In the fourth with the naughtiest girl {Completed}

Chapter 14: A Peace Offering

The next day, Arabella looked in her draws and her heart stopped. "Where is my... my... my necklace!" she whispered to herself. 

"Shut up, Arabella," someone muttered.

"But... it's gone!" Arabella said again.

"Elizabeth probably stole it. Didn't you Lizzy?" Maisie chimed in.

"No way!" exclaimed Elizabeth. 

"I'm sure you did, you hate her - don't you!" Maisie replied.

"I...'m not so sure," Arabella said, shaking a bit. "Elizabeth, please! You don't have to be my best friend or anything, just... please, be... my friend!" Everyone looked at Elizabeth - who was bright red now. 

"Well..." she began.

"Please! I offer a peace offering! To you - all of you! Please! I've changed my ways.... since I knocked that glass on you." Everyone looked at her and she too turned red. "Um.." she stammered.

"You beast! You hurtful, destructive mutation!" a girl shouted and the rest followed saying, "Lock her up!  Lock her up!  Lock her up!  Lock her up!"

Arabella put her hands to her face and tears dropped onto her cheek. She ran out of the room wiping her tears away. Elizabeth tore after her. It took a while to find her in the stables!

"Ara?" she asked, softly.

"Elizabeth?" Arabella replied, looking up. 

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened there... and.. if you still want it, then yes. I accept."

"Really?" Arabella looked delighted.

"Yes, what's that?" she asked, pointing towards a wooden edge poking out her bag.

"Oh... nothing," Arabella quickly said.

"Let me see, it's a photo?" she replied.

"Yes, of my Mum, Dad, Me and my two sisters," Arabella told her.

"But... they're much older than you!"

"They were, yes, but... they were killed in a car crash. Every single one! Mum, Dad, my two sisters and their boyfriends, " Arabella sniffed, "But one was saved, my pregnant sister's baby. And... her name is Daisy." Everything placed itself in Elizabeth's mind.

"So that's why she's nasty and sulky! She never knew her Mum and Dad!" Elizabeth realised.

"Yes, but not only that! Her only real family is me, and I caused the crash!" Arabella told her," Daisy thinks so anyway. I was at my aunt's and I phoned Mum. She crashed into the river, the poor things. And... I've never been able to hear the last of it. And since I am older than her and I'll die before her, I'll hear it for the rest of my life. How I killed my own family. She hates people seeing her cry, because she doesn't want anyone to know she is an orphan! Neither did I... but..."

"But it's different with me?" suggested Elizabeth, "I understand, here." She enveloped Arabella in a great big hug.