Kisses for Lula by Samantha Mackintosh

Author:Samantha Mackintosh
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Young Adult
ISBN: 9781405249621
Publisher: Egmont Books
Published: 2010-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Still Thursday night. Will it ever end?

‘Well?’ said my evil sibling, hip shunted out, foot tapping, like some Victorian chaperone on the rampage. ‘What explanations for your recent madness? Is it drugs?’

‘I don’t have to answer to you!’ I spat back, outraged. Pen took a breath. ‘And don’t even think,’ I hissed, ‘of saying you speak on behalf of your client, Dr Anne Bird, because I have currently lost my sense of humour. And she has lost her mind.’

Pen came towards me, wagging her index finger. ‘Tallulah, Mum is seriously worried. She thinks you may need a spell at Fort Norland for drug addiction. She sent me to check on you.’

‘What drug addiction?’

Pen paused. ‘Okay, that’s pushing it, but you’re not far from it, Lu!’

‘Would you please leave?’

‘Not until you tell me what you were bothering F– I mean Angus about.’

‘He didn’t tell you?’

Pen examined the perfect cuticles on her right hand. ‘We didn’t really have time to converse. He had to go.’

‘Hm,’ I said. I was, again, a little impressed by Fat Angus and his discretion. Maybe the guy had hidden depths.

I walked behind the little kitchen counter and yanked open the door of the minuscule empty fridge.

‘You got chocolate?’ Pen leaned over the counter from the other side and tried to look down into my fridge.

‘Why are you still here?’ I asked, pushing the fridge closed with a thud.

Pen paced restlessly. ‘I know you’ve got Maltesers somewhere. What happened to sharing is caring?’

‘Hgrph,’ I snorted. ‘You threw that lesson on its ass the day you poured out all Dad’s booze from The Green Box. Couldn’t you have left him a tipple to keep him happy?’

Pen whirled round, her face outraged. ‘I was trying to help him!’

We stared at each other hotly. This was an issue we’d never truly thrashed out.

I turned the kettle on with a snap of the switch. ‘Dad has to help himself,’ I said to Pen. ‘You meddling just makes it worse!’

‘You doing nothing makes it worse,’ retaliated Pen. ‘You know, I was here to help you too, Tallulah. WELL. You can FORGET IT.’

I felt bad instantly. But what’s a girl to do when an apology can’t come out in the nanosecond it takes for a younger sister to slam out the room? Heaving a heavy, shaky sigh, I headed for the armchair and reached under the heirloom quilt. The bag was fantastically heavy. I sighed again. I’d been doing so well. I pulled the heirloom back in place and collapsed on the chair, taking a hit of five Malteser balls in one go. Soooo good. Munch, crunch, munch, crunch. Mmm. I had another two mouthfuls and stopped only when all the surfaces of my teeth were levelled by impacted honeycomb.

Just as the sugar high was about to kick in, Pen turned the hot tap in the kitchen on full throttle and the pipes went berrrsERK.

WUGGABANGWUGGABANGBANGBANG!

I bit my cheek with the shock of the first WUGGA and the rusty taste of blood killed all the comfort of the chocolate binge.

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