Over the Moon Read Online Free PDF

medical programmes on the telly and she is absolutely glued to them.
    “Be there tomorrow,” I said, “and you can see for yourself.”
    Hattie promised that she would. She said that I needed an eye kept on me and that she was the person to do it, but really and truly, I could tell, she was just bursting with vulgar curiosity!
    Hattie has caught her first glimpse! She was there by the barrier this morning – loitering with intent – and he walked right past her. Literally within centimetres. They might even have touched. Hattie agrees with me that he is totally out of this world! We have been trying to work out which year he is likely to be in; we think probably Year 10. Hattie says he has to be at least fourteen and could even be fifteen. In other words, just right! I don’t go for little boys. This is why there is no one In our class that I would even consider asking to partner me on Founders Day. If I am selected, that is. Oh, but I have to be! I just have to be! Especially now. I mean, now that I know who I amgoing to ask  … cos I will ask! I’ll find a way.
    His friend was there this morning, the one who walks with a limp. Hattie had a look and says it is not a club foot. She wonders if perhaps he has had polio, but I didn’t think people got polio these days. Whatever it is, it makes him walk in a very odd way, so that he has difficulty keeping up. We have christened them Peg Leg and the Sun God!

    In fact it was Hattie who thought up the name Sun God and me who thought of Peg Leg. I am quite ashamed of it now, but I didn’t know his name and I had to call him something. Hattie disapproved even at the time. She said he hadn’t got a peg leg, just a limp.
    “And you don’t refer to people with disabilities by their disability!”
    I said, “I don’t see why not, if you don’t know their name.”
    “Because it’s rude and insensitive,” said Hattie. “It’s
discriminatory.”
    She’s always using these words. She doesn’t do it to show off, it just comes naturally to her; she’s like a talking dictionary. It is very educational, having Hattie for a friend. But that doesn’t stop me arguing with her!
    “I’m not being dis— ”
Damn.
I couldn’t say it properly. “I’m not being!”
    “Yes, you are,” said Hattie. “You just don’t realise it. It’s like when the police describe suspects as black.
That’s
discriminatory.”
    She is always so politically correct! It gets on my nerves at times. I told her that it wasn’t discriminatory at all. “It’s just a way of identifying people … I wouldn’t mind if someone called me
the girl with red hair.”
    Hattie said that was because I was secretly proud of having red hair.
    I said, “Well, black people are probably proud of being black.”
    “Yeah? I don’t expect they’d be proud of walking with a limp!”
    I said, “All right, so how would you describe him? Like when we’re talking, what would you call him? Friend of Sun God?”
    Hah! That stumped her. I don’t very often get one over on Hattie, but this time she didn’t have an answer. She came back to it later, when we were walking round together at break. Hattie is like a dog with a bone. She can worry a subject to death.
    “I wouldn’t just call him Friend of Sun God. He’s a person in his own right. He has to have a name of his own.”
    “OK,” I said, “so what would you call him?”
    “I’m going to call him Hermes,” said Hattie.
    I said, “Who’s Hermes? Pardon my ignorance.”
    “Pardon granted,” said Hattie. “Hermes was the messenger of the gods. It’s kind of how I picture him … thin, and dark.”
    “Wouldn’t be much of a messenger,” I said. “Wouldn’t get anywhere very fast!”
    I suppose it wasn’t really funny. Hattie gave me this withering look. “Ever heard of mass communications? I bet he’s a computer whiz. He looks like he’s got a brain.”
    “What, and Sun God hasn’t?”
    “Did I say that?” said Hattie.
    “You