Jo was shaking Honey.

“Tell her! Tell Lullah what you told us, tell her the news!! Go on!!!”

Vaisey said, “You won’t believe it, Lullah, you really won’t.”

What was going on?

Flossie said, “It’s incWEDIBLE!! Isn’t it, Honey?”

Honey smiled and said, “Well, actually it weally ith.”

And it really was. Honey has been, what do you call it? Talent spotted!

Vaisey’s curls were bobbing about all over the shop. She said, “By an American-type person. Not from here or anything. A Hollywood-type of person. With a cigar.”

Honey said, “He came to see me in West Side Stowy over the holiday and he weally liketh my thinging and evewything and he wanths me to be in movieth. I don’t weally know why he liketh me tho much, but …”

I gave her a big hug and I said, “It’s because you’ve got a lovely voice and you’re just, you know, lovely all over.”

She hugged me back. And I could feel her corkers against mine. And that made me go a bit red. And tingly.

Honey noticed too because she looked down at my corker area.

I stopped the hugging and folded my arms in front of me.

As we walked on, she said, “Yeth, so I’ll be flying off to do some scween testth.”

I said, “But Honey, why did you come back here at all, why didn’t you just go to Hollywood?”

“I wanted to be with my fwends and to say good-bye PWOPOLY.”

Oooohhhhh. That was so nice. Awwwww. She deserved a hugging for that.

And we all did another spontaneous hug. Holy moly, I have become a multi-spontaneous hugger. I am turning into Dibdobs.

We were still hugging and squealing when suddenly Charlie came out of the undergrowth. His hair was wet and he had a waterproof on. He still managed to look cool though.

Unlike me probably. I hoped my skirt hadn’t ridden up over my tights while I was doing free-form hugging.

Charlie laughed when he saw us and did his smile. He caught my eye but I looked down at the floor.

“Aha, you’re here, the Tree Sisters. Nice to see you, Honey.”

She fluttered her false eyelashes at him and said in her deep honeyed voice, “It’s weally nice to see you ath well, Chawie.”

Charlie looked hypnotized and then quickly said, “I hoped I might find you. Can I join in?”

And Charlie came and leapt into our hugging circle next to me. He had his arm around me and I’m sure it was his hand on my bottom. I’d had a boy’s hand on my bottom before, one of Connor’s mates, but he had pretended it wasn’t his hand, it was him resting his rucksack.

Charlie didn’t have a rucksack.

How am I supposed to do icicle work under these circumstances?

His face was so close to mine I could feel his warm breath on my cheek.

I swished my hair so that it fell down and shielded my face.