Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 01 - Cocoa and Chanel Read Free Page B

me luck – which would have been sweeter if it hadn’t said Good Luck Channel.
    I hugged Becky and Mum goodbye and pressed Cocoa to my chest, breathing in his doggy scent. Oblivious to anything bad happening, he wiggled around in my arms till he could reach my ponytail, which he promptly began to chew. Before I could cry, I handed him over to Mum and hopped into my old red bomb. Then I backed out of the driveway and headed for Goulburn.

2
Oh Well - Here Goes Nothing
    Two nano-naps and five coffees later I finally reached Goulburn. The temperature had risen the closer I got and I was sweating profusely when I pulled up in front of the reception building at the Police Academy. Freezing air flowed over me as I entered and I went from toasted to frosted.
    ‘This is the Police Academy isn’t it?’ I said, smiling brightly at the woman sitting behind the reception desk.
    She pushed her glasses down her long nose and stared over them at me. ‘It’s the School of Police Studies,’ she said primly.
    ‘Where you learn to be a policeman?’
    I guessed by her lack of any sort of answer that I was correct in my assumptions.
    ‘Hmm – well I’m Chanel Smith.’
    ‘Chanel Smith.’ She glanced down at the paperwork in front of her and started shuffling through it. ‘Aren’t you cold?’ she asked, stopping to stare at my bare legs. I noted she was wearing a turtleneck long sleeve sweater.
    ‘Freezing,’ I admitted, my teeth starting to chatter. ‘It’s boiling outside.’
    I was wishing that she’d stop staring at my legs and start looking for my paperwork. Finally after what felt like a year but was probably only five minutes, she handed me a folder, a key and some directions to my accommodation.
    ‘Read that tonight,’ she advised me, before turning her attention back to the stack of paperwork.
    I managed to navigate through the Academy, one hand on the wheel and one on the map. Finally I pulled up in the car park of the building that was to be my home for the next eight months. Throwing my backpack on, I gripped my suitcase in one hand and the folder in the other. I negotiated my way up the stairs and along the corridor till I found my room. Breathing a sigh of relief, I lowered my bag onto the single bed squashed into the corner of the small room. A wardrobe and a desk with a chair were its only friends.
    ‘Hiya.’ The squeaky voice gave me such a fright that I banged my head on the wardrobe door. ‘Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.’
    I turned to view the owner of the shrill tones. A short girl with a big smile stood in the doorway. She was almost as wide as she was tall. I felt a grin twitch the corners of my mouth, partly in response to her own and partly at the thought of her doing an obstacle course. It was going to be interesting.
    ‘I’m Susie,’ she said, holding out a hand.
    ‘Chanel.’ I grasped her small chubby hand in my own and beckoned her into the room with my other arm. ‘So where do you live?’ I asked.
    ‘Right next door. Guess we’re neighbours hey.’
    ‘Guess we are. Have you been here long?’
    ‘Got here this morning.’
    ‘So have you worked out the lay of the land?’ I asked.
    ‘Ooohh,’ she said admiringly, ‘you already sound like a policewoman.’
    I resisted the urge to tell her that she sounded like she had been sucking on a helium balloon.
    ‘I’ve met a few of the other girls. They all seem nice. Except,’ she stopped and looked over her shoulder before whispering, ‘except Nastacia.’
    ‘Nastacia?’
    ‘Nasty Nastacia.’ A horrified look on her face, she clapped both pudgy hands over her mouth. ‘I can’t believe I just said that.’
    I decided I was going to like Susie. ‘So this Nastacia isn’t very nice?’
    She closed the door and continued in a conspiratorial voice. ‘She thinks she’s better than the rest of us. Of course she is,’ she admitted ruefully.
    ‘How is she better?’
    ‘Well she’s going to be a proper