Don't Even Think About It Read Online Free PDF Page A

Ruth is twelve, just a few months younger than me, and she’s got brown hair and glasses and a grey cat, and an older brother called Damien. Oh, and she’s in a wheelchair.
    She doesn’t go to my school, so I hardly ever meet her during the week. A white van collects her every morning at ten past eight – I hear it from my bedroom when I’m getting up – and drops her back every afternoon around four.
    You can see other kids in the van. One boy waves at everyone the way very little children wave, just flapping his fingers, even though he’s about my age. He smiles all the time too. Another girl is hunched over in her wheelchair and never looks up. All you can see is the back of her neck.
    Ruth’s dad takes his daughter out to the van every morning and waits while they lower the ramp at the back. Then he wheels her on and kisses her goodbye, and he stands, waving, while the van drives off. In the afternoon, her mam comes out, when the van driver sounds the horn, and she wheels Ruth back inside.
    And if I could choose a person to live beside, anyone at all in the whole world, Ruth Wallace would be my very last choice.
    Now let me explain, because I know how horrible that sounds. You’re probably wondering how I can be so mean to my poor disabled neighbour. Well, let me tell you about Ruth Wallace, and then you can decide who the mean one really is.
    She lies in wait for me every Saturday in her wheelchair. She sits just inside her gate until she sees me, and then she wheels herself out onto the path and says whatever nasty thing she’s been thinking up for me – that I stink, or that my top is horrible, or that I need to use spot cream.
    Sometimes she tries to trip me up with her wheels, which is a bit pathetic, because I can easily hop out on the road and dodge around her.
    Listen, I’m not making this up. I wish I was, but I’m not. Ruth Wallace is a nasty, cruel person, and I’m the only one who knows it, because, for some reason, she’s as nice as apple pie to everyone else. She smiles and looks fragile and says ‘Hello’ in an innocent little girly voice that makes me want to puke, and they all call her poor Ruth and pat her hand and tell her she’s a great girl, and all the time I know what she’s like, but I can’ttell anyone, because, of course, they wouldn’t believe me.
    ‘Ruth, nasty?’ they’d say in surprise. ‘Why, Liz Jackson, how can you say such a thing? Ruth is so sweet and fragile, and extremely friendly too,’ or something like that. That’s what they all think, you see.
    Ruth wasn’t always disabled. Apparently, she got some disease like meningitis when she was only two or three, and she almost died, and since then she hasn’t been able to walk. Which is all very sad, of course, but I still don’t see why she should be so mean to me. I mean, I didn’t make her sick. I didn’t take away her legs. Not that her legs are gone – they’re still there – but you know what I mean.
    I’ve told Bumble what she’s like, because I knew he’d believe me. He thinks Ruth is probably jealous of me being able to walk, and that’s what makes her so nasty. When I pointed out that everyone else can walk too, and she’s nice to
them
, Bumble said, ‘Well, she probably picked you to be mean to because you’re handy, living right next door.’
    Sometimes I wish Bumble didn’t always have an answer for everything.
    Ruth’s brother Damien is nice, not a bit like her. He’s almost sixteen, so I don’t hang around with him or anything, but he always smiles and says hello. I wonder what he’d say if he knew what kind of a sister he has.
    Today Ruth was waiting for me, as usual, when I came home from town. I could see a bit of her hat poking up from behind the hedge – she always wears a hat, every single day – and my heart sank. I walked quicker, but of course out she came.
    She said ‘Hello Liz’ in a really sickly sweet voice. I didn’t look at her, just kept going. And as I