Leap of Faith by Candy Harper

from Philippe, and that’s the useful kind of French, isn’t it?’
    ‘But I do miss Lily,’ Ang said. ‘I can’t wait to see her. And my mum.’
    I actually really didn’t want to think about who I’m missing so I decided to try out what is widely known as the world’s best distraction: dancing with a fit boy.
    Philippe is a good dancer. With snogging skills to match.
    It was a nearly perfect night, but I couldn’t help sighing a bit when we got back to Josette’s house.
    LATER
    I woke up in the middle of the night with a pain in my chest. I thought it might be Josette sitting on me, but then I realised that there was a Megs shaped hole inside me. I tossed and turned for a long time thinking about everything I said. Then I remembered some things that Megs said, like how the trip was a rip-off, and how I haven’t seen her buy any new clothes this year, and how she said that they were saving up to send Grammy to Barbados in the summer.
    The thing about stopping and thinking for a minute, is that it can make you realise that you are an idiot. I shouldn’t have gone on so much about Megs coming on the trip. And I shouldn’t have taken it personally when she said no. I’m glad I’m going home soon because I really need to say sorry to Megs.
    SATURDAY 26TH MAY
    We went to Paris today. The Eiffel tower is pretty tall. It’s a bit of a swizz though because you can’t actually climb right to the top and straddle the little pointy bit, and swing out an arm and pretend you are King Kong on top of the Empire State Building.
    Not that I was planning on doing that or anything.
    What you can do get is your hair blown into a right old mess and then you have to attempt to look completely unfazed when French boys point and laugh at you and call out ‘ourangutan!’. Which is actually the same word in French as it is in English. I can think of more useful words to keep the same like ‘mascara’ and ‘crisps’.
    Anyway, I’m pretty sure that they were calling me a big ginger monkey because I was covered in my own auburn hair, but it might also have had something to do with me trying out just a little bit of the King Kong business, using Josette as the pointy thing to swing on.
    We also went to Notre Dame and the Musée d’Orsay. While I was admiring a Pissarro painting Icky said in her delightfully penetrating voice, ‘This is rubbish. The people are all blobby. I could do better than that.’
    ‘Wow, Vicky,’ I said. ‘I, for one, am delighted that you’ve managed to shake off that crippling shyness so that you’re finally able to tell us what you really think.’
    ‘It is rubbish, isn’t it, Philippe?’ she whined.
    And Philippe said, ‘The impressionists painters, they didn’t want to show things how it is, they wanted to make it how you see things when you look at the crowd or the forest. You cannot take all the details, not every leaf or face, but you get an impression of colour and light.’
    Uh huh. I snogged a really smart boy. ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘You can get an exact copy from a photo, this has got the feeling of the scene in it too.’
    ‘Yes, yes!’ Philippe said. ‘Energy in the stroke of the brush.’
    Even though Philippe is tall and Icky is the size of a malnourished gerbil she managed to look down her nose at him. ‘I’ll leave you two alone to your geek speak.’
    Philippe looked at Icky as she walked off and then back at me.
    ‘I’m thinking that also this Vicky is better when she is far away and she is looking only like a blob.’
    I told you he was smart.
    SUNDAY 27TH MAY
    This morning I had to say goodbye to the Josette family, which was very sad. I also had to say goodbye to Philippe, which was actually quite cheerful. He’s lovely and we had a great time. He said that if I’m ever in France that I can come and stay with him. Since I’m going to combine being a prize-winning chemist with a few leading roles in blockbuster films, it seems obvious that I’ll hardly be able