Friends Forever! Read Online Free PDF

sighed McGraw, holding aloft a skeletal hand, “I need your full attention. I have with me here today Miss Cressida Sleeth. Everybody say hello to Cressida.”
    â€œHello,” Cressida said coyly, twinkling her hand with a slight jangle of thin silver bracelets.
    â€œHello, Cressida,” chorused the class.
    â€œIsn’t that a hobbit name?” Fleur said quietly.
    â€œIt’s Shakespearean,” whispered Claude.
    â€œNow class,” McGraw continued, “Cressida will be joining Eleven-B for the duration of Year Eleven. And as you must be aware, this will be a difficult time to begin a new school what with the GCSEs drawing closer, so I expressly want you all to be especially philanthropic to her.”
    â€œHe means ‘kind,’ ” Claude whispered to Liam.
    â€œOh, I’ll be kind to her, don’t worry,” Liam said, shuffling uncomfortably in his chair. Claude tutted.
    Cressida surveyed us all angelically, her eyes like two large, clear gray pools.
    â€œNow, Claudette Cassiera,” McGraw said, putting both hands on Claude’s desk, “I’ve examined your files. You and Cressida share seven classes in common: geography, Latin, chemistry, biology, et cetera. So would you be so good as to help the new recruit settle in?”
    â€œEr . . . no problem, Mr. McGraw!” Claude said, bristling with pride.
    â€œYou’d better take a seat,” Fleur said with a wink, pulling back the spare end-of-row chair beside the LBD and patting it.
    A new person! How exciting! I thought, giving Cressida my best nonscary grin.
    â€œThank you,” Cressida said, sitting her teensy-tiny bum down. She smelled of fresh flowers and beeswax hand soap.
    â€œWhere’ve you come from?” Claude whispered.
    â€œWindsor,” Cressida said.
    â€œWow! The Queen has a castle there, doesn’t she?” said Fleur.
    â€œYes, we lived about a mile from there,” said Cressida a touch sadly.
    â€œWhat brings you here?” Claude asked.
    â€œMy dad’s the new head of chemical research at Farquar, Lime and Young Pharmaceuticals,” she said. “Have you heard of it?”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “It’s pretty famous. In fact, it sometimes accidentally sprays white dust over the nearby village and the residents break out in a rash . . .”
    Claude and Fleur shot me withering looks.
    â€œAnyway,” I said, shutting up, “welcome to Blackwell!”
    â€œI’m Claude, that’s Ronnie, and that’s Fleur!” Claude explained.
    Cressida smiled, gazing around the room at the shabby decor and disheveled pupils, then fixing her eyes upon us again. “Cressida Sleeth,” she said, looking like a little otherworldly princess. “Lovely to meet you.”
    Â 
    Â 
    I didn’t have much to do with Cressida at first.
    During study hall she’d perch serenely beside Claude on the end of the row, reading kooky books with titles like How to Channel Your Life Happier! or The Karma Conundrum. Occasionally she’d talk about the ponies she’d left behind in Windsor, or her strong belief in guardian angels, or her endless string of allergies (wheat, pets, dairy, strong sunshine, etc.). I thought she was a bit freaky, albeit in a harmless way. Because her previous school in Windsor didn’t follow exactly the same GCSE curriculum as Blackwell, Cressida spent most of her free time in the library doing catch-up study sessions. Of course, Claude, being the huge boffin she is, began joining her some lunchtimes just for fun.
    The weeks whizzed past, and by mid-October the LBD were lost under a mountain of school projects. Suddenly I had a GCSE music project to compose, a mock French oral exam to prepare, a thousand-word Buddhism paper to draft for religion and two creative writing assignments!
    â€œWhy do we never have fun anymore?” moaned Jimi when I refused to go over to his house midweek to