Keep the Faith Read Free Page A

on Cam.’
    On the kitchen table there was an impressive array of party food. I started to wonder whether Ryan’s parents had noticed that I’d borrowed a couple of slices of bread and a bit of
squeezy cheese last time their son had a party. Actually, that was a pretty special sandwich. I managed to squirt squeezy cheese on Finn and that was how we had our first proper chat. I wonder if
Finn thinks of me when he walks past the cheese section in the supermarket.
    ‘Wow,’ Lily said, slipping Hula Hoops on to her fingers like rings.
    ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘It’s a pretty good spread I’ve got them to put on for you.’
    ‘It’s amazing how you think everything starts with you,’ Megs said.
    ‘I don’t think
everything
starts with me,’ I said, giving her a poke in the ribs, ‘just all the good stuff.’
    Angharad obviously agreed with me because she distracted Megs by saying, ‘Look, they’ve got cheese and pineapple.’
    I do like food that comes on a cocktail stick. I was particularly impressed that Ryan’s mum had gone the whole hedgehog and covered an orange in foil and stuck the cheese and pineapple
sticks in that.
    No one was really tucking into the food so I thought I’d do the host a favour and get things started. I had some crisps, some grapes, a few cheese and pineapples and then finished up with
a handful of mint Matchmakers for their breath-freshening effect.
    After that, we went to mingle in the sitting room and then Cam arrived and Megs dragged me over to him. It’s so annoying the way that people who have boyfriends are always saying hello to
them when they see them. Ethan was with Cam so, while the happy couple were getting all greetingy, we were left staring at each other. It’s hard to know what to say to someone who you think
you might have agreed to a date with and then got your best friend to tell their best friend to tell them that you’re going to the party with someone else. So I went with: ‘Have you
seen the cheese hedgehog?’
    Which I think is a polite remark suited to any social occasion.
    Fortunately, it turns out that Ethan also has happy memories of cheese and pineapple.
    He said, ‘At a party, when I was little, I stuck all the cocktail sticks from my cheese and pineapple into the jelly and th—’
    I missed what he said next because a pair of arms the size of pythons went round me and someone bounced me up and down vigorously.
    ‘Faith!’
    It was Westy, Ethan’s friend and my favourite bear-shaped boy.
    ‘Do you like my new trainers?’ he asked, waving his size elevens in my face. ‘I reckon I look sporty.’
    ‘They look great, Westy.’
    He seemed pleased that I liked them and grinned really hard at me for quite a long time. I wondered if I was supposed to say something else, but Ethan clapped him on the shoulder and said,
‘I was just telling Faith about Ben Dobbs’s fifth birthday party. Remember when I spiked the jelly with cocktail sticks?’
    ‘Yeah, I still tried to eat it, didn’t I?’
    I could well believe it; I’ve seen Westy knock back a family-size packet of super spiky crisps like a glass of water.
    We all chatted for a bit until someone insisted Westy went outside to have his photo taken with the inflatable snowman in the garden. To be fair, the resemblance was pretty strong.
    I asked Ethan how his Christmas was.
    He ran a hand through his shiny black curls. ‘Oh, you know how it goes: Aunt drinks too much, Aunt decides she needs a holiday, Aunt books a flight to Hawaii using your mum’s credit
card, Mother pulls Aunt’s hair out. Same old, same old.’
    I laughed. ‘At least when my granny is on the sherry she restricts her embarrassing behaviour to the confines of musical theatre.’
    ‘My aunt normally goes in for looking at photos of herself as a child and crying about where it all went wrong. This was a new departure. I think she’s moving in the right
direction.’
    ‘So who gets to go to Hawaii?’
    ‘Clearly, I was the