LITMIR.BIZ

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either with her or with Tom. Angel used to complain that Tom was always wriggling out of it.

      “Just because he’s a boy!”

      She doesn’t like being seen with me in public, she says I’m an embarrassment and that I cramp her style, whatever that is. I can’t say I particularly like being seen with her; not when she’s always flying into rages. It’s like being out with a crazy person. I tossed my head and told her that she didn’t need to worry.

      “I’m meeting my friends.”

      “Friends?” Angel snorted. “I’m surprised you’ve got any! Wait till you start shrivelling their favourite shirts.”

      We sidestepped elaborately as we went through the door. I took a pace backwards.

      “Age before beauty,” I said. I thought that was pretty good. I’d been dying to use it ever since reading it in a book.

      Angel stuck her face close to mine.

      “You are a hideous child,” she said. “I find you unspeakably loathsome.”

      She is totally mad. I feel sorry for her.

      Chapter Two

      Angel went stalking off, wobbling slightly in her designer shoes. Sling backs, with long pointy toes and tiny little spike heels. She has to take them off once she reaches school and put on her ordinary flat black ones, same as the rest of us. Clodhoppers, she calls them. I don’t personally mind clodhoppers. The way I see it, if a herd of maddened elephants suddenly came roaring down the street you would at least be able to make a run for it. Angel wouldn’t; she would be crushed underfoot. It’s pathetic, really. Risking life and limb just to impress boys. Cos that’s all it is. It’s all about boys. She does have good legs, though.

      I watched her receding into the distance. I suppose in her way she has style. I could see that as a stolid ten-year old, dumping along at her side, I probably had cramped it for her. I am not really what you would call a fashion accessory.

      I humped my bag over my shoulder and stomped on. I know that I stomp cos Miss Henderson, our PE teacher, has told me so. She said, “My goodness, Frankie! You’re a bit of a stomper.” It is just the way I am built. Mum says I am “four square and solid”. Angel, on the other hand, cos of only eating low-fat yoghurt, is all frail and wispy. She’d be an easy target for elephants. I reckon a flock of sparrows could crush her.

      Skye was waiting for me on the corner of Barlow Road. We meet up there every morning; me, and Skye, and Jem. Skye Samuels and Jemma McClusky are my two best mates. We were all at primary school together, and we all live near each other.

      I said, “Hi.”

      Skye said, “Your sister’s just gone marching past with her nose in the air. I said hello but she, like, totally ignored me?”

      “She’s in one of her rages,” I said. “Just cos I shrivelled her shirt.”

      “You shrivelled her shirt?”

      “Only a little bit! You wouldn’t hardly notice. But you know what she’s like.”

      “I know what you’re like,” said Skye.

      What was that supposed to mean? I decided to pretend she hadn’t said it.

      “It was kind of surreal,” I said. “She just totally lost it. Got all frothed up and went into this furious megasulk, yelling and carrying on, saying it was her favourite shirt and I’d gone and ruined it.”

      “People are so unreasonable,” said Skye.

      Well, I do think they are, and especially my sister. Angel. Her name is actually Angeli, but everyone calls her Angel, which if you ask me is a big laugh considering she is anything but. For one thing she is totally vain, always gazing at herself in the mirror and thinking how beautiful she is. For another, there’s this humungous temper that she has. Mum says she will grow out of it, it is just a teenage thing, but I personally reckon she should be sent to anger management classes.

      “No sane person,” I said, “would get all worked up over a tiny bit of shrivel. It was only on the edge.” I hoicked up the edge of my shirt to demonstrate. “There. Just there! It’s not normal.”

      “Seems to me,” said Skye, “shrivelling the edge of someone’s shirt isn’t exactly what you’d call normal.”

      “I didn’t do it on purpose! I was ironing,” I said. “I was trying to help. The thing just went and shrivelled before I could stop it.”

      “You mean you had the iron too hot.”

      “I didn’t have it too hot, it got too hot.” Why did everyone keep trying to put the blame on me all the time? “I reckon it must have been getting too much electricity or something. It’s what happens, it all comes rushing through the mains.” I know about things like that; Dad’s an electrician. “Power surges,” I said. “I bet that’s what it was.”

      “So why didn’t you just turn it down?”

      “Cos I didn’t know! You don’t, with power surges. They just happen. Suddenly. Anyway,” I said, “I’m sick of talking about it. Where’s Jem?”

      “Dunno.”

      “She’s late!”

      Skye looked at her watch. “If she doesn’t arrive soon we’ll have to go or we’ll miss registration and that’ll be our names in the Book.”

      “Ooh!” I shivered. “Don’t want our names in the Book!”

      “It’s not funny,” said Skye. “You can get into a whole load of trouble.”

      “Only if you’re in it three times.” “I don’t want to be in it one time, thank you!”

      Skye is a very law-abiding sort of person, it really upsets her if she breaks a rule, like by mistake or not knowing about it. According to her, rules are there to be obeyed. Mostly, on the whole, I do obey them, cos it’s no fun being told off, but I sincerely believe that you have to exercise your own judgement and not just blindly follow. Like at our school, Hillcrest, we have this rule about not eating in the street. What kind of a rule is that? You could be dying of starvation and you’re not allowed to eat a bag of crisps or a doughnut? They’d rather you just collapsed in a heap? If someone’s child fell under a bus through being weak from hunger and not allowed to eat, their parents could probably sue the school. That’s what I’d have thought. But Skye is a bit of a boffin, she likes to get good marks and be well thought of. Not that she is a teacher’s pet, or anything; she is just a natural straight-A student. She is the only person I have ever known who actually enjoys doing her SATS. You can never tell what people are going to like or not like; we are all different. Me and Jem have learnt to accept it. You can’t help the way your brain is wired.

      “We’ll give her one more minute,” said Skye. “Starting from… now.”

      She stood, watching the second hand go ticking round the dial. She is always very precise.

      I said, “Know what I think?”

      “What?”

      “I think she only said it was her favourite cos of wanting to get me into trouble.”

      “What are you talking about?” said Skye.

      “Angel. Saying it was her favourite shirt. She only said it cos of m—”

      “Do we have to?” said Skye. “I thought you weren’t going to talk about it any more?”

      “Well, I wasn’t. But I bet if she hadn’t discovered it she wouldn’t even have remembered she’d got it.”

      “Yeah, yeah,” said Skye. “Right, that’s it! We’re going.”

      She shot off on stilt-like legs up the road. I practically

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