Read Online Closed Doors by Lisa O'Donnell - Free Book Online

and not see, but she’d hear me, so I scare her out of her wits and give her time to rub out the heart in the gravel.
    She screams at me. ‘What did you do that for?’
    ‘I want to practise my keepy-uppies and you’re in my way. Where is everyone anyway?’
    ‘In for their tea,’ says Dirty Alice.
    ‘Why are you not in for your tea?’ I ask.
    ‘Because Louisa Connor is in there making us shite and peas to eat and I won’t touch her food. I won’t.’
    ‘That’s daft,’ I say. ‘You’ll starve.’
    ‘I hate her.’
    ‘You can still hate her and have your dinner,’ I say.
    Dirty Alice thinks on this while her tummy grumbles like mad. ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you?’
    ‘I’m cleverer than you,’ I say. ‘Why did you blame me for the broken window, Alice? Did you really think people would believe I’d do something like that? It was stupid of you.’
    She goes red. ‘I’m sorry, Michael,’ she says. ‘I didn’t mean it. I was just mad at stupid Louisa Connor.’
    ‘She’s a nice lady. You’ll get used to her.’ My ball slips from my knee and rolls under a car.
    ‘You’re rubbish at keepy-uppies,’ Alice snips and then walks away to her house so she can chew on her shite and peas and still hate Louisa Connor. She’s a bitch, that Alice, even if she is sorry for blaming me for crimes I did not commit.
    I think Louisa is the most beautiful name in the world and when I have a baby one day I hope it will be a girl with hair like Blondie and a face like Mrs Connor.
    I practise my keepy-uppies like mad and Marianne, who has finished her tea, comes out to the car park. I think she’s going to practise her songs, but she doesn’t, she watches me do my keepy-uppies for a while and I love it. She looks like she’s never seen such skill.
    ‘I’m going to play for Celtic one day,’ I tell her.
    ‘I bet you do, Michael,’ she says.
    I love that she says this.
    ‘Do you like me, Michael?’ she says.
    I almost faint.
    ‘You’re all right,’ I say but my heart is thumping like a ball on concrete.
    ‘You want to go somewhere with me?’ she says.
    ‘Where?’ I say.
    ‘Down there,’ she says.
    It’s the bushes, the long bushes where no one can see you. It’s where kissing and all sorts of things go on and if someone sees you coming out of the bushes with a girl you get the hiding of your life and the girl is kept indoors for ever and ever. It’s worse than being caught behind a shed because you can do anything you like in the bushes and the penalty for being caught is merciless. I want to take Mrs Connor to the bushes.
    ‘All right,’ I say.
    Marianne runs to the bushes. She doesn’t care about being caught. She doesn’t care about anything. When I get there I am cold with the trembles because at last I am going to kiss Marianne Cameron. I wonder how I should start, maybe like Paul with my hand on her shoulder, but I don’t get a chance to even think about it, Marianne kisses me full on the face and puts her tongue in my mouth. I push her away. It’s disgusting.
    ‘It’s French-kissing,’ she says. ‘Everyone does it.’
    ‘I don’t.’
    ‘Because you don’t know how. I’ll show you.’
    ‘OK,’ I say. ‘But don’t put your whole tongue in and not so quickly,’ I say.
    She nods and she’s gentle this time and it’s nice, I suppose, but I still hate it and push her away. It’s like eating ham.
    ‘I don’t like it,’ I say. ‘Can’t we do it without your tongue?’ I say.
    ‘OK,’ she says.
    ‘Lie back,’ I tell her.
    She lies back. I get on top of her and put my lips on her lips and push really hard and move my head around like I’ve seen on the TV. She holds me tight but then she opens her mouth again and bites my top lip and I get off her then. It is sore and horrible. I’m very sad about the whole thing to be honest. I always thought kissing Marianne Cameron would be the most amazing thing in the entire universe, but it isn’t. She’s like