Zodiac Girls: Brat Princess Read Free Page A

so. I want interest on it,” I said.
We did a class of economics at my last school. I knew
all about lending and borrowing money. Our teacher
had said that only a fool didn’t ask for interest.
    For a moment, Shirla looked as if she would have
liked to throw the plate at me, but she held back and
put her money back in her pocket. “Okay, missy, so how
much interest you want then?”
    “Five per cent.”
    Shirla shook her head and tutted then she handed
the chips to me. “Uh-uh,” she said as she turned and
wobbled towards the kitchen. “Oo-ee. You sure is one
precious madam. Uh-uh you is.”
    “And where’s my princess?” boomed a voice from
around the front.
    Seconds later, Daddy appeared. I didn’t even bother
to look up, although I could see out of the corner of my
eye that he had his smart work suit on, so he must have
come from his office.
    “What are you doing here?” I asked.
    “Come to see my girl off,” he said.
    “But I’ll be back in a couple of days,” I said.
“You’ve never come home to see me off before.”
    Mummy shot Daddy a “look” as if they’d been
caught out. They’re up to something, I thought. Probably
getting me some secret Chrissie present. Hope it’s not another horse.
If it is, I hope they get the right colour this time . They got me
a white one for my birthday and he had to go back
because Mercedes Bernshaw had a white one and no
way was I going to be accused of copying that loser.
    “Come on, give your old dad a hug,” said Dad and
held out his arms.
    I could hear that the car had arrived at last , so I got
up and pushed past him. “Get real. I’m too old for hugs
now,” I said as he lost his balance and toppled into a
flower bed.

    An hour later, I was on the plane and on my way. What
a relief, I thought, inhaling the comfortingly expensive
scent of the leather upholstery as we took off into the
sky. Mummy and Daddy had been acting really
weirded out, like they’d taken lovey-dovey pills or
something. Mummy was all clingy, more so than
usual, like “Oh, my darling girl,” and stroking my hair.
Like, ew. I so don’t do emotional. (Except with Coco.
I was sad to leave her). It was particularly
embarrassing with Mummy and Daddy because there
was a tall handsome suntanned man with a mane of
dark hair at the hangar who was watching me, as if he
couldn’t take his eyes off me. Okay, so he was way too
old for boyfriend material, like, maybe old enough to
be my dad even, but he had the X factor and probably
recognized a kindred spirit in me, seeing as I also have
it. I think he was a celebrity. He looked familiar –
possibly an actor off the telly. It would have been
something to brag about when I went back to school,
that is if I’d had a school to be going back to. Or a
bunch of friends to brag to in fact. I did once upon a
time, but that was long ago. My sister Poppy and I had
tons of friends and our house used to be always full of
people, but I wasn’t going to let myself think about
then. It never did any good. I blinked back sudden tears
and steeled myself. Past is past. Gone.
    As the plane burst through the clouds though, I
couldn’t help but wonder what had come over Daddy.
He was usually like me. Mr Unemotional. But even he
had given me a big hug (when he had climbed out of
the flower bed) as if he was going to miss me for once.
Maybe they were both worried that the plane might
crash or something. Whatever. I hadn’t responded to
either of their over-cringy goodbyes – like why should
I pretend I was going to miss them? They didn’t really
care about me. If they did, they would have forced
Shirla to come with me. A small request, that’s all I’d
made. I liked Shirla. She’s so totally a non-bull type of
person and I had to respect that, though I didn’t let on
about it to her. But no point in moping over it , I decided as
I put all thoughts of St Kitts out of my head. I looked
out the