Daizy Star and the Pink Guitar Read Free

for, I suppose. And now I have fallen too, head over heels, just like Beth and Willow said I would. They assumed it would be with a boy, of course, but who says you can’t fall in love with a pink guitar?
    After all, a boy might let you down, but a guitar never would. It stays faithful and true to the end, and it’s always there when you want to let off steam. And this weekend, obviously, there has been a lot of steam.
    It is kind of tragic, really. I am discovering my star quality, I’m sure I am – and now perhaps it could be snatched away from me forever. Who knows, maybe I am swapping a future as the world’s most talented rock princess for a life of milking goats under the blistering African sun.
    In between writing tragic rock songs about living in a tin hut on the shores of Lake Malawi, I have spent hours and hours on the Internet, researching life in Africa.
    It hasn’t really helped me to come up with a plan to stop Dad’s mad idea. It has just made me feel very, very gloomy.
    ‘Did you know that Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world?’ I ask Beth and Willow, next day at school.
    ‘You might have mentioned it,’ Beth says patiently.
    ‘Once or twice,’ Willow sighs.
    We are in the school lunch hall, eating sausage and mash with baked beans. I bet they don’t have that in Malawi.
    ‘I can understand why Dad wants to go over and help,’ I tell my friends. ‘I mean, some villages have no clean water at all. They have all these scary diseases and there aren’t enough hospitals or clinics or medical supplies to make people better, or even enough doctors and nurses. And there aren’t enough schools or teachers for kids like us to have a proper education …’
      
    ‘Lucky things,’ says Ethan Miller, leaning over to spear a sausage from my plate. ‘No school! Just imagine!’
      
    I slap his hand, and the stolen sausage plummets down into the water jug, where it sinks without trace.
    ‘Ouch,’ he says.
    ‘It’s not funny, Ethan!’ I growl.
    ‘How would you like it if you had to work in the fields all day long in the scorching sun, just to help your family put food on the table? How would you like not being able to read or write?’
    Ethan shrugs. I should have guessed. Reading and writing is no big deal to a boy like him.
    ‘Do they have football over there?’ he asks.
    ‘No!’ I snap, although I think they probably do. Football is the kind of stupid game that finds its way just about everywhere.
    Ethan blinks. ‘No football?’ he gasps. ‘That’s terrible!’
    Beth flutters her eyelashes at him sweetly. ‘That’s what Daizy is trying to tell you,’ she explains. ‘Malawi is a developing country, and Daizy’s dad wants to go out there and help.’
    ‘Help?’ Ethan echoes.
    ‘Yes, help,’ Willow explains, a little breathlessly, squinting at Ethan. ‘He wants to build a school, dig a well, teach the kids.’
      
    Willow was reading my sister Becca’s TeenGal magazine at the sleepover. There was a feature called ‘Flirting For Beginners’, with tips for speaking softly and sending lots of mushy glances towards the one you love. Willow needs a bit more practice with the glances. A lot more, actually.
    ‘Er … cool,’ Ethan says. ‘He could teach them football, right?’
    ‘Right,’ Willow squints.
    ‘Have you got something in your eye?’ Ethan asks.
    Willow stops squinting and rolls her eyes up to the ceiling in exasperation. ‘No, I have not,’ she sighs. ‘Do you want my sausage?’
    It didn’t say anything in TeenGal about sausages as a flirting technique, but it seems to do the trick with Ethan Miller. He grabs the sausage and swallows it down in three bites, and Beth offers him hers too. It’s kind of sad to see your two best friends fussing and flirting around a footy-mad bonehead like Ethan Miller, but they say love is blind.
    ‘And Daizy’s mum is a nurse,’ Willow rushes on. ‘So she could be really useful too. The whole family might