Wicked! Read Online Free PDF

woman – particularly one in a denim mini, with a smudged face and her red curls in a ponytail.
    ‘Have you flown in to rescue us?’ she mocked. ‘Like Red Adair in a skirt?’
    ‘No, I’ve come to show you how to save yourselves,’ retorted Janna tartly, then, remembering Stew’s advice about not antagonizing people, added, ‘How are Scarlet and Meagan? They must have loved having you to themselves in the holidays.’
    Rowan relented fractionally and said they had, then launched into a list of staff requests for broken chairs, desks, leaking windows and computers to be mended.
    ‘And Mrs Sharpe wants a blind. The sun casts such a glare, no one can read the whiteboard in the afternoon.’
    Cara Sharpe’s own glare, Janna would have thought, would see off any competition.
    ‘And my anglepoise lamp collapses without the aid of two bulldog clips and the angle being wedged open by the last Education Year Book ,’ went on Rowan. ‘If Wally could sort all those things out before term begins?’
    ‘Wally’s flat out,’ snapped Janna.
    Rowan glanced round the office. ‘Yes, I can see. Nice settee. We have to watch the budget now S and C hold the purse strings.’
    Slowly, Janna familiarized herself with classrooms, halls, gym and labyrinthine adjoining corridors in the main building, which was known as School House. Fifty yards away, the annexe, known as Appletree because it had been built on the site of an old orchard, housed the labs, music, design and technology and food technology departments.
    Then she pored over the children’s personal files, counting the asylum-seekers, Indians, Pakistanis and Afro-Caribbeans – far fewer than at Redfords. She had also noticed lots of BNPs and swastikas amongst the graffiti: she would have to watch out for racist bullying. She was now frantically trying to memorize the names before term began.
    ‘The ones you have to watch are those going into Year Nine and particularly the Wolf Pack,’ said Wally as he carried in a mini-fridge for milk, butter and orange juice, and put jam, marmalade, coffee, tea bags, lots of biscuits, two packs of Mars and Twix bars and a tin of Quality Street in the cupboard. ‘These won’t last a minute.’
    ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Janna, who was gazing down at a photograph of a beautiful black boy with long dark eyelashes and a smile of utter innocence.
    Wally glanced over her shoulder. ‘He’s Wolf Pack. Feral Jackson. Comes into school to play football and start fights. Very druggy background; mother’s an addict, off her face all day. Feral went inside at the beginning of the holidays for mugging some women shoppers. His brother Joey was shot to death last year. Uncle Harley, his mum’s boyfriend, is a mega pusher. That’s Feral’s best mate, Paris Alvaston.’
    Janna looked at the boy’s ghostly face, the wonderful bone structure, the watchful pale grey eyes of a merle collie.
    ‘Paris has been in different care homes since he was two,’ added Wally. ‘Goes AWOL from time to time on trains all over the country searching for his mother. Advertised for a home in the local paper last year, but there were no takers. Shame really.’
    ‘That’s terrible.’ Janna reached out and switched on the kettle. ‘Poor boy.’
    ‘Looks too spooky. Teachers say he’s very clever, writes wonderful stories one day, then just puts his name at the top of the paper the next. Everything goes inside. He and Feral are joined at the very narrow hip. Give them a detention and they jump out of the window, climb down the wisteria and run away.
    ‘That’s Griffith Williams, known as “Graffi”.’ Wally pointed to a thickset boy with black curls and wicked sliding dark eyes. ‘Graffi was a Welshman, Graffi was a thief . . . But he’s a good laugh. Don’t stand anywhere near him or he’ll graffiti you. That’s Pearl Smith: she’s got a temper on her, scratch the eyes out of any girl who tries to get off with her boys, particularly Feral. She’s