The Angel of Nitshill Road Read Free Page A

about. He simply knew. Normally, he wouldn’t answer a question like that (except, of course, to say ‘You mind your own business’, or ‘Don’t worry about anyone else. Just get on with your own work’). But Marigold had been the slowest in the class for ages and ages and ages.
    He couldn’t help it. He just whispered back, ‘She’s halfway down page 17. And don’t tell anybody, but she’s stuck
again
.’
    Marigold said nothing. But she gripped her pencil and lowered her head determinedly to her work book.
    Mr Fairway gave her a little look, then moved forward to the next desk.
    Fancy that! he was thinking. Who’d have believed a little thing like Celestecoming to school here would make such a change in our Marigold? Fancy that!

5
‘Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat!’
    And it wasn’t the only change, either. From the moment Celeste first appeared in the gateway, all sorts of things started to happen. You take the day that Barry Hunter circled Penny with his usual cry of ‘Moving mountain!’ and fetched up on the tarmac like a winded ten-ton starfish.
    Somehow it seemed as if Celeste had stretched her foot out just as he was passing, and tripped him up.
    He rolled over, blood on his hands and knees. Celeste didn’t wait for him to get cross with her. She complained first.
    â€˜My granny says you must have been born in a bucket!’ she told him. ‘You have no manners and you have no brains. Now stop calling Penny fat!’

    Barry Hunter thought he’d got her there.
    â€˜I didn’t say “fat”.
You
did.’
    Celeste gave him one of her scornful looks.
    â€˜Moving mountain means
fat
,’ she told him. ‘Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! But what you don’t seem to realise is that if Penny stopped stuffing her face with crisps and sweeties all day long, she wouldn’t stay the shape she is now. But you!’ She pointed to him as if he were a slug on the ground. ‘You’re a bully! And it’s harder to change that. If you’re not careful, no one will ever really like you!’
    Now he was scrambling to his feet, boiling with rage.
    â€˜You’ll be sorry!’ he snarled. ‘You wait!’
    But Celeste had already turned away. The only thing he could have done was throw himself on her for a real fight. But she was dressed, as usual, in pure and perfect white. And she was smaller than he was. And her back was turned.

    And everyone except Marigold was watching . . .
    â€˜I’ll get you next break!’ he yelled at her. ‘You wait and see!’
    â€˜When donkeys fly!’ Celeste cat-called back, and strode off with Penny. Penny was crying hard. She couldn’t help it. No one had ever called her fat before. Not yelled it out like that, for everyone to hear. Oh, she knew they sometimes whispered the horrible word behind her back, out of her hearing. Even her friends did that, since it was true.
    But for Celeste to shout it out like that, all over the playground!
    The tears rolled down Penny’s cheeks. Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! She heard it ringing in her ears like a bell. Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! So she couldn’t understand why she had let Celeste slip a comforting arm around her shoulders. And why the grippy feeling deepinside had loosened up a bit. Was it because Penny knew that, next break, Barry Hunter wouldn’t be bothering to run round the playground being spiteful to her? Was that it? Because she knew that, for the first time in as long as she could remember, she’d probably be safe.
    Barry would be after Celeste.
    He tried his old trick – the one he usually played on Mark: blocking the lavatories. Barry had never played it on a girl before, but everyone knew what was going on the moment they saw him and his gang lined up across the entrance to the
Girls
.
    There was Sean, Wayne, Barry himself and Stephen, who was sent round the back to block the tiny window: the whole gang.
    When