Daizy Star and the Pink Guitar Read Free Page A

have to go over.’
    ‘To Malawi?’ Ethan blinks.
    ‘To Malawi,’ Beth sighs. ‘It sucks, right?’
    Ethan frowns. He actually looks slightly upset, but that may just be because I made him drop the stolen sausage into the water jug, of course. Not because he would miss me, or anything. Ethan Miller is not that kind of boy. He is probably just wondering who else he could wind up and annoy, if I ended up living in Malawi.
    ‘It’s not definite,’ I say. ‘I don’t suppose it will really happen. Mum doesn’t seem too keen.’
    I push my plate away and reach for the bowl of steaming sponge pudding and chocolate sauce. Mmmm … I take one bite, but the warm, sweet sponge seems to stick in my throat. A pudding like this could keep a whole family in Malawi going for a week, probably.
    I put my spoon down again, tasting guilt instead of chocolate.
    Ethan is digging me in the ribs. ‘I could bring in a spare football from home, if that would help?’ he suggests. ‘For the kids over there.’
      
    I glare at him. ‘The kids in Malawi don’t need footballs, they need schools and hospitals and wells and herds of goats!’
    ‘Goats?’ Ethan puzzles. ‘What do goats have to do with it?’
    ‘A herd of goats can keep a whole bunch of families in food and milk for years and years!’ I say. ‘Not to mention providing manure to help grow vegetables, and skins to make shoes and things.’
      
    ‘My uncle keeps goats,’ Ethan says. ‘He makes this really disgusting cheese.’
    Cheese? I worry about Ethan Miller, sometimes. He has a brain like a grasshopper.
    ‘Maybe I could bring you in a goat?’ Ethan muses.
    ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I snap. Ethan just doesn’t get it. He thinks he can fix everything with an old football and a goat. As if it could be that simple. ‘What use is one measly little goat? You’d need a whole herd of them …’
    I trail away into silence. I can feel little cogs and wheels creaking away inside my brain, slowly, painfully.
      
    It couldn’t be that simple … could it?
    ‘That’s it!’ I grin at Ethan. ‘That’s what I have to do! Raise the money to buy a herd of goats and dig a well and get medical supplies and school books and everything! And if I can do all of that, then maybe, just maybe, Dad will decide we don’t have to go out there!’
      
    Beth is frowning. ‘Daizy,’ she says patiently. ‘You’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of pounds! How are you going to get that kind of money?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘But I’ll think of something!’
    ‘I hope so,’ Willow says. ‘I don’t want you to go and live in Malawi.’
    ‘Me neither,’ Beth agrees.
    ‘Nor me,’ Ethan Miller adds.
    Beth, Willow and I turn together and give him a long, hard stare. Ethan winks at me, and just for a moment I wonder if it would actually be worth living in Malawi for a year, just to get away from the most annoying boy in the whole, entire world.
    As for the winking, that will have to stop right now. I don’t want Beth and Willow getting the wrong idea about me and Ethan Miller, like they did at the start of term when they thought I fancied him.
    I mean … eeewwww!
    This time, though, Beth and Willow just smile. Beth flutters her eyelashes, and Willow gives him that squinty look again and links an arm through his.
    ‘Don’t worry, Ethan,’ she says in that breathless, whispery voice. ‘We won’t let anything happen to Daizy.’
    ‘No way,’ Beth adds. ‘The three of us can work together to come up with a plan.’
    Ethan looks slightly alarmed, but you do not argue with Beth and Willow. They tow him off towards the playground, plotting and whispering, and I am left alone in an empty lunch hall. I look down at my dish of sponge pudding and chocolate sauce.
    It’s cold and soggy and disappointing, just like my life.

D ad does not seem to be giving up on his Malawi dreams. I think he is trying to wear Mum down, win her over to the idea, but so far it