“I wasn’t!” she said, shaking her head in bewilderment.Poppy sighed. “I don’t think you meant to be. Or I don’t think so now, anyway. But you all went off somewhere without me at lunch, and then this afternoon you kept looking at each other and – and sort of smirking…” She glanced up miserably at Izzy. Izzy went darkly red all over. “Oh. Yes. I suppose we did. But we weren’t trying to be mean at all.”“So what were you doing?” her dad demanded curiously.Izzy frowned and looked down at her school bag. “Promise you won’t be cross?” she asked Poppy.“It’s a bit late for that, Iz!” her dad muttered. “Just tell us.”Izzy reached into her bag and pulled out a crumpled, sticky-looking piece of paper. “Oh! You got it out of the bin!” Poppy took it, rather sadly. She was wondering now if she ought to have stood up for herself better. Maybe she shouldn’t have let Ali convince her that she was a cheat. But there was no way she could enter this now.
