Read Online Freaks Out! by Jean Ure - Free Book Online Page B

probably manage to go to church every Sunday for at least a year. ”
    I said, “ Probably? For a year ?”
    â€œI know,” said Jem, “it’s a terribly long time, but I thought it was the least I could do.”
    She was positively oozing with the spirit of self-sacrifice. I could almost see this little halo of light hovering just above her.
    â€œI could hardly offer him anything less,” said Jem. “Not if we want him to make it a priority.”
    I had actually been going to suggest she might have offered him more. I mean, what good was a year? Being a saint is pretty serious stuff, I would have thought. Saints suffer. Horrible things happen to them, like being pierced witharrows and burned at the stake. I couldn’t see Saint Anthony was going to be satisfied with one measly year. Seemed to me it was a bit of an insult, really.
    I said this to Jem, but she rather pompously informed me that I had no idea what I was talking about. She said Saint Anthony hadn’t been pierced with arrows or burned at the stake, and she reckoned a year was about right.
    I said, “We shall see. I’m giving him till the weekend.”
    â€œThen what?” said Jem.
    â€œThen I shall take over,” I said.
    Â 
    Later that day, first period after lunch, we had PE. It was hockey with Miss Turnbull, and I just knew that everyone except me and Daisy Hooper were hoping it would rain. All the rest of my class are total wimps, like, “Yeeurgh, mud!” and “Ouch, my ankle!” and “Please, miss, can I be excused?” Skye says hockey is barbaric. Even Jem, who can runreally fast when she wants, complains that it is pointless.
    â€œJust churning up and down, whacking at things.”
    I happen to enjoy churning up and down. And whacking at things. So does Daisy. We are great rivals when it comes to hockey. Miss Turnbull always puts us on different teams and tells us to pick. Neither of us ever wants to pick Skye. Not even loyalty to a friend would make me pick her unless I absolutely had to cos of no one else being left.
    Today she looked so forlorn, trailing her hockey stick behind her as if it were some kind of poisonous snake that might sink its fangs in her leg at any moment, that I went into total meltdown and heard myself calling her name before I properly realised what I was doing. Daisy shot me a look of triumph, like, “Gotcha!” Having Skye on your team means you are almost doomed to lose, and I do hate losing! Especially to Daisy. But I think it must be really humiliating to be left till last allthe time, and Skye can’t help being useless at sports. Jem simply can’t be bothered, but Skye has no ball sense whatsoever, and I think her legs must be too long for her body, cos when she runs it’s like she’s wobbling about on stilts.
    That day she was even more useless than usual. Miss Turnbull kept encouraging her to “Move, Skye! Move!” But then when she did move she got in people’s way, and the game surged round her, with everyone yelling and sticks clashing, until in the end she just stopped dead, like she was confused by it all, and this huge great girl called Roseanne Stubbs charged into her and sent her flying. Miss Turnbull told her to go straight to the office and get herself checked out, and, oh yes, my team lost, which I’d known they would.
    Skye didn’t appear for our last class, and when we went to the office afterwards Mrs Tully said that she’d sent her home. I immediately texted her: You OK? She texted back, Ha ha, got outa hockey! Jem craned over to see.
    â€œOh, clever,” she said. “She did it on purpose!”
    But I didn’t really think that she had.
    â€œJust one more day,” I said to Jem. “If nothing’s happened by this time tomorrow…”
    Jem said, “What?”
    â€œI shall have to take matters into my own hands!”
    The truth was, I was still feeling