Read Online My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher - Free Book Online

why I came inside . The Headmaster asked Mrs Farmer if it was true. She shook her head. Ask him Daniel exploded, flinging his hand in my direction. Jamie was there when it happened . It was only a tiny movement, a nudge of Sunya’s elbow, but I understood at once. Daniel’s voice was pleading now. He was scared. Tell them, Jamie. Tell them what that girl with the pigtails said . For the first time that day, I looked him straight in the eye. Sorry, Daniel. I don’t know what you’re talking about .
    Mrs Farmer was too upset to teach us so the fat dinner lady read us some stories instead. When it was time to go home, everyone raced out of the classroom, all except Sunya. I wanted to say something but I didn’t know where to begin. So I just opened my pencil case and made sure my pens were all facing the same way. When I had nothing left to do, I looked up to find Sunya watching me, licking a pink lollipop. It was identical to the one the girl had been sucking when she’d told Daniel to go inside. Bribery Sunya shrugged, as if her idea had been simple rather than the number one best plan in the entire world and probably the universe, which Mrs Farmer says goes on and on forever without stopping.
    I nodded and my head spun and I felt scared and giddy all at the same time, like you do when you’re about to get on a rollercoaster. Sunya reached into her pocket and pulled out two Blu-Tack rings. One of them had a brown stone stuck in the middle. The other had a white stone. Without speaking, she walked over to me, her sparkling eyes like spotlights on my face. Then she pushed the brown ring onto her middle finger and handed me the white one, her face all serious. I paused for about a millisecond, then shoved it on my finger.

 
    T HE LEAVES IN the puddles look like dead goldfish. And all the green has turned brown and purple, as if the hills have got bruises. I like the world this way. Summer’s a bit too bright for me. A bit too happy. Flowers dancing and birds singing like nature’s having a big party. Autumn’s better. Everything’s a bit more droopy and you don’t feel left out of all the fun.
    It’s almost the end of October, which is just about my favourite time of year. Of all the festivals like Christmas and Easter, Halloween is my best. I love dressing up and I love getting sweets and I’m quite good at playing tricks. Mum didn’t let me buy any tricks when I was little so I had to invent my own. She said Everyone will give you a treat and no one will ask for a trick , which was the biggest lie she ever told apart from the one about Dad. On the third anniversary of Rose’s death, Dad got drunk and had a go at Mum. Same stuff as always about Trafalgar Square and pigeons and how if she’d been stricter then it might never have happened. Mum was painting in the kitchen but she couldn’t see the colours through the tears in her eyes. She’d painted a heart jet black by mistake. I pointed it out and I got a brush and went round the outline in brightest red. Are you and Dad breaking up I asked when I had finished. Mum sniffed. We’re already broken she muttered. I dropped my brush into the sink. Is that a no I said, just to be sure, and Mum paused then nodded. So that was the biggest lie, but the one about Halloween was almost as bad ’cos it meant I wasn’t prepared and it was embarrassing.
    When the scary neighbour with the bulldog said Trick , I didn’t know what to do. He said Are you deaf and I shook my head and he said Do a trick then . So I asked him to close his eyes and I just pinched his arm. He said the f-word and the bulldog barked as I ran away. I didn’t dare go to any more houses that year in case the same thing happened again. But the year after that I didn’t want to miss out on all the sweets so I made up some tricks of my own.
    This Halloween’s going to be better than ever. Sunya’s got more imagination than the most imaginative person I can think of, which right now is Willy Wonka.