Clover Moon by Jacqueline Wilson

Author:Jacqueline Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: RHCP
Published: 2016-10-06T04:00:00+00:00

13

‘ARE YOU REALLY my friend, Thelma?’ I asked.

‘Of course I’m your friend, you ninny,’ she said, smiling at me. ‘Let’s have a cup of tea, eh? And there’s a baker’s two doors along from the theatre. Fancy a muffin?’

‘Oh yes!’

My dress was still pretty damp and my stockings wringing wet, but my coat was dry on the inside so I slipped it on and found my way back to the stage door. Ronnie and I gave each other another wink, and then I ran along to the baker’s shop with two pennies from Thelma clutched in my palm.

She’d told me to say they were for her, and as soon as I said her name the rosy-cheeked baker slipped a cherry tart into the paper bag on top of the muffins.

‘Oh dear, I’ve only got two pennies,’ I said.

‘That’s all right, love. A little treat, seeing as it’s for Miss Thelma,’ he said.

I went back to the theatre triumphantly, winked yet again at Ronnie and ran up the stairs. I got lost at the top and wandered along several corridors without finding the dressing room. I thought I’d found the right door at last, but found myself looking at a stout gentleman in a striped dressing gown applying powder to his large purple nose. We stared at each other in horror.

‘Oh my Lord, a peeper!’ he said. ‘Be off with you, you nasty little urchin!’

I ran away, mortified. Thank goodness I ran the right way this time, though I only dared open the door when I heard Thelma singing away to herself.

‘Hello, ducks,’ she said. ‘Kettle’s boiling away on the spirit stove. I’ll make the tea.’

‘Thelma, I went into the wrong room and saw a strange man in his dressing gown!’ I said.

‘You saucebox!’ said Thelma. ‘Don’t look so worried. I expect it was only Arnie, our operatic singer. Did he have a big nozzle?’

‘Yes, and he was powdering it!’ I said, amazed that a man should do such a thing.

‘He was simply getting ready for the show. He comes in hours early so that the other fellows don’t rag him. Arnie looks like a comic turn, so he primps for hours to make himself appear more dignified. He gets through tubs of green powder to make his nose less red, bless him, and it’s rumoured that he squeezes that great belly of his into a lady’s corset. Perhaps that accounts for his strangulated tone when he starts up all that Italian trilling.’ Thelma put her hands on her chest and started singing falsetto as she made the tea.

I couldn’t see any plates, so I tore the paper bag in two and set a muffin on my half and the other muffin and the cherry tart on Thelma’s.

‘We’re sharing it, silly,’ she said, dividing up the tart.

‘But the baker put it in the bag specially for you,’ I told her.

‘Yes, he’s a little gone on me,’ said Thelma complacently.

‘Is he your sweetheart?’

‘Hardly! He’s a dear soul but I’m setting my cap at someone a little grander,’ said Thelma, waving my beret in the air with a flourish.

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