Kalpana's Dream Read Free Page B

entirely different person. Jessaline twitched at her long skinny plaits. ‘Ms Dallimore?’
    ‘Yes, Jessaline?’
    ‘Ms Dallimore, why have we got so long?’
    7B listened, and Ms Dallimore’s radiant smile shone over them again. ‘So you can think, ’ she answered, ‘and imagine, and – and learn to fly!’

4
Sweet Lucy
    Kate raced along Lawrence Road in the direction of Kindness Kreche, her bag banging on her shoulders, dodging old ladies out shopping with their trolleys, and stragglers from the primary school who chanted at her, ‘Kate thinks she’s great! Just because she goes to high school!’
    She was late. Her little sister Lucy would be waiting, giving poor Miss Lilibet what Mum called ‘Lucy-Hell’. She was late because she’d hung out at the gates with Neema and the other kids from 7B, whingeing about Ms Dallimore and her essay and the mysterious fact that she’d given them six whole weeks to do it, which meant she must be expecting something truly special . . .
    And as they’d stood there, grizzling heartily, who should come by but Ms Dallimore herself – long skirt swirling, her dark red hair fizzing with some kind of weird electricity. ‘Thoughts flying already, I see, ’ she called as she swept past them, heading for that waiting, big black car.
    Not even Tony Prospero, whose dad ran Lawrence Motors, could identify the make of the glistening black car. It was huge and solid, with a long sloping bonnet and big spoked silver wheels. ‘Like a bloody hearse, ’ growled Kerry Moss. Its windows were black too, tinted darkly against the light – you couldn’t hope to get the tiniest glimpse inside. Ms Dallimore wouldn’t be at Wentworth High much longer, the Year Eights kept hinting darkly. Soon, perhaps very soon, Count Dracula in his big black car would speed her away to his castle in Transylvania.
    Which was a fairytale, of course, thought Kate. All the same, when Ms Dallimore started on about thinking and imagination and flying , and heavenly music of the soul – when she started giving out wacky homework – you couldn’t help hoping the fairytale might be true.
    Because what did Kate have to write about? She was ordinary, like Blocky Stevenson. There was nothing the least bit unusual about her, and her family was ordinary, too. She didn’t have exotic parents like Neema had: a glamorous Indian mother who worked at the university, and a doctor dad who, when he was a baby, had been found in a cardboard box on the back step of a children’s home . . .
    ‘Oh!’ Kate skidded to a halt. Across the busy road, she saw a small square girl in a paint-smeared kinder smock, all by herself, gazing entranced into the window of the hardware store. Lucy. Lucy where she shouldn’t be, again.
    ‘Lucy!’ Kate fought her way grimly through the heavy afternoon traffic, the streams of trucks and fuming buses, the angry hooting cars. ‘Lucy, what are you doing here?’
    Her little sister turned. Ignoring Kate’s question she pointed to the window, where a big shiny mulching machine was displayed behind the glass. ‘Katie, if you put a person in there, a bony old person like Lilipet, and switched it on, would–’ ‘You’re not supposed to be here. You know you’re supposed to wait at the crèche for me.’
    ‘You were late. All the others had gone home. There was only Lilipet there.’
    ‘That doesn’t matter; you still have to wait.’
    ‘I was helping you, ’ said Lucy, as she often did.
    ‘What?’ Kate was breathless and angry from her struggle across the road. She’d almost been run over by a pale pink florist’s van. Looking down at her little sister’s bland face, she felt a sudden painful jab in the middle of her chest and thought it might be actual hate. If only Count Dracula would spirit Lucy away.
    ‘I saved you walking all that way, ’ said Lucy virtuously, ‘like – like her .’ She pointed down the road, and Kate turned to see a small dishevelled figure hurrying