‘Just finished my on-call shift,’ he said.
Amazingly, it took Declan no time at all to understand what they were doing, even though everyone was talking at once. Maybe it was because he was incredibly clever, or maybe it was because he was incredibly sober.
‘Let’s get writing.’ Beth did a little burp.
‘Wait.’ Ankita held a finger up. ‘They have to be SMART.’
‘Smart?’ repeated Poppy, except it sounded likeShmart.
‘Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely,’ dictated Ankita.
Georgie nodded. Ow, that hurt her head again.
Poppy sighed. ‘I’ll never manage that.’
Beth smiled and said, ‘You’re very wise, Ankita.’
Raf grinned at them all.
Noah, who’d always been an opening-his-throat expert, had already downed a pint and returned from getting paper, pens, envelopes and stamps while everyone else was still drinking. ‘The stamps are so that we can post them to each other tonight so we don’t renege in the morning,’ he said, handing stationery out to everyone.
‘We have to write our resolutions down too,’ Ankita instructed. ‘We can seal those all together in a separate envelope.’
Georgie wrote her address carefully on her envelope. She was pleased that she could focus enough to write, because just now she’d been struggling to see only one of everybody and the floor had seemed a really long way away.
The fire’s flames were nice, though. Very flamey. And fiery. And flamey. Nice. Very nice.
Right, she needed to think of a secret.
Well, she didn’t need tothinkof a secret. Because for the past week and a half she’d had themotherof all secrets.
It only took about a minute to write it down and seal the envelope. It was easy to write her resolutions too, because they were the same every year:
Lose exactly one stone. Run a minimum of two miles a minimum of twice a week for an entire year. Give up chocolate completely. Only eat two packets of crisps and two slices of cake a week. And only one pizza a month. Go to bed by eleven at least four nights a week. Plus stop pulling grey hairs out in case it was true that about three million grew in the place of each one. And finally, because Poppy had been looking miserable on each of the three times she’d seen her this week, she wrote that she had to cheer her up. By Valentine’s Day (six weeks seemed like a reasonable length of time to do it in), to make it SHMART.
And then she added an extra final one for good measure: she was going to take up yoga. It needed to be measurable. She was going to go once every two weeks.
And, actually, she wouldn’t mind learning Italian. Beth had suggested camping next summer. It would beamazingto camp in Italy and be able to speak Italiano. Or Italiana. Or whatever it was. She’dknowwhat it was soon. Exciting. They could go on a city break to Rome or Florence or Venice too. What would make it measurable and timely? Oh, she could take a GCSE in it before the end of the year. She could totally manage that if she only had one subject to focus on. Sixteen-year-olds often did eight or more subjects at once. She tapped her head as she was sitting there, pleased with her own clever thinking.
And finally, really finally, she wouldn’t mind learning to ice skate. It needed to be measurable. Okay, she was going to learn to do a jump on ice before the end of the year. Torvill and Dean, here she came.
Okay. Finished.
She sealed her secret in the envelope that Raf, who was sitting on her right, had just handed her, and said, ‘Done. Who’s ready to come to the postbox?’
Everyone else except Raf was still writing, or thinking. Georgie started laughing.
‘I’ll come with you.’ Raf stood up. ‘What’s funny?’
‘People have got their thinking faces on,’ Georgie hiccupped. ‘They look very, very funny.’
Raf smiled at her. She thought he did, anyway, because neither of the images she could see of him were that clear. ‘Come on. Maybe some fresh air will stop your hiccups.’
They opened the door and discovered that for once the weather forecast had been right. It had been snowing while they were inside.
‘It’s beautiful.’ Georgie concentrated hard on walking down the steps. ‘The snowflakes are very flakey.’
Oops, it was a lot more slippery than she’d expected. And she was wearing her favourite wedge-heeled ankle boots, which had zero grip. Raf stood her up straight and held out his arm for her to take.
