Keep the Faith by Candy Harper

might be on to something until she said, ‘We just need some kind of spell . . .’
    ‘What if we covered the sheet up?’ Angharad asked.
    ‘That’s not bad,’ I said. ‘Perhaps we could find someone to stand in front of it every time Icky walked past.’
    ‘I’m not sure anyone has got that much time on their hands, Faith,’ Megs said.
    ‘I don’t know about that. I’ve never seen the cleaning lady do anything other than tut. She could do that at the same time as blocking the sheet, couldn’t she?’
    ‘That’s not going to work, Faith.’
    ‘Or Limp Lizzie – she’s not exactly an asset to any of her lessons, is she? If she’s going to quietly mope for the whole school day, there’s no reason why she
couldn’t do it where I tell her to.’
    No one replied so I went on.
    ‘Or the Food Tech teacher. I’m sure she’d enjoy an actual purpose to her miserable existence for once or . . .’
    At that point I realised that I was talking to myself. It seems that people can only cope with a small amount of my mind-blowing wisdom at a time. I should be gentler with my stupid friends.
LATER
    We never did solve the problem of how to keep Icky away.
    Maybe some sort of bug spray?
THURSDAY 9TH FEBRUARY
    I went into school this morning in a very businessy mood. I can be businessy if I want to, especially if the business is nice stuff for me. At break time I said to the
girls, ‘We need to discuss my birthday.’
    Megs sighed. ‘We never talk about anything else at the moment.’
    Angharad patted my arm. ‘We’re not going to forget your birthday, Faith. You wrote it in all our planners.’
    ‘And you sent us a reminder last week,’ Lily said.
    More evidence of how efficient and businessy I am. I don’t know why my mother ever calls me disorganised.
    ‘The problem is that my birthday falls in half-term,’ I said.
    Lily grinned. ‘That’s good, you’ll be able to have a lie-in and get your little brother to bring you breakfast in bed.’
    There are many things that Lily gets completely wrong and one of them is little brothers. She’s always thinking that Sam could be of use to me or that I’ve got some sort of
non-aggressive feelings towards him.
    ‘I’m not saying that I won’t enjoy the extra snooze time,’ I said. ‘What worries me is that I won’t be able to milk my birthday for all it’s
worth.’
    ‘What do you mean milk it?’ Angharad asked.
    ‘Oh, you know how it goes: “Can I have one of your crisps? It’s my birthday,” or “Can I push in front of you in the lunch queue? It’s my birthday,” and
“Please don’t scald me with the molten lava of your hatred, Miss Ramsbottom. It’s my birthday.”’
    They nodded. Everyone knows that you can ask for a few cheeky favours on your birthday. I mean, I ask for cheeky favours all the time, but I find that you’re much more likely to actually
get them on your special day. ‘So you can see how unfair it is that my birthday is in half-term. I won’t see anyone to extract my birthday offering from them.’
    ‘You’ll see us,’ Lily said. ‘We’ll come round.’
    ‘Yeah, but most people won’t bother about my birthday unless I’m there to rub their faces in it.’
    ‘Maybe your birthday won’t be in half-term next year,’ Ang said, as if that was the end of it.
    ‘I’m going to be more proactive than that. I’ve decided that this year . . .’ I paused for effect. ‘. . . I’m going to have a pre-birthday day.’
    I waited for a round of applause.
    ‘That’s nice,’ Lily said, then she got out her Maths book. ‘Ang, can you explain this algebra to me?’
    ‘Wait a minute! Don’t you want to hear about my plans?’
    ‘Do we have to do anything?’ Megs asked in what I felt was quite a whiny way.
    ‘No. You can just encourage others in their generosity.’
    Lily turned back to her Maths book.
    ‘Although, obviously, you’ll need to purchase a gift.’
    ‘I’ve already got your birthday present,’ Ang