Charming But Insane by Sue Limb

Author:Sue Limb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2011-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Later that evening, Jess’s mum came back from Oxford, and Granny went into raptures about how heroic Jess had been, dealing with the flood. Her mum came up to Jess’s room to tell her how pleased she was. It was obvious Jess had been crying.

‘What’s the matter, love?’ asked her mother gently.

Jess shrugged. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Just felt a bit upset by it all.’

‘You’ve been brilliant!’ said her mum, and gave her a hug. ‘I’ll take you into town at the weekend and we’ll do some clothes shopping!’

Jess ought to have been grateful. She knew her mum hated clothes shopping only slightly less than she hated war. But Jess couldn’t think any further ahead than school tomorrow. How on earth was she ever going to be able to make it up to Fred? And why had she told that stupid lie about being sick? She wanted to confide in her mum, but she knew if she did, her mum would want to sort it out for her. She might even ring Fred’s mum and discuss the whole thing at horrible length. Jess cringed at the thought of her mother still trying to organise her social life for her. This was her mess, and she’d sort it out herself. If, indeed, it could be sorted.

Fred hadn’t shouted at her. He had been much too furious for that. A couple of polite words, and then he had hung up on her. She was desperate to see him. She just had to apologise, explain and think of ways to make it up to him. Until she’d made it up with him, she’d never be able to think about anything else.

Morning lessons were science and maths, which added another sort of anguish to Jess’s situation. She was in a different maths set from Fred, and as she hadn’t seen him yet, she would have to wait till lunchtime and try to track him down in the library. Normally, the library was a delightful sanctuary: warm in winter and cool in summer. It was also quite dark. One’s spots were not too obvious. It smelt quaintly of books, unlike the gym, for instance, which smelt of sweaty pants.

Mrs Forsyth was in charge of the library, and boy, was she fierce. There was a serious ‘No Eating, No Talking’ rule. Just spending half an hour in such a strict atmosphere became a kind of secret gameshow. Trying to snack unobserved was a major challenge, especially if it involved crisps or cheesy biscuits. You had to summon up a huge amount of saliva for a start, slip the crisp into your mouth while pretending to scratch your nose, and soak the crisp in spit for about a minute before daring to risk a chomp.

You could only chew when Mrs Forsyth was not looking in your direction – and she had the eyesight of an eagle and the hearing of a spy satellite. She could hear people eating crisps in China. Jess’s greatest triumph had been to

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