Kisses for Lula Read Free

days!
    Where was Arnold Trenchard? Hurrying across the library, the memory of that one and only first love, the delectable Ben Latter, intruded for a moment, but I blocked it out. No chance of that, jinx or no jinx.

Chapter Three
Tuesday 13 April, sooo early, like,
dawn
maybe
    I woke with a start.
    Someone in the room above me was yodelling with an intensity piercing enough to shatter a wine glass, let alone the eggshell fragility of my skull.
    I pulled a pillow over my head and the noise stopped.
    But no.
    My little sister Blue had only paused to catch her breath.
    ‘Lula? Are you ready to go?’ Mum’s voice trailed up the passage to my bedroom door.
    Frik! Forgot I had a library shift. Bum bum bum. ‘Just got to finish up!’ I shouted back, with a twinge at such a bare-faced lie.
    Scuffle scuffle
up the hall. I could hear numerous plastic bags being gathered together. ‘Shall I start walking?’ she said loudly outside my door, amidst hurried rustling.
    ‘Yes!’ Throwing back the duvet. ‘Which way’re you going?’
    ‘Past St Alban’s.’
    The elite boys’ school. Plodding this route with Mum would ordinarily be a trauma, but in the holidays the place is a graveyard.
    ‘’Kay! I’ll catch up!’ I rolled out of bed and assessed the crumpled clothing tossed on the floor from yesterday.
    Big sigh.
    No one to impress.
    Pulling on my jeans, something rustled in my pocket. The List.
Frik
. What was I thinking? Just four poxy days till my birthday!
    Arnold!
    Seduction!
    Of course someone to impress!
    I had to look fanfabulouslytastic!
    Yesterday afternoon had been a total washout because Arnold had been put to work in the library’s rare-documents room deep underground and I hadn’t laid eyes on him for the rest of the day. I paused in front of my near-empty cupboard, wracked with indecision. If I were late again, Stinky Mike would fire me for sure. I weighed it up: job . . . or . . . lifetime curse. Hmm.
    If I didn’t have money for chocolate, I was doomed anyway.
    I’ll wow Arnold tomorrow, I vowed, pulling on my T-shirt faster than Blue can shove a pea up her nose, and was out the door without brushing my teeth or my hair. The apple I snatched sorted out the gnashers and my hair was all scrunched up high on my head in that, um,
I’ve just got out of bed
look that I do a little too often.
    By the time I leapt up the garden steps to the front gate, Mum had already disappeared from sight. I sprinted down the road and caught sight of her cruising down the hill into town. I grinned despite myself. Watching my mother from a distance always makes me smile. She wears enormous caftans, and her short white hair stands up in a shock all around her head. You’d never think she once raced Harleys and drank beer out of other people’s helmets. I caught her as she rounded the last corner of the block.
    ‘Good morning, Dr Bird!’ I said, like a centimetre from her ear.
    ‘
Eeeee!
’ Mum leapt away like a flying tree frog and I fell about laughing till I could barely breathe. ‘Cripes, Lula! Will you not creep up like that! In today’s world! You could have been a mugger! You’re lucky I didn’t brain you with my bag!’
    ‘Bags!’ I gasped.
    ‘What?’
    I stood up slowly. ‘Bags. Plural.’ And took a deep breath. ‘What’s with the Third World’s quota of plastic?’
    Mum’s fingers were turning blue round the handles of a gazillion shopping bags, all stuffed with –
    ‘HEY! Mum! Where are you taking Golly? And Bubbles!
Geez!
’
    ‘Lula!’ Mum whisked the bags round to the other side of herself and started beetling off briskly again. ‘You’re too old for these things. I’m taking it all to Oxfam.’
    ‘Noooo!’ I wailed. ‘Nooooo!’
    She yelped as I grabbed the bag with Golly and Bubbles. ‘Tallulah, give that back immediately. Golly is no longer politically acceptable, for a start.’
    ‘Muuuum! Please!’ I’m embarrassed to admit this, but my eyes filled with tears. I pulled Golly