Ann or Anne?

Mandy had been volunteering at the town book club for six months, long enough to know that the first Saturday of the season was always the most chaotic. By nine o’clock she was installed behind the sign-in table with a long printed list of names, while two women were already queuing at the door.

“Are you Ann?” she asked the first of them. “No, I’m not,” the woman said, with the patience of someone who had answered the question many times. “I’m Anne, with an e.” Mandy ran a finger down the page, found the spelling and frowned. “Is this your name?” “Yes, it is.”

A tall man followed, glancing round as if he were unsure of the room. “Are you new here?” Mandy asked. “Yes, I am. My name’s Leo.” She spotted a boy hovering a step behind him and tried a guess. “Is he your brother?” “No, he’s my friend Dan,” Leo said. “He only came to find out what a book club actually does.”

It was then that the trouble started. Mandy had ticked off one of the names too quickly, and now she could not tell who was who. “Is Ann here?” she called across the room, hoping for an easy answer. A woman with red hair raised her hand. “Yes, I’m Ann!” Slowly it dawned on Mandy that she was dealing with two friends whose names differed by a single letter.

“Are you friends?” she asked them. “Yes, we are,” they replied in unison, and the whole room burst out laughing. Mandy, relieved, wrote both names on the list in block capitals, determined that nobody would confuse them again. “Is the club ready?” she asked at last, closing her notebook. “Yes, it is!”