Best Friends Rock! (2 page)

Ellie had already interviewed a couple of very famous stars, and had seen her articles in print. The celebrity list that she was working her way through was full of the biggest names in music, fashion and film, but some of them were too busy to be interviewed, which was why Ellie hoped that Francesca would like the idea she'd just come up with. She intended though to wait for the right moment to mention it. Francesca would have to
love
her idea to give Ellie permission to go ahead, and Ellie wanted it to have the best chance of being accepted. So, for now, she hugged it to herself until the perfect opportunity came up.

As she went up in the lift, Ellie checked her phone before she switched it to silent. Angel absolutely hated mobile phones going off, and anyone who forgot to switch to silent was in big trouble.

There was no text from Hannah, but her plane wouldn't have left yet. There was still plenty of time to hear from her, so Ellie refused to feel sad. Instead, she put the phone away in her bag, and smoothed down her skirt and top. Now she was ready for anything!

Heart
's editorial office was on the third floor. Ellie was greeted by a cheerful smile from Debbie Wu, the receptionist, and a scowl from Piano, Angel's PA, who had never tried to pretend that she liked Ellie. That was probably because Ellie's Uncle Patrick had got her the work experience in the first place. Ellie had long ago decided to stop taking any notice of Piano's hang-ups, especially the way she tried to insist that everyone pronounce her name Pea-Are-No. Ellie had discovered that it didn't matter how friendly she was, Piano was never nice back, so there was no point in worrying about it.

Francesca Mosse was much more pleasant than Piano, although she was almost as exacting as Angel. Neither of them would allow anything to weaken
Heart
's place as
the
top teen magazine, but while Angel seemed to see the worst in everyone, Francesca managed to coax the best out of all the staff by being kind as well as firm. She smiled as Ellie went to her desk and sat down.

“Good morning, Ellie.”

“Morning,” said Ellie, returning her smile, opening her laptop, and logging on to the system. Now wasn't the right time to mention the idea…maybe later, when Francesca took a coffee break.

“Do you fancy having a go at compiling a quiz for the next issue?” asked the Deputy Editor.

That sounded fun. Ellie smiled eagerly. “Yes please!” Then she paused, and glanced at Piano. “But doesn't Piano usually do them?”

“Yes,” said Francesca. “But Piano is quite busy researching an article, so it would really help if you'd be willing to give it a go. I've emailed you the template. You can access all the questions, and pick a selection of those for your quiz.”

Ellie was puzzled. “You mean the quiz questions aren't made up especially for each issue?”

Francesca smiled. “Well, the most popular subjects for quizzes are friends, fashion sense and boys. There's a limit to the number of different questions you can sensibly ask about them, so, instead of starting from scratch every time, we work from a pool of standard questions and update them as necessary.”

“Oh,” said Ellie, not sure how she felt about that.

“If you think about it,” said Francesca, seeing Ellie's expression, “the questions
will
probably be brand new for most readers because they'll have been too young to read the magazine the first time the questions came around.”

“And they'll most likely have moved on to a magazine designed for adults like
Soul
, our sister magazine, by the time the questions come around again,” mused Ellie.

“You've got it,” said Francesca. “You'll find you have to update them. That's your main job really, to make them sound fresh. The original questions were compiled under the guidance of a psychologist, and it's important to stick to her template. These quizzes are supposed to be fun, and it's important that we don't upset readers by making them too harsh, or by giving bad advice.” She smiled at Ellie. “Don't worry. It sounds more complicated than it is. The psychologist has done all the hard work for you. All you have to do is bring them up to date. They
will
be new by the time you've tinkered with them.”

“Okay,” said Ellie.

“If you come horribly unstuck I'm sure Piano could find a bit of time to give you a few pointers, but I think you'll find everything you need in the file.” Francesca turned back to her screen.

Piano looked at Ellie. It was clear from her expression that she didn't consider Ellie capable of coping unaided with one question, let alone the usual ten they had in their quizzes.

But Ellie had always loved the quizzes in
Heart
. As a reader, before she'd had any hopes of working for the magazine, she and Hannah had totally enjoyed each one, and sometimes they'd even made up their own fun questions for each other. Ellie was determined not to let Francesca down.

Ellie looked at her email inbox and found a new message from Francesca labelled “Quiz”. She opened it eagerly. New challenges were great! But when she read the email, Ellie wasn't quite so sure.

What sort of friend are you?

Ellie stared at the question at the top of her screen. Almost any other subject would have been fine, but she wasn't sure she wanted to examine friendship at the moment. It was a bit too close to what she was going through with Hannah. She rummaged in her bag and checked her phone. No messages, and unless the flight had been held up, Hannah would certainly be airborne by now.

She picked up the pencil next to her laptop and sucked the end of it. If the quiz had been about clothes, or make-up, animals, music…anything else would have been fun. But this…still, she couldn't back out now. She put the pencil down again and read what was on her screen.

To follow the
Heart
magazine template she had to choose ten questions. There would be three possible answers to each question, and in the end, the readers should be able to tell if they were:

A. Real Softies

B. Well Balanced

C. Tough Cookies

Could she do this without ending up feeling really down? Of course no one was supposed to take these quizzes too seriously. They were supposed to be fun, to be done over lunch with a gaggle of friends. But her friend wasn't around to giggle with, and Ellie felt sure that compiling this particular quiz was going to make her feel uncomfortable and force her to re-examine her own behaviour. But then she remembered her mantra, and told herself not to be such a wimp. She simply needed to swallow her personal feelings and get on with it!

She took a deep breath, opened the folder of questions and clicked on the “Friends” file. There were loads of questions and answers, so all she had to do was choose ten, and rephrase them. She picked one and studied it.
You and your best friend have applied for tickets for your fave TV programme. She gets one but you don't. What do you say to her?
That was easy. She freshened it up by making it tickets for a sell-out gig instead. And it was simple to fiddle with the answers to make them work. It was going to be okay.

“Don't make a mess of updating. It would be just like you,” said Piano.

Ellie looked towards her crossly. “I won't!”

Piano didn't sound convinced. “Only, loads of our readers turn to the quiz page first. I don't want you ruining the magazine for them by making it too childish.”

Francesca didn't look up from her desk, but she must have been listening. “Give Ellie a break, Piano,” she said mildly.

Piano scowled, but said no more. Ellie sorted out a couple more questions and felt pretty pleased with herself. It was going well. Then she came across one that didn't need much updating.
Your best friend asks you to go on holiday with her, but you've already said you'll do something else
.

She stared at the words in front of her and gave a huge sigh. Oh dear. What should she have said?

Do you:

A. Agree straight away and cancel your other plans.

B. Tell her that you'd love to another time.

C. Say you have more important things to do.

She was very afraid that the answer she'd given to Hannah fell under the category of “C”.

Ellie stifled a groan. She risked a glance in Piano's direction, but Piano was hard at work on her article and hadn't noticed Ellie's distress. Well, thank goodness for that! Ellie reached into her bag and brought out her phone. There was still no text. By now, surely, Hannah's plane would be far away. Ellie looked out of the window. As she gazed at the sun shining on buildings she saw a plane in the distance. It must have just taken off from the airport, because it was climbing steeply up into the sky. She could have been doing that, instead of sitting here.

Piano's voice jerked her out of her reverie. “I suppose you've forgotten the coffee run, as usual.”

Ellie summoned up as much dignity as she could, turned away from the window and stared at Piano. “Of course I haven't.” She wasn't being strictly truthful. She didn't
usually
forget. Piano's remark was just Piano being typically sniping, but on this occasion the coffee run
had
almost slipped Ellie's mind. It was only when checking her phone just now that she'd realized how late it was. She'd spent longer than she'd thought working on the quiz. Still, she was in plenty of time to fetch the midmorning coffee order, and there was no need to rush. That would only make Piano crow. Ellie ostentatiously typed
Q.5
. on her laptop before saving the file and closing the lid. She took her bag and left the office.

Fetching the coffee was the job of the lowliest member of staff, but Ellie didn't usually mind. If she was in the middle of writing an article it could be annoying, but today she was only too pleased. Coffee time meant an opportunity to mention her idea to Francesca, preferably when Piano was out of earshot so she couldn't rubbish it.

Going out into the busy street, she turned right, towards Coffee! Coffee! Invariably, when
she
was on this errand she felt a delicious sense that while she knew that she was working for one of the most popular teen magazines in the country, and had met and interviewed some very famous people, none of the passers-by had a clue who she was, or what she did. It made her feel secretly special, and she wanted to giggle.

While in the queue at the coffee shop, Ellie gave her new idea some serious thought, so she'd be ready to explain it to Francesca. She'd been trawling through some celebrity websites recently, looking for inspiration, when she couldn't help noticing how some people of about her age were included in quite a few of the shots. They were the children of major film stars, or musicians who were big in her mum's day, and were still touring. Some of these teenagers were already stars in their own right, but others seemed to slink along behind their parents, looking grumpy, embarrassed or just plain fed up. Ellie wondered what it would be like having such famous parents. Was it cool being part of the media frenzy, or did they wish it would all just go away? If they wanted to follow their parents into stardom was it made easier for them, or harder?

Ellie had come across a picture of the movie star Elizabeth Broadstairs. The caption said she was arriving in New York with her daughter. For a second Ellie hadn't even
noticed
the daughter, Albion. While Elizabeth seemed to revel in the limelight, striding through the airport, accompanied by huge amounts of luggage, her daughter Albion was dragging along in the background, hiding behind an enormous pair of sunglasses and a floppy hat. While she'd been thinking of Hannah and
her
parents waiting for
their
plane, something had clicked. Why not interview the daughter? If she could persuade Albion to talk she might have a really interesting piece. She could see it now.
My Life with my Famous Mum
. If Ellie presented the idea well, Francesca, and hopefully Angel, would see that it was a perfect interview for Ellie to do!

She hurried back along the street with the coffee order as quickly as she could. In the office she put the tray down on her desk and took Angel's through to where she was busy working in her own, opulent office. Ferdinand, Angel's little dog, was curled up in his basket by the side of her desk. Later on it would be Ellie's job to take him out for his walk, but for the moment he seemed happy. He wagged his tail at her a couple of times and sighed noisily before closing his eyes and covering his nose with his paw.

Angel barely acknowledged Ellie or the coffee, and Ellie didn't hang around. She didn't want to risk pitching the idea to Angel without running it past Francesca first.

Back at her desk, Piano and Francesca had already helped themselves to their drinks. Debbie preferred to make her own tea in the office, and so that left one paper cup on her desk – a latte, which was Ellie's.