The Angel of Nitshill Road Read Online Free PDF Page B

twentieth time that day, Penny hitched her skirt up and grinned. She wasn’t going to tighten her buttons. Not yet! Having your clothes flapping was much nicer than having them bulging.
    Now Marigold had lifted the battered old box off Mark’s head. The joke was over, so Penny joined the gang of people crowding round Celeste.
    â€˜Can I be first and sign in the silver?’
    â€˜Let me be yellow!’
    â€˜Bags be green!’
    But Celeste hadn’t even opened the black book.
    â€˜There’s nothing to write,’ she told them. ‘Everyone had a good time. If someone’s unhappy, then it goes in the book. Ifeveryone’s happy, then it doesn’t.’
    They all thought about it for a moment. It seemed fair enough, as rules went. Much fairer, anyway, than letting Barry Hunter get away with making people miserable and then saying: ‘Only a joke. Only a game.’
    Yes. It was a good way to judge.
    Content, they watched Celeste tuck the black book safely away under her arm. Content, they followed her into the school.

10
Goodbye, Celeste
    â€˜The bell hasn’t rung yet,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘Why is everyone in your class except Barry Hunter inside?’
    Mr Fairway sighed and put his mug down on the draining board.
    â€˜Blame Celeste,’ he said. ‘Since she came, none of them have been the same.’
    Mrs Brown glanced at him thoughtfully.
    â€˜Perhaps that’s no bad thing,’ she said. ‘When you remember how some of them were before.’
    He thought about that all down the corridor. It was so much on his mind that when the school secretary popped her head round the office door and said, ‘Guess who’s leaving?’ he answered right first time.
    â€˜Celeste!’
    So
that
was why the whole lot had trooped in before the bell. To bring him the sad news. And he
was
sad. She was a strange little creature, but he would miss her.
    He pushed the classroom door open.
    There they all stood in a half circle around her. Celeste had even more of a glow than usual on her face. In fact, she looked radiant.
    â€˜Well!’ he said, sitting heavily at his desk. ‘This is a sad day!’
    She gave him one of her celestial smiles.
    â€˜I have something for you,’ she told him, and nodded to Marigold, who stepped up and gave him a black book patterned with gold. At first, from the solemn way she handed it over, he thought that it must be a Bible. But then he realised it was the book he’d seen them poring over so often in the playground. And in the cloakrooms. And in class.
    â€˜Thank you,’ he said, and opened it to take a look inside.
    It was a shock. A horrid, horrid book. An ugly catalogue of pain and humiliation and fear and spite. He felt sick reading it. He turned over two or three more pages, feeling all their eyes on him, then raised his own to Celeste.
    â€˜Is this really what you’re leaving me?’ he asked. ‘A book of tale-telling.’
    Celeste said steadily:
    â€˜Granny says the rule not to tell tales was invented by bullies –’ Her sky-blue eyes met his across the desk. ‘And the people who don’t really want to stand up to them.’ He couldn’t meet her gaze any longer.
    He looked down. Another horrid passage caught his eye. He read it to the end. Oh, poor, poor Marigold! No wonder she went round pretending to be deaf, if that’s what she heard all day! And Mark! The numberof times he must have been tricked into getting into trouble. And Penny! ‘Moving mountain’ indeed! And all the other things that happened to the rest. How horrible to be kept from using the lavatory, or fetching your coat! How nasty to have your things snatched and hidden all day long! Your games ruined, your family called rude names, your jacket torn and muddied.

    â€˜Why didn’t anyone tell me all this was going on?’
    Those sky-blue eyes again. She didn’tanswer. She knew as