Love and Kisses. Jean Ure

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ my nan tomorrow.” Like that had anything to do with it. But I knew what she was thinking. I could come and walk past the building site all by myself!

      Which I did. I told Mum I was going to the newsagent to buy a magazine. I might just as well not have bothered, cos even the older man wasn’t there. This was starting to become a bit scary. Suppose the boys had just been helping out for that one day? I couldn’t bear it! Already I was getting obsessed. I kept remembering the way he’d smiled. A little bit shy. A little bit…uncertain, like he wasn’t quite sure it was the thing to do. Unlike the rude winking boy, who obviously thought far too much of himself. I didn’t care if I never saw him again. But Jimmy…he was even better-looking than the real Jimmy. And he’d smiled at me. At me!

      Why hadn’t I smiled back? Why hadn’t I? Because I was too stupid and turned in on myself. Unless maybe I’d smiled without knowing it? Like sometimes you do, automatically. I really hoped I had!

      Monday morning, Dad drove me in to school, which meant we whizzed past the flats so fast they were practically just a blur. But Monday afternoon…He was there! He smiled at me again, and this time I did smile back. I suspect my face looked like the setting sun, but I did manage to smile.

      And again on Tuesday. Morning and afternoon. And on Wednesday, and on Thursday. It was like he was keeping a watch out, making sure he was at the front of the house so he wouldn’t miss me. Then on Friday I was late, cos of choir practice. I thought at first he wasn’t there, and my heart just, like, plummeted. And then suddenly he appeared, racing down a ramp from a van on to the pavement with his wheelbarrow, zonk! Right into me. Well, actually I just managed to skip into the gutter, which was a pity in some ways cos otherwise he might have run me over and then help, help, I would have needed picking up and it could have been really slushy and romantic! Even as it was, it was quite romantic. First off, he dropped the wheelbarrow, looking absolutely stricken. Then I said, “Oops!” (which on reflection is a silly thing to say, but I didn’t have time to choose my words) and he said, “Sorry! Very sorry! I hurt?”

      Not Irish. Some kind of foreign.

      I mumbled that I was fine, and he said again, “Very sorry! I not look where I go.” I assured him that I was OK (unfortunately!) but he still seemed anxious.

      “I really not hurt you?”

      “No, honestly,” I said.

      “Is my fault! I very stupid person. I look, next time”.

      I said, “Me too!”

      And then I idiotically stood there, not wanting to move but not able to think of anything else to say. Fortunately he was less tongue-tied than me, in spite of not speaking the language too well.

      “You live in road?”

      “Up there.” I pointed.

      He said, “Nice houses.”

      “They’re just ordinary,” I said. “I’d rather live in one like this.”

      He pulled a face. “This one old.”

      “I like old! I like to think of all the people who have lived there before.”

      “Ah! You—” He stopped and waved a hand, frustrated. “I not think of word!”

      “It’s history,” I said. “I like history.”

      “History. Yes!” He nodded at the house. “Much history.”

      “Ours is new. It’s quite boring.”

      “Not boring! Very nice.”

      We chatted on about houses for a bit; and then, just as I thought I should be heading home he said, “You like maybe go out with me some time?”

      My heart immediately went into some kind of mad squirming overdrive. My cheeks lit up like beacons.

      “I tell you my name! My name Alex. What your name?”

      I swallowed. “T-Tamsin.”

      “Tamsin…OK, Tamsin! You like we go drink coffee?”

      My head started nodding, up-down, up-down. It wouldn’t stop!

      “We go Sunday, maybe?”

      Before I knew it, we’d arranged to meet up the road in Starbucks on Sunday afternoon. I went on my way feeling like I was drifting on a cloud. I had a date. A real date with a real boy! My first ever…

      Me and Katie weren’t doing a sleepover that weekend. We hadn’t even officially arranged to meet, but I couldn’t resist ringing her.

      “Is it OK if I come round? I’ve got something to tell you!”

      Katie said, “What? Tell me, tell me!”

      “I can’t on the phone. I’ll come round!”

      Needless to say, I looked for Alex as I went up the road. I was all ready to smile at him, and wave. I’d even got specially dressed up in my best pair of jeans and a new top. But he wasn’t there. Only the older man and the other boy, who had the cheek to wink at me again in a decidedly knowing fashion, like “Ho ho, who’s going out with my mate?” I ignored him. And I wasn’t worried, now, about Alex not being there, because tomorrow I would be in Starbucks with him…yay! Most unlike me. I am not at all a showy-off kind of person; I leave all that sort of thing to Ellie. But yay again! I was going on a date!

      Katie flung open the door the minute I arrived. She’d obviously been hovering there, eager to know what my news was. I must have sounded even more excited than I’d realised.

      “OK!” She dragged me inside and hauled me up the stairs. “Talk!”

      I said, “Right. Well! You’ll never guess…” I hooked my hair back over my ears. “I’m going on a date with Jimmy Doohan!”

       “What?”

      “Jimmy Doohan.” I giggled, in slightly hysterical fashion. “The boy from the flats on my road?”

      Katie said, “You’ve gotta be joking!”

      “I’m not joking. He asked me! Tomorrow afternoon…I’m meeting him, we’re going to Starbucks.”

      “You’re going out with a boy from a building site?”

      “Why not?” I bristled. “He’s nice, he’s polite. He’s foreign. Polish, I think. Maybe Russian? I don’t know! Anyway, his name’s Alex and he’s definitely not Irish.”

      Katie said, “Oh, well, that’s all right then.”

      I had this feeling she was being sarcastic. I said, “Jimmy Doohan’s Irish. You’d go out with Jimmy Doohan fast enough!”

      “Jimmy Doohan doesn’t work on a building site.”

      “He might do! In his holidays. How do you know?”

      “Holidays СКАЧАТЬ