Fizzypop. Jean Ure

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ She thinks it is childish to pass notes. Impatiently, not taking her eyes off Mr Harper, she flicked the note towards me.

       Y U shrivel shirt?

      I sent a note back: Not my fault. Y U think skull going 2 burst?

      Tell U ltr, replied Jem. Y not yr fault?

      I was about to explain about the iron, and all the electricity rushing out of control through the mains, but I didn’t get the chance because at that point Skye wrote STOP IT! BEHAVE YOURSELVES, heavily underlined, on the back of her geography book.

      She can’t help being bossy; both her mum and dad are teachers.

      Second period was English with Miss Rolfe, who gave us back the essays we’d written the previous week on the subject of ‘Beginnings’. We’d had to write all about our early lives, as much as we could remember.

      “On the whole,” said Miss Rolfe, “I was quite pleased with them.” Ooh! It takes a lot to please Miss Rolfe. “Daisy, could you hand these back for me? There is one that I would really love to read aloud… Jemma?”

      Jem looked startled. She is not used to being singled out, unless it’s for talking, or fidgeting, or not paying attention.

      “Do I have your permission?” said Miss Rolfe. “I won’t if you’d rather I didn’t.”

      Jem by now was bright pillar-box red. “It’s OK,” she muttered.

      “Are you sure? Maybe you’d like to read it yourself?”

      Jem shook her head, violently.

      “All right, then. Here we go! This is what Jemma wrote.

       “My beginnings are shrouded in mystery as I was adopted when I was a baby and don’t remember anything about my life before. Some people feel sorry for me and say it must be terrible not ever having known my real mum and dad, but as far as I am concerned my mum and dad that adopted me are my real mum and dad. I don’t want any others! Maybe one day I will feel curious and want to know who my birth mother was but for the moment I am perfectly happy and anyway I would not like to upset Mum and Dad by trying to find out in case they might think I didn’t love them.

       “One of the things about being adopted is that people never say to you, ‘Oh, don’t you look like your mum?’ which is what they sometimes say to my friends that aren’t adopted and my friends get really mad as for some reason they don’t seem to want to look like their mums. My mum is quite large and jolly and laughs a lot. I am rather small and not always jolly, though I do like to have a bit of a laugh. Dad is very sweet and gentle, and that is definitely not like me! I am sure if you asked my friends they would say that sweet and gentle is the last thing I am!!! I am not sure what they would say I was. A bit of a pain, probably.

       “I am an only child, and only children are often said to be spoilt, but I don’t think my mum and dad spoil me. Mum is quite strict in spite of being jolly. Dad is not quite so strict as he tends to leave all the telling-off to Mum, but if she says NO he always backs her up. I feel very grateful to them for adopting me. I’m sure there were lots of other babies they could have had if they’d wanted. I think that is the BEST thing about being adopted, you know that you have been chosen and it makes you feel special.”

      There was a silence as Miss Rolfe finished reading; then Skye started to clap, and all the rest of us joined in. It was so amazing! It was obvious that everyone was really moved by what Jem had written. It was just such a brave thing to do. It made me feel quite ashamed of my own essay, which had gone on at great length about Angel and her temper, and Tom being an alien. I’d never once thought to say that I loved Mum and Dad. Or Rags. Or even Angel and Tom, if it came to that. Cos I do love them, in spite of everything. I would just have been too embarrassed to say so.

      “I think you’ll agree,” said Miss Rolfe, “that that was really heart-warming. Refreshingly honest. Thank you very much, Jemma, for letting me read it. Girls, I know that was the bell, but please don’t rush!”

      Me and Skye wandered slowly out into the playground with Jem, who was still quite pink.

      “That was brilliant,” said Skye.

      I said, “Yes, it was.

      ” I thought Jem would be pleased, but instead she looked at us with her face all scrunched up and said, “Oh, I wish she hadn’t done that!”

      Chapter Three

      “Done what?” said Skye.

      “Read it out!”

      “But it was lovely,” I said.

      “Refreshingly honest.”

      “And heart-warming!”

      “It could even get chosen for Speech Day,” said Skye.

      We’d been told by Miss Rolfe that every year one junior girl and one senior girl got to read out their essays in front of the whole school, including parents and governors, not to mention what she called “local dignitaries”. Meaning the Mayor, I suppose, and the Mayor’s husband. It is hard to think what other dignitaries there could be.

      “Imagine,” said Skye, “you’d have your picture in the paper.”

      “I don’t want my picture in the paper!”

      Pardon me? Was this my friend Jem speaking? Just last term at primary school we’d had an author visit and Jem had been the first to rush forward when the photographs were taken. She’d been so eager she’d practically left a trail of bodies behind her. I reminded her of this and she said, “That was different.”

      I said, “How?”

      “It just was!”

      “Is it because you don’t want people knowing you’re adopted? Cos that’s just silly! Like you wrote in your essay, being adopted makes you special.”

      “You think so?” said Jem.

      “Well, that’s what you wrote! Anyway, you didn’t have to let her read it. You could have said no.”

      “Didn’t like to,” muttered Jem.

      “But why would you want to?” Skye was obviously at a loss. She is always having her stuff read out. “It’s an honour!”

      Jem sighed. “I s’pose.”

      “So what is the problem?” We’d reached our favourite corner of the playground, hidden away in the angle between the drama studio and the wall which separates us from Tom’s school next door. We’d staked it out as our territory from the word go. It was a bit dark and dingy, but it was where we went when we wanted to be private. “I don’t get it,” said Skye. “I mean… heart-warming!”

      “Refreshingly honest.”

      “But it’s not true!” wailed Jem.

      Not true? Was she telling us she wasn’t adopted?

      “When СКАЧАТЬ