Dead End Read Online Free PDF Page A

or clever, but they were her friends. She'd even had a best friend, Nina, who sometimes came to her house after school. Lucy's parents had accepted they should knock before they entered her bedroom when Nina was there.
    ‘Everyone else's parents knock,’ she had told them and, for once, they had listened to her.
    Lucy was horrified when she learned they would be moving away from the area. Ben, who had lots of friends, didn't seem to mind so much. All he had to do was join some stupid football team and boys would be calling him up every day to go out and kick a ball around. It was harder for Lucy who was going to have to start all over again, making an effort to talk to strangers, pretending to be interested in their pathetic self-obsessed teenage lives. At first she had flatly refused to go to Kent with her family, but it was useless. Her mother had accepted the position as headmistress, her father was job hunting, their house was on the market and the date for the move was set. Lucy's parents were ruining her life and they didn't care.
    ‘We've discussed this,’ her mother said.
    ‘I never agreed to go!’ Lucy yelled. ‘But I don't get a say in this, do I? It's only my life being ruined, that's all. You decide whatever you want to do, and we all have to go along with it, like so much baggage.’
    ‘Don't be ridiculous,’ her father interrupted. It was all he ever seemed to say to Lucy. ‘Your mother has her career to think of.’ He spoke sourly.
    Lucy's mother turned on him. ‘Matthew, don't you start. We've been over it so many times.’ Lucy left them to it.
    It was some comfort to Lucy when Nina burst into tears. ‘You can't leave me,’ she wailed. They promised to keep in touch, it was easy on Facebook. But everything changed when Lucy moved and, after a few weeks, Nina stopped answering her messages.
    ‘You have to make an effort to find new friends,’ her mother told her. ‘These things take time, and they don't just happen by themselves. You'll soon get the hang of it. The first one's the hardest.’
    ‘I've got friends,’ Lucy answered. ‘Leave me alone with your bloody clichés!’
    Lucy couldn't sleep. Her mum would have been on at her by now to stop chatting online and ‘do something useful,’ but her mum wasn't home and her dad knew better than to interfere. He left her alone and that suited Lucy fine. She liked it best when he went out. She was fourteen, old enough to be left at home with her twelve-year-old brother. She didn't need her parents interfering in her life. They were always telling her what to do. Like they had a clue what was good for her. At least her mother listened to what Lucy said. Her father might as well have been a stranger. Lucy would have preferred it if he was.
    She logged onto a Twilight chat room and stared at her screen for a few moments before typing furiously. ‘My parents drive me nuts.’
    Bunny answered straight away. ‘Parents suck.’ Several others joined in, complaining about their parents, insulting them and cracking pathetic jokes.
    ‘LOL. Can't be as bad as mine,’ Lucy typed. It passed the time.
    The chat moved on to school. ‘Everyone hates school. Why do we have to go?’ Bunny asked.
    ‘Waste of time,’ Lucy agreed.
    ‘Torture!’
    ‘Crap!’ someone else commented.
    ‘Shit!’
    They carried on chatting for a while.
    ‘Are you Team Edward or Team Jacob?’ Bunny asked.
    ‘Team Edward!’ Lucy wrote. She added a red heart.
    Shortly after moving South, Lucy had met Zoe in the chat room. They soon discovered they had a lot in common and it wasn't long before they were exchanging private messages online.
    ‘What about you, Zoe?’ Bunny asked.
    Zoe left without answering.
    Next time she logged on, Lucy saw that Zoe had left her a private message. ‘I love Edward Cullen!!’ and three red hearts.
    ‘Zoe, you there?’
    ‘’
    ‘You got a boyf?’
    ‘No. Wish I had!’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Can't say.’
    ‘I won't tell.’
    ‘Someone in my