Olivia Flies High Read Online Free PDF Page A

of Olivia in case she snapped at her.
    â€œI’m waiting for Tom and Georgia,” said Olivia. “Do you know where they are?”
    Aeysha saw the cards in Olivia’s hands and guessed what they were. “Oh, Livy, you’ve missed them,” she said. “They’re not coming to lessons this morning. They’ve got a costume fitting before rehearsals start this afternoon. They only heard about it late yesterday afternoon when we were in the park. I met them for breakfast. They were both so excited. If only you’d come to the park, you’d have known about meeting up for breakfast today andcould have joined us.”
    â€œOh,” said Olivia in a small voice.
    â€œYou can give them the cards tomorrow.”
    â€œIt won’t be the same,” said Olivia sadly. “I wanted Tom and Georgia to know how sorry I am about being mean before they started rehearsals.”
    â€œWhy don’t you call Tom?” suggested Aeysha.
    â€œI don’t have a phone, remember. Gran won’t let me have one until my birthday in May. She thinks you have to be thirteen to have a mobile phone, unless you’ve got a good reason like you lot do, travelling to and from school each day on your own. It’s so stupid, and makes me feel like a freak. I’m the only person in the year without one.”
    â€œYou can use mine,” said Aeysha kindly. Olivia was smiling at her gratefully when they heard a voice behind them.
    â€œCome along, girls, you shouldn’t be chatting here, you should be in double maths,” said Miss Hanbury, the voice teacher, who had spotted them in the hallway. “Quick, or I’ll have to give you both a misconduct.” Olivia and Aeysha hurried off to the classroom.
    â€œYou can borrow it at lunchtime,” said Aeysha, and she reached out for Olivia’s hand and squeezed it. “It’s good to have you back, Livy.”
    But when lunchtime arrived, Olivia got cold feet about ringing Tom. What if he didn’t answer and she just had to leave a message? What would she say? Or even worse, what if he answered and put the phone down when he realised it was her and not Aeysha? She wouldn’t blame him. She had been so unreasonable over the whole Sound of Music thing, she thought that by now he might not want to make up with her at all.
    â€œThanks for the offer of the phone, Aeysha,” she said, “but I’ve changed my mind; I’ll see them tomorrow. Some things are easier said face to face.”
    Leaving Aeysha staring after her, she rushed off to find Pablo. She’d promised to help run the first lunchtime castell session. There was a big turn-out of children, including William Todd and Libby Oakham from Olivia’s class who had already proved themselves keen tightrope-walkers. Olivia was quite surprised to see Katie Wilkes-Cox’s former friend Kylie Morris, whohad previously shown a disdain for anything to do with the circus. She guessed that Kylie might have come to get a closer look at Pablo, whose long curls made him look like the hero from a nineteenth-century romantic novel. Judging by their giggles, some of the older girls were there for the same reason.
    But it was the presence of Kasha Kasparian and his Year Eleven friends, Ryan O’Connor and Jazz Quarshie, that was creating a buzz. Kasha, a talented singer who had just signed a solo recording contract, didn’t turn up for any non-compulsory class unless it was cool to be seen doing so. Word that he was at Pablo’s lesson spread in a twinkling and there was a late rush to join the class that had been given the Kasha stamp of approval.
    â€œNow you are all here we shall make our very first castell ,” said Pablo. “This will make me very proud because in Catalonia, where I come from, we make the human castles very often. They can be very tall, as high as a big house. Even very tiny children like Emmy here,” he pointed to a