Shopaholic to the Stars by Sophie Kinsella Page B

lucky!’
    Carola stares at me blankly for a moment, then starts shaking her head. ‘No. You don’t understand. No one just gets a place at Little Leaf. No one.’
    The others are nodding their heads emphatically. ‘No one,’ echoes Erin.
    ‘It just doesn’t happen,’ chimes in Sydney.
    I want to point out that if no one gets a place at Little Leaf, what are all their children doing here? But they all look too intense. Clearly this is a serious subject.
    ‘We didn’t just “get a place”,’ I explain. ‘Minnie had to do a pre-test. And I think my husband made a donation,’ I add a little awkwardly.
    Carola is staring at me as though I understand nothing.
    ‘We all do the
pre-test
,’ she says. ‘We all make
donations
. What
else
did you do?’
    ‘We wrote five letters,’ says Erin with grim satisfaction.
‘Five.’
    ‘We’ve pledged to build a rooftop garden for the school,’ says Sydney. ‘My husband and I have already engaged the architect.’
    ‘We coached Alexa in Karate,’ adds Carola. ‘She’s here on a sports scholarship.’
    I stare at them all, open-mouthed. Are these people
nuts?
I mean, I’m sure it’s a good pre-school and everything. But at the end of the day, it’s still just children hitting each other with Play-Doh.
    ‘Well, we just turned up,’ I say apologetically. ‘Sorry.’
    The door swings open and a woman with chestnut hair bounces in. She has merry dark eyes and is wearing a stylish blue swingy top over jeans, covering the teeniest little pregnancy bump.
    ‘Hi!’ she says, coming straight up to me. ‘I’m Faith. You’re Rebecca, right? Erica just told me we had a newcomer in our midst.’
    She has a gorgeous lilting Southern accent which to my ear sounds as though it’s from Charleston. Or Texas. Or maybe … Wyoming? Is that Southern?
    Do I mean Wisconsin?
    No.
No
. That’s the cheese state. Whereas Wyoming is …
    OK, the truth is, I have no idea where Wyoming is. I must do Minnie’s United States jigsaw puzzle and actually look at the names.
    ‘Hi, Faith.’ I smile back and shake her hand. ‘Lovely to meet you.’
    ‘Are these girls looking after y’all?’
    Y’all
. I just love that.
Y’all
. Maybe I’ll start saying ‘y’all’.
    ‘They sure are!’ I say, putting a little twang in my voice. ‘They surely are!’
    ‘What
we
want to know is, how did she get a place?’ Carola appeals to Faith. ‘She walks in here off the street, writes the cheque and she’s in. I mean, who
does
that?’
    ‘Didn’t Queenie put in a good word for her?’ says Faith. ‘Because she was British? I think Erica said something about it.’
    ‘Ohhhh.’ Carola exhales like a deflating balloon. ‘
That’s
it. OK, now I understand. You were lucky.’ She turns to me. ‘That wouldn’t happen to everybody. You need to thank Queenie. She did you a big favour.’
    ‘Sorry, who’s Queenie?’ I say, trying to keep up.
    ‘Our President of the PTA,’ explains Sydney. ‘She has a daughter in the Toddler Program, too. You’ll love her. She’s so sweet.’
    ‘She’s super-fun,’ agrees Faith. ‘She’s British, too! We call her Queenie because she talks like the Queen of England.’
    ‘She organizes awesome social events,’ says Carola.
    ‘And she runs a moms’ yoga class on Wednesday mornings. Knocks us all into shape.’
    ‘It sounds amazing!’ I say enthusiastically. ‘I’ll definitely come!’
    My spirits are higher than they’ve been since we arrived in LA. At last I’ve found some friends! They’re all so welcoming and fun. And this Queenie sounds fab. Maybe she and I will really hit it off. We can compare notes on living in LA and share pots of Marmite.
    ‘How long has Queenie lived in LA?’ I ask.
    ‘Not too long. A couple of years, maybe?’
    ‘She had quite the whirlwind romance,’ puts in Faith. ‘She and her husband met on a Tuesday and were married by the Friday.’
    ‘No way!’
    ‘Oh yes.’ Faith laughs. ‘It’s a great