Read Online Amelia by Siobhan Parkinson - Free Book Online Page B

boots, pinafores and bodies disentangled itself, and Amelia sat up and combed her fingers through her hair in case there were any twigs or leaves in it. ‘This is the Grosvenor Academy for Young Ladies, I’ll have you know,’ she said, brushing herself down, ‘not the Grosvenor Academy for Young Ponies.’
    Suddenly, a dreadful thought occurred to her. She missed the little tug of the heavy watch. She reached around her neck to feel for the chain. There was nothing there! Amelia first went very red, then she went very pale and silent, and finally she burst into tears. She rolled over onto her stomach, heaved herself onto all fours, and went crawling around the school yard, frantically pawing the ground and shouting, between sobs, ‘My watch. My new gold watch!’
    When the others realised what had happened, they too started to search everywhere for the gold watch that they’d all admired so much earlier in the day. But it was nowhere to be found.
    ‘It’s bound to turn up, Amelia,’ Lucinda said comfortingly. ‘Are you sure it hasn’t wriggled its way down your front and got tangled up in your petticoat?’
    ‘Of course it hasn’t,’ said Amelia crossly. ‘I’d feel a heavy thing like a watch if it was caught in my clothes. Oh dear, oh dear! What’ll I tell Papa?’ And she burst into tears all over again.
    ‘Will he be very vexed, Amelia?’ asked Lucinda, with a shake in her voice.
    ‘No, no. He’s never angry with me, never. But even so, I can’t bear to tell him I’ve lost his special present to me. Oh Lucy! What am I going to do?’
    The others had drifted away by now, and Amelia and Lucinda were left alone in the school yard, their teeth chattering in the early spring wind, their faces looking pinched and cold. But they were shivering with disappointment and upset as much as with the cold of the afternoon.
    ‘Never mind,’ said Lucinda at last, putting her arm around her friend’s shoulder. ‘You’d better just try to put it out of your mind for the moment and enjoy the party this afternoon . Tomorrow, when all the excitement is over, we’ll think some more about the watch, and see if we can’t come up with a plan.’
    ‘All right,’ said Amelia heavily. ‘We’d better get back to class anyway. The second bell has already rung.’
    All through afternoon school, Amelia thought and thought about the watch. First she tried to think what might have happened to it, where she might have dropped it. And then, when her head ached from thinking about that, she thought about how she was going to break the news to Mama and Papa. She found it very hard to take Lucinda’s advice and just forget about it for the moment.
    When the bell rang for the end of school, the girls all crowded around Amelia again. They’d all forgotten about the watch, and were full of excited chatter about the party. They plagued Amelia with questions, about who was coming , what there would be to eat, whether there would bedancing, whether the mamas were to come too. Amelia tried to smile and answer their questions patiently, but all she wanted was to get home to her own bedroom, and have a good weep. All the lovely birthday feeling had drained away and Amelia almost wished there wasn’t going to be a party later that afternoon. She just didn’t see how she was going to face it.

The Party
    A melia dragged herself wearily home, wishing vainly all the way that she’d never got the wretched watch in the first place, that she’d been more careful with it, that there wasn’t going to be a stupid party that afternoon, that she was still twelve, that birthdays, parties and watches had all never been invented. But as soon as she entered the house, she got whisked away on a magic carpet of excited anticipation that seemed to be swooping around and carrying the whole household with it.
    The first person she met was Mary Ann, laden down with the most enormous trayful of hors d’oeuvres that Amelia had ever seen. She was