Kisses for Lula Read Free Page A

and Bubbles from the bag and clutched them to my chest.
    ‘Tallulah. No nonsense. There’s absolutely no room in the house for all this stuff!’
    ‘Mum, we have a huge house! And if you let me live in the annexe, you wouldn’t need to bother about storage!’
    ‘Don’t start with that again. You’ve already taken over all of the cellar with your motor mechanics.’
    I started to babble about how no one used the cellar anyway, but Mum fixed me with a rare steely gaze. ‘Lu, don’t you think it’s a little unfair if we let you stay in the annexe and your sister has to stay in the main house?’
    I sniffed and rummaged in Mum’s handbag for a tissue. ‘I’m the oldest at home now. Pen will get a chance when I move out. And Blue when she moves out.’
    ‘Ohhh,
you
! Blue is
four
,’ growled Mum. ‘Let’s talk about it later. Come on, we’re going to be late. I’ve got a meeting with Security this morning. No sign of the Coven’s Quarter documents yesterday. Somebody must have taken them.’ Mum looked genuinely worried. ‘Don’t say anything to anyone about this, Lu.’
    As we began hurrying towards the university campus, I decided to try another tack: ‘Mum, this annexe thing . . . How about –’
    ‘Oh look,’ exclaimed Mum. ‘There are still some boys in St Alban’s!’
    How I kept walking I. Do. Not. Know.
    Dear. God.
    Let. Me. Die.
    Now
.
    Let’s set the scene for you here, lovely reader. Me red-eyed, in yesterday’s clothes, clutching unattractive childhood doll and politically incorrect Golly. With Mum in flowing caftan and hand-hewn hair. And ‘some boys’ from St Alban’s. It’s just unspeakable on all counts. Could it get any worse?
    Hoooo, yes.
    First of all, not
some
boys. An entire row. Lined up on the boundary wall, legs hanging over on to the pavement. Grinning like apes at us scurrying along. I couldn’t look. Just turned my face away, praying Mum would increase the pace along with me.
    Second of all, my mother is a law unto herself. She is mostly hermit-like. Every decade or so she has a flash of sociability. I should have been vigilant.
    Vigilant
.
    ‘Hello!’ she now chirped to the mob at large. ‘Are you boys not on holiday?’
    ‘Hi, Mrs Bird,’ replied the biggest and the blondest. (They know her from library visits.) ‘We’re doing extra graft for the Science Fair. Which we’d like kept quiet,’ he added with undue emphasis, looking at me pointedly.
    I nodded obediently, snatched another look at him and ducked my head in horror.
    Oh no! Frikfrikkery frikly frik! It’s him! It’s Ben Latter!
My first and only real crush. I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly that black dots speckled my vision. But even with eyes closed, even with black dots, I could still see Ben Latter’s blue, blue eyes, lips that gave me shivers, his perfect sunkissed hair, that highly charged body taut with tonedness that you only get from hours of, you know, sailing or polo or . . .
    I felt myself get hot all over and might have made a small strangled sound.
Eemph
, maybe, or
arrark
. Something unattractive.
    I felt painfully, agonisingly aware of my crumpled clothes, my scrunched hair, my furry teeth. The skanky plastic bags in my hands. And then, still staring at my grungy trainers, I caught a glimpse of movement. Suddenly Ben Latter’s shoes were facing mine.
    ‘Do I know you?’ he asked.
    Fffff!
    I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t look up. I couldn’t do anything at all.
    Someone said, ‘What’s the bet she’s been Ben Flattered.’ There were titters behind me and I distinctly heard ‘Is that a baby
doll
?’ from the ranks.
    I felt Mum look at me, very quickly, and she stepped closer to stand right beside me. ‘Of course you know me, young man,’ she tweeted to Ben. ‘I distinctly remember your last class visit. Such
energetic
boys, aren’t you all? Well! Science, hmm? Good luck!’
    And we were off. In silence. Mum to her lovely woodenpanelled office and me to crumple next