“Oh, wow! Are you having lessons?” said Ellie.

I nodded. “Yep,” I said.

“You must be good!” Ellie said. “I went once and I couldn’t let go of the side!” She laughed.

I smiled. That was the same as me! I’d gone ice skating for Erin’s birthday last year and I could barely stand up.

“I guess you must have your own skates?” said Ellie.

“Yes! White ones,” I said. I could almost picture the shiny white skates with twinkling silver blades sitting in the bottom of my wardrobe.

“I hope it goes well,” Ellie said. “You can tell me all about it tomorrow! Bye, Anna!”

“Bye, Ellie,” I gulped back. The lights on the robot flickered off.

I picked up my bag and headed out to meet Mum.

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

I sat at my desk the next morning and saw that Ellie-bot was already switched on. Nia was by the coat pegs chatting to Shavina.

“Hi, Ellie,” I said to the robot. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” said Ellie. “How was ice skating?”

I looked over at Nia. She was still talking, but I had to be quick.

“It was great!” I said. “We’re learning how to skate backwards.”

“Oh, wow. I bet that’s hard!” said Ellie.

I nodded and clammed up as Nia walked behind me to get to her seat. She knew I didn’t go ice skating, so I couldn’t let her hear. I could feel my cheeks beginning to burn red with the lie, so I bent down and pretended to get something out of my bag. Miss Burnell started taking the register and we all had to turn to face the front.

*

I spent the rest of the week telling Ellie even more lies. As well as ten-pin bowling and ice skating, I told Ellie that I had been trampolining and gone to football training. I hadn’t done any of those things, but the more I lied, the easier it became. I suddenly had so much to say that the words just flowed. And Ellie seemed to like hearing about it too.

On Friday, Ellie was really quiet and didn’t contribute much to class. Nia and I had both asked if anything was wrong, but Ellie kept saying that she was fine. Ellie-bot’s eyes looked sad, though, and I wondered if she had something on her mind.

Before the end of the day, Nia tried to cheer Ellie up by talking about the school fete.

“We’ll take you round all the stalls tomorrow,” Nia said. “That way you can see everything that goes on. Won’t we, Anna?”

I nodded. “Yes! It’ll be just as good as being there,” I said.

“Thank you,” said Ellie, but her voice sounded very flat. As soon as Miss Burnell said we could leave for the day, the lights of the robot turned off before we got a chance to say goodbye.

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine