Don't Ask Alice Read Online Free PDF Page B

ear.
    â€˜Didn’t you say your dad has a rotten sense of direction? Didn’t you tell me he always gets lost when you’re on holidays?’
    She made a face at me.
    â€˜That’s different,’ she whispered. ‘That’s on holidays. He knows this road too well to get lost on it. It’ll be fine. Dad will get us out of all this traffic, and Miss O’Herlihy will think he’s great. This is the best thing that could have happened.’
    Still the traffic didn’t move, and still the bus driver said nothing.
    Peter gave a big long sigh.
    â€˜I worked in Cork for years,’ he said. ‘I know all the back roads.’
    Alice grinned at me.
    â€˜See?’ she said.
    The driver looked back at Miss O’Herlihy. Miss O’Herlihy looked at Peter. Peter gave her a charming smile.
    â€˜Trust me,’ he said.
    So Miss O’Herlihy trusted him. She nodded at the driver who edged the bus forwards and took the left turn.
    It was a big mistake.
    The first thing that worried me was when the driver started to mutter rude words under his breath.
    The next thing that worried me was when Peter went back to his seat saying,
    â€˜You’re the driver, you figure out where we are.’
    I could have given Alice a hard time, but I didn’t dare. She was sitting looking out of the window, like none of this had anything to do with her.
    I knew things were really bad when the driver pulled into a field and tried to turn the busaround to go back the way we came.
    When the bus got stuck in a patch of mud, and we all had to get out and push, it was almost funny.
    Only problem was, Miss O’Herlihy didn’t seem very amused. She stood under a tree with Rachel, and looked like she’d love to kill someone. Maybe it was just me, but I had a funny feeling that person was Alice’s dad.
    Alice saw me watching them.
    â€˜Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s happier when they have a full stomach. Miss O’Herlihy will be fine once she’s had her lunch.’
    She wished.

Chapter nine

    B ecause of Peter’s ‘short cut’, we were more than an hour late getting to the wildlife park. This made us much too late for our lunch booking in the café. Miss O’Herlihy went in to the café to try to sort something out, and when she came back she didn’t look one bit happy.
    â€˜They’ve let another school take our place,’ she said. ‘Obviously a school that didn’t take “short cuts” through fields to get here.’
    I thought it was a bit mean of her to say that. After all, Peter had only been trying to help. Hedidn’t deliberately direct the bus driver into a field.
    â€˜What are we going to do now, Miss?’ I asked.
    Miss O’Herlihy sighed.
    â€˜The best they can do is let us queue up for our food, and eat it out here on the grass.’
    â€˜Yippee!’ said Peter. ‘A picnic!’
    Miss O’Herlihy gave him an evil look.
    Peter put his head down.
    â€˜Sorry,’ he said, ‘You looked upset – I was just trying to cheer you up a bit.’
    Miss O’Herlihy looked slightly less evil.
    â€˜Tell you what,’ said Peter. ‘You relax out here for a while, and Rachel and I can bring the kiddies in and organise the food. I’ll bring you out something nice. How about that?’
    Miss O’Herlihy actually smiled at him.
    Alice nudged me and said,
    â€˜See that, Megan?’ she asked. ‘I think she likes him.’
    â€˜Don’t get too carried away,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t actually like him. She’s just noticed hissocks, and she feels sorry for him, that’s all.’
    Everyone except for Miss O’Herlihy went in and queued up for food. Alice and I stayed at the back of the queue where we could keep an eye on Peter and stop him getting into more trouble.
    While we were waiting, Rachel walked past with her tray of