Read Online Alana Oakley by Poppy Inkwell - Free Book Online Page A

Sweetie,” she whispered loudly. “I used to have a crush on Johnny Pike. He was as cute as a button. A bit of a ‘bad boy’ too,” she added. Alana wanted to D-I-E! “Lucky for you it’s the beginning of Term. Here,” Mrs Machlin said, handing Alana a piece of paper, “this is your amended timetable. Good luck with ‘Malay’!” she said with an exaggerated wink.
    Alana left before Mrs Machlin could do or say anything more to embarrass her. But she did risk one last look over her shoulder and caught Flynn’s eye. His waggling eyebrows said it all. Naturally, after yesterday, Flynn would assume she was ‘desperate’ to transfer to his class because of him . Alana left the office seething.

CHAPTER 12
    Dating for Dummies
    Alana knew her mum had a soft spot for animals, but even she was amazed when Emma, with a screech, stopped her from squashing a cockroach.
    â€œWatch out! That’s Harry!”
    â€œHarry?” Alana repeated, confused.
    â€œOr it could be Leo. It’s hard to tell.”
    Harry-or-Leo showed no sign that he was facing death. In fact he showed no fear at all. If Alana didn’t know better, it looked like the insect was waving his antennae in a gesture of welcome, in a “Hey, whassup? Make yourself at home” -kind of way. Any minute now he would offer them a beverage and light a cigarette. After all, if predictions about who would survive the end of the world were to be believed, this was his house, his world … humans were merely temporary tenants. Alana shooed the bug away. It moved off with a reluctant scrabble.
    â€œYou’re feeding it?” she accused her mum, holding a container of organic waste at eye-level, twisting it round and round. Mushy leaves of week-old spinach melded with apple cores, potato peelings, soggy beetroot and limp carrots. Rude protrusions grew from knobby vegetable cuts as they squatted in the putrefying mass.
    â€œNot really,” Emma said, looking momentarily guilty before becoming distracted again.
    â€œYou know, if you don’t put food scraps in the compost, they turn into a biohazard,” Alana told her mum, whose sole response was a vague, “Uh huh.”
    â€œAnd gkjkdgj.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd did you know sfhnaorfkh?”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œI knew it! You’re doing it again, Mum. You’re not listening!” Alana glared at her mother, who was still in her nightie, hair un-brushed, searching frantically under furniture on her hands and knees. Alana tamed her hair with a combination of sheer willpower and extra-strong gel, while Emma – like the strays she used to save – allowed hers to grow wild and roam free.
    â€œOf course I listen, Clever-Clogs. I’ve just got this awful deadline and I can’t remember where I put my writing,” Emma said, checking under the toaster and behind a pot plant for a missing piece of paper. Alana’s mum, as a freelance journalist, got to do really amazing things sometimes, like interview rock stars like Slam Guru and people like Cristina Ibrahmovic, who had brought gymnastics to underprivileged children. But when she wrote up these interviews she usually did them on whatever was handiest: paper napkins, telephone bills, even cereal boxes. The 1930s semi-detached terrace which Emma and Alana called home was long, narrow and dark, which made it even more difficult to find the random pieces of paper upon which Emma wrote her ideas.
    â€œShe’s feeding it!” Alana said to no-one in particular. If she was honest, these expostulations were directed at her dad, for only Hugo would believe that Emma was nurturing cockroaches or had misplaced her writing. Again. Only he would understand Alana’s frustration. Alana had an important soccer match coming up, class tests, now TWO torture-obsessed teachers, and Flynn-the-Fraud who her friends couldn’t stop talking about. And if