed were endless bare legs, enviably long and slim, and then, as she stepped forward, a shock of thick, red hair tumbling onto her shoulders, a petite aquiline nose, and red-rimmed eyes.
“Are you okay?” Evvie said, sitting next to the girl, who was clutching sodden tissues in one hand. “Is this a sad TV show?”
“No. It’s Pebble Mill. The only thing that’s sad about it is that I’m actually watching it. My parents just left and I’m feeling homesick. Want one? I only like the round ones.”
“What are they?” asked Evvie, reaching in and taking out what looked like a mini cake.
“Liquorice Allsorts, my favorite sweets. Help yourself. I’m sorry.” She sniffed, regaining her composure and wiping away the tears. “I didn’t mean to weep pathetically in the common room.” She looked around to check that no one was listening. “It doesn’t help that I’ve got a roommate I seem to have nothing in common with whatsoever. She’s doing a degree in physics, and she’s brought her pet iguana with her in a giant bloody cage that stinks to high heaven. I don’t know what to do.”
“Will she be playing the flute for an hour every night, and decorating the room with pictures of cats? Because that’s what I’m contending with.”
“Oh God,” said the girl, the tears replaced with a smile of disbelief as she sat up. “How in hell do they figure out these pairings? Didn’t they ask us to fill out forms with our interests? I don’t remember putting scaly creatures anywhere on mine.”
“I definitely didn’t put cats. I’m pretty sure I put George Michael somewhere on mine. And theater.”
The girl’s eyes lit up. “Theater? Are you studying drama too?”
“Drama and English.”
“Me too!” She paused, a thought taking hold. “Don’t you think it would be more sensible if you and I roomed together?”
Evvie broke into a large smile. “I think that would be totally awesome. Who do we have to speak to?”
“Probably the warden. My parents brought a huge box of chocolates for her to introduce themselves, so we’re already good friends. Let’s go and find her. Have you unpacked yet?”
Evvie shook her head.
“Perfect. We’ll get Lizard Lady out of my room and get you in. I’ve got a huge bay window on the ground floor with a view of the street, so we can look out for handsome boys and invite them in for tea.”
“I like the way you think,” said Evvie.
“This is clearly meant to be,” said the girl, now standing up and extending her hand. “I’m Maggie, by the way.”
“Evvie.”
“We’re going to be best friends, aren’t we?” said Maggie. “I can feel it.”
“I feel it too,” said Evvie, all insecurity and intimidation having disappeared. Now that she had found a friend, there was nothing she couldn’t handle, least of all disappointing the dreadful Victoria.
* * *
? ? ?
Two hours later, Evvie had moved downstairs, and the lizard lady had moved upstairs with Victoria, who, it turned out, had spent her entire life dreaming of having a bearded dragon. Even though Iggy was clearly not a bearded dragon, she couldn’t have been more delighted. When Evvie left her room, Victoria and her new roommate were deep in conversation about lizards the roommate had loved, and how she had looked after them.
Maggie’s room was huge, and bright, and she had dragged two brown chairs in from the common room— “Shh. Don’t tell anyone”—and placed them in the bay window, looking out at the street so they could indeed see all the handsome boys walking past and, in fact, everyone else.
Her bed was covered in a pretty cornflower-blue bedspread, with matching pillows, and her desk had a set of cornflower-blue stationery, pen holders, and notebooks, everything matching.
“Please tell me you’re not always this perfect,” Evvie said, worried that in leaving Victoria she may have left the frying pan only to jump into the fire.
“I am definitely not perfect. I just like things to look pretty. But open my wardrobe and you’ll see the inner me.”
Evvie had marched over to the wardrobe, flung the doors open, and laughed out loud at Maggie’s clothes, stuffed into the shelves haphazardly, shoes piled up on shoes, as if Maggie had just thrown them all in there from the other side of the room.
“Did you just toss everything in here?” Evvie asked, standing aside as Maggie pulled off one of her espadrilles and launched it through the air, whereupon it landed in the wardrobe with a clatter.
“Goal!” shouted Maggie. “I wasn’t Goal Shooter on the school netball team for nothing. And yes. I did throw everything in there. I couldn’t be bothered to move the box from the window.”