Shrinking Violet Read Online Free Page A

it didn’t come Tuesday. By Wednesday I was feeling quite despondent. I kept trying to remember what I’d written. If I’d written anything that might have put her off. I wished I’d kept a copy! Maybe I shouldn’t have said about being eleven in April; maybe that had been too much like boasting. Or maybe I’d just sounded totally dim and boring.
    Maybe she’d had so many thousands of replies she’d simply picked out the ones that sounded like they’d be most fun. Maybe she hated
Riverside.
Maybe I should have mentioned that my favourite band is Flying High, except that Lily says it is a nerd’s band and anyway not many people have heard of it.
    Maybe she’d taken one look at my photograph and thought, “Puke!
Purlease!
”
    Maybe I was doomed to just never have a real proper friend ever, and that was all there was to it.
    And then I got home on Wednesday, and there it was, waiting for me … my letter!
    Lily said, “Who does
she
know that writes letters?”

    “None of your business,” I said.
    “Who’s it from?”
    “Not telling!”
    I turned the envelope over in my hands. It was pink and smelled of fruit and had two little furry cat stickers in one corner.
    “Aren’t you going to open it?” said Lily.
    “Not right now,” I said.
    “Why not?”
    “Because I don’t want to!”
    “So w —”
    “Lily, just leave Violet alone,” said Mum. “Letters are personal! How would you like it if she pried into yours?”
    Lily tossed her head. “Wouldn’t ever have one! Don’t know anyone who still writes them!”
    She can say what she likes. I enjoy having letters! I like seeing my name on the front of the envelope andI like looking at the stamps and studying the postmark and trying to guess who could have sent it. (Though I have so few that I almost always know!) I could guess that this was from Katie by the little cat stickers; and anyway, who else would be writing to me?
    I waited till we’d finished tea then I rushed upstairs to my room and tore open the envelope. I’d gone all trembly because I had this fear she might be going to say, “Thank you for writing to me but I’m afraid I have found someone else to be my pen pal.” Someone who sounded like more fun!
    It is terrible to have so little confidence, but it is what happens when you are one half of a twin and the other half keeps telling you that you are a nerdy party pooper. I tell her that she is a noisy windbag, but being a noisy windbag is not necessarily such a bad thing to be. Being a party pooper is the worst.
    I slid the letter out of the envelope r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y. It was quite thick. It was three pages! I couldn’t believe it!
    The first thing I saw was the address, which was in London. I would rather it had been somewhere miles away, such as for instance the Outer Hebrides, as all I wanted was a pen pal. I didn’t want to meet her! But I thought that I would read the letter first and worry about other things later.
    Hi, Violet!
    This is Katie, writing back to you. I was really pleased to get your letter! It came just this morning, so here I am replying IMMEDIATELY.
    I would love it if we could be pen pals! You sound incredibly interesting and exactly the sort of person I have dreamt of writing to. I hope I sound like the sort of person you have dreamt of writing to!
    I will tell you about myself, and then you can decide. I live with my mum, whose name is Clare. I don’t have any brothers or sisters but I do have two cats. They are:
    Bertie, who is small and stripy
    Bella, who is small and black.
    Bertie is full of fun! The other night while we were asleep he stole a toilet roll from out of the bathroom and carried it all the way downstairs, then chewed it to pieces and spat out the bits. When wewoke in the morning it looked like confetti! We thought someone had got married!

    Bella is a sweetheart. She is very round and cuddly. She just loves her grub! Mum says she cannot decide whether she should be called Belle of the