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sandwich?
    What if Mum came home and there was a huge row?
    No, it just wasn’t even possible to think of it without feeling sick. She’d have to put Tara off.
    But yesterday, Tara had been really pushy about it. ‘We’ve been best friends for two and a half months now,’ she said. ‘It’s time we did something fun. I’m going to ask my mum can we do something tomorrow. You can ask your mum, too. We could go to one of our houses for tea.’
    Elma didn’t know what to say. She’d already invented ballet classes on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, and violin lessons on Tuesdays and Fridays, and she’d said that she always did family stuff at the weekends. But she hadn’t invented anything for Thursdays. And today was Thursday. But instead of just saying ‘no’, she’d said ‘maybe’, so now Tara was looking for her. And she was afraid if she put her off again, Tara would give up on her altogether, and she’d have no friend at all. There would be no one to defend her when Evil Josh called her names involving lumpy gravy and soggy carrots.
    She peeped around the shed. She could see Joshand his horrible friends strutting around like big ugly turkeys. She could see Tara looking all around the playground for her. She was glad when the bell rang. Back in the classroom, Tara came over. ‘Where were you?’ she asked. ‘I was looking for you. What did your mum say about this afternoon?’
    Elma half turned away. Even though she’d had plenty of practice, she still wasn’t very good at telling lies (except in letters to Luke Mitchell, and that didn’t really count.)
    ‘Sorry, Tara,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I was looking for you, too. I wanted to tell you I can’t do stuff with you after school today. I forgot that I have to go to the dentist.’
    Tara gave her a hug. ‘You poor thing. Maybe next week.’
    Elma put her head down. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘maybe.’
    So instead of doing fun stuff in Tara’s house, the afternoon was just like all the others. Walk the boys home. Clean the house. Cook the tea. Try to ignore Snowball growling, and the endless noise of yet another nature programme from the living room.
    She was so busy that she forgot all about Luke’s letter with the upside-down stamp, and the funny curly tail coming from the ‘y’ at the end of Davey.
    As she sat down to do her homework, she pulledthe envelope out of her bag with one of her copies. She slipped the letter out and began to read.
    When she was finished, she put the letter down and thought for a while. Luke wasn’t his usual self. Was it something she had said? He sounded kind of sad. Maybe it was because he had no brothers. Funny, really. He had no brothers, and she had no sisters. Maybe they should swap families or something. She made a face at the thought. Who’d want to swap families with her? Who’d volunteer to live her life? Not Luke Mitchell, with his perfect life, that was for sure.
    He sounded like he really was sorry for what had happened to Dad. But that was only because he didn’t know the truth. If he knew about the toilet, he’d just laugh. Like everyone else.
    That was the good thing about Luke Mitchell. He only knew what Elma decided he should know. And if it was only half-true, or even not at all true, well … he’d never know, would he? And what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Could it?
    She addressed her envelope with a curly ‘e’ in Luke, and a star with a face in it instead of a dot over the ‘i’ in Mitchell. She carefully stuck on her stamp upside down. Then she took a page and began to write.

    Dear Luke,
    I wouldn’t mind a granny living with me. Both of mine died years ago. I wouldn’t mind a brother either. If I had a brother, I’d like if he was called Zac. Or maybe Dylan.
    Dad’s feeling a bit better these days. The parents of the girl he saved came to visit last week, and that always cheers Dad up for a while.
    I’ve heard about the Beatles, but aren’t they all dead by