The best friends are free

Pearl and I went to the ballet, courtesy of a very good friend who had tickets but couldn’t go.  We had a wonderful time.  She dressed up in her “party” dress and we had dinner out (at a food-court, but still) before the show.

During the interval, I was reading a brochure about “Friends of the Ballet”.  I wondered aloud whether membership might be a good birthday present for Pearl’s cousins who dance.

She looked askance at me.  “But we don’t have any friends who are in the ballet, do we?”

It was late, at the end of a long week.  I stared at her, baffled.  Then the penny dropped.  “Oh!  No, you don’t have to know someone in the ballet, sweetie.  You pay a membership fee to join the Friends, then you can go to some rehearsals and meet the dancers and so on.”

She looked appalled.  “You pay them money to be a friend?  I don’t think that’s a very good friend, Mummy.”

Wise beyond her years, this one, at times.

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