Secret Friends Read Online Free PDF

you took stuff from the beach too?”
    Antonia’s heart thudded loudly. So she had been seen this morning. Carefully she turned her doodling into a tiny dolphin leaping a wave.
    “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said quietly.
    “Paintbrushes,” Lauren grinned nastily. “We saw you this morning, didn’t we, Becks?”
    Becky nodded vigorously.
    “Then you’d have seen I was putting the paintbrushes somewhere safe,” said Antonia coldly. “I left them on a bin where they wouldn’t get broken.”
    Lauren narrowed her eyes. “Maybe we didn’t see that bit. Did you see her leave them on the bin, Becky?”
    “No, I don’t remember seeing that,” Becky sniggered.
    Antonia shrugged as if she wasn’t interested, but her heart was banging even faster. “That’s your problem.”
    “No, it’s not!” Lauren squatted down so her face was millimetres from Antonia’s. “It’s yours. I might just mention it to your mum. See what she says.”
    “Mum doesn’t listen to tell-tales,” said Antonia calmly while inside she was bubbling with panic. Antonia knew Mum would believe her version of events, but she might ground her for breaking her promise to stay off the beach. That would mean no Sea Watch and worse still there would be no going out to answer Spirit’s call.
    “‘Mum doesn’t listen to tell-tales’,” mimicked Lauren. “Well, you won’t mind me telling her then, will you?” She barged Antonia’s chair, then walked away laughing.
    “Is everything OK?” Cai came into the classroom and hurried over, his dark eyes full of concern. “Is Lauren being a pain?”
    Antonia was angry and scared, but she wasn’t going to let on. If she acted like shedidn’t care maybe Lauren would give up and annoy someone else instead.
    “It’s nothing. How’s things at Sea Watch?”
    Cai studied her for a moment with his face creased into a frown. Then he said, “We only had three new birds in this morning. According to the coastguard the oil’s breaking up much faster than everyone thought it would.”
    “Good,” said Antonia. “That means…” She was about to say that Spirit and his pod could come back soon, but stopped herself in time.
    “What?” prompted Cai.
    “It means less damage to the sea,” Antonia said lamely. “How are the birds that came in yesterday?”
    Cai paused. “Eight of them died last night, including the ones we bathed.”
    Antonia felt as if a hole had opened up in her stomach. First Lauren and now this! She swallowed, forcing herself not to get upset.
    “What happened? Did we do something wrong?”
    Cai shook his head. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Aunty Claudia said it’s quite common for birds to die after they’ve been cleaned up. Some have been too badly poisoned to recover and some just die from shock.”
    Miss Brown came in carrying the register so Cai went to his place. Antonia stared out of the window wishing school was over and she could
go
to Sea Watch. Lessons seemed a waste of time when she could be helping there instead. She was also longing to tell Claudia that she’d been to see Spirit. Antonia wasalmost certain she hadn’t been imagining things yesterday when she’d heard Claudia’s voice in her head, telling her to work things out for herself.
    “Antonia Lee, are you here or am I looking at a cardboard cut-out?” Miss Brown’s voice broke into Antonia’s thoughts, bringing her out of her daydream.
    “Here, Miss,” she answered meekly.
    “Nice to have you with us.” Miss Brown’s pen flicked down the register as she continued calling out names. When she’d finished she held the register up in front of her.
    “Who’ll take this to the office for me?”
    “Me.” Lauren shot Antonia a sly grin. “I’ll go and give it to Mrs Lee.”
    Antonia pretended to flick through her workbook while inside her heart was thumping again. If Miss Brown picked Lauren, then she was done for.
    “Lauren, don’t call out. Luke, your hand’s up.