Over the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

time”.

    That’s my dad! I used to think it was probably me, as well, but it is amazing what a bit of an incentive can do. A
double
incentive, in my case, cos once I’d spotted the Gorgeous Mystery Boy I couldn’t get up to the station fast enough each day. Dad didn’t know what had hit him. There was me going, “Dad, come on, I’ve got a train to catch!” “Dad,
please,
I’ll be late!” and Dad going, “All right, all right!What’s all the big rush? So you miss one train, you get the next.” It’s true there are trains like about every ten minutes from Ritters Cross to Hayes End at that time in the morning, but the way I saw it, the earlier I was there, the more chance I had of Catching a Glimpse. I mean, let’s face it, there aren’t so many gorgeous boys knocking around that you can afford to let one slip through your fingers, as it were.
    Bullying Dad really paid off. I not only arrived at school on time, thus earning merit marks for punctuality (me! Merit marks for punctuality!!!) I also got to catch not one but several glimpses of the divine being. The Gorgeous Mystery Boy. I relayed it all excitedly to Hattie. She was like, “Tell me, tell me! Colour of hair?”

    I said, “Gold …
really
gold, you know?”
    Hattie said, “Gold like gold, or gold like yellow?”
    I said, “Gold like gold! Not yellow. Yuck! And not just ordinary blond. Gold like … molten sunshine!”
    Hattie said, “Ooh! Nice. Go on! Eyes?”
    “Blue,” I said.
    “Blue. Wow! Tall or short?”
    Proudly, I said, “Tall!”
    “Fat or thin?”
    “
Athletic
.”
    “Which school?”
    “Grove Park.”
    “Mm …” Hattie pulled a face. “Could be worse.”
    I said that it could have been a lot worse. Grove Park might have a bit of a tough reputation but at least it’s all boys. I said this to Hattie and she said, “I take your point … no opposition!”
    Although Hattie isn’t – well, wasn’t – into boys in as big a way as I was, it’s never stopped us having these long heart-to-hearts on the subject. For all her great brain, Hattie can get just as girly and giggly as I can. She begged to be allowed to see my new “dream guy”.
    “Where can I get a look at him?”
    I said she should wait for me next morning at the ticket barrier. We don’t usually meet up, as Hattie comes in from the opposite direction and the trains don’t coincide, but she said that tomorrow she would catch an earlier one and hang about.
    “I’ll just hover. I won’t be obvious!”
    “You can’t miss him,” I said. I got this hot fizzyfeeling inside me just talking about him.
Zing, pop, sizzle,
like a bottle of Coke exploding. I told Hattie that sometimes he was with a friend, another boy from Grove Park. I think I sort of half had in mind that maybe the friend would do for Hattie. She could sigh over him, and I could sigh over the Gorgeous Mystery Boy. It would be more fun if we could sigh together; I didn’t like the thought of Hattie being left out.
    She wanted to know what the friend was like. I said he was OK, but the truth was I hadn’t really paid much attention to him.
    “Hair?”
    “Dark.”
    “Eyes?”
    “Dunno.”
    “Tall or short?”
    “Tall. Ish.”
    “Fat or thin?”
    “Thin.”
    “You mean … thin like weedy, or thin like athletic?”
    “Not athletic. I think he’s got something wrong with him.”
    “Wrong how?”
    “I dunno, he has this trouble walking.”
    “Like … sprained ankle, maybe?”
    “Dunno. Don’t think so. Think it’s more than that.”
    “Hm.” Hattie crinkled her brow, as she considered the problem. “Congenital?”
    Whatever that meant. It sounded vaguely rude to me.
    “Something he was
born
with,” said Hattie. “Like a club foot or something?”
    I said again that I didn’t know. I didn’t find the subject anywhere near as fascinating as Hattie appeared to, but she tends to be a tidge on the ghoulish side. She loves to dwell on morbid details, like when they have