Read Online Friday Barnes 2 by R. A. Spratt - Free Book Online Page B

she didn’t,’ said Friday, looking shrewdly at Jacinta.
    â€˜What do you mean?’ asked Trea.
    â€˜Jacinta – if Jacinta is her real name – knows what I mean,’ said Friday mysteriously.
    Jacinta looked nervous. ‘No, I don’t.’
    Trea was not interested anymore. ‘Well, that doesn’t matter now because I’ve got my calculator back.’ She smiled at Friday. ‘So I don’t have to pay you, do I?’ The smile teetered over into smugness. Trea left, bouncing out the door.
    â€˜You should have a call-out fee, like plumbers,’ said Melanie. ‘To stop people needlessly interrupting our homework.’
    â€˜You were napping,’ said Friday.
    â€˜Which is an even greater crime to interrupt,’ said Melanie.
    Friday turned back to Jacinta and stared at her as if she were as fascinating as a bloodstained murder weapon.
    â€˜Why are you here?’ asked Jacinta.
    â€˜I solve mysteries,’ said Friday. ‘I enjoy it.’
    â€˜I’ve returned the calculator, if that was the problem,’ said Jacinta, defensively.
    â€˜The calculator barely counted as a problem,’ said Friday. ‘There is something much more interesting going on here.’
    â€˜I don’t know what you are talking about,’ said Jacinta.
    â€˜There’s no point lying to me,’ said Friday. ‘I  always  proceed on the assumption that everyone is  lying all the time, which allows me to discount everything they say.’
    â€˜I’m not lying about anything,’ protested Jacinta.
    â€˜Yes, yes,’ said Friday as she walked along with her ear pressed to the wall, rapping the dry wall with her knuckle. ‘As I said, I’m not listening to you.’ She went over to the door and looked about in the corridor. ‘Is that a janitor’s cupboard next to your room?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Jacinta cautiously.
    Friday went down the corridor and tried the door to the cupboard. It didn’t budge. Not even the handle turned. ‘Someone has put glue in this lock,’ said Friday.
    â€˜Perhaps it was the janitor so he could get out of cleaning the floors?’ guessed Melanie.
    Friday came back into Trea and Jacinta’s room and looked about. She went over to the built-in wardrobe. ‘You don’t mind if I open this, do you?’ she asked.
    â€˜Well, actually …’ began Jacinta.
    But it was too late. Friday had slid open the door and pushed aside the hanging clothes. Then she didthe most unexpected thing. She stepped into the built-in wardrobe and disappeared.
    â€˜Goodness,’ said Melanie, ‘you haven’t got an entrance into Narnia in your wardrobe, have you? I  was most disappointed when I was told that those books were fiction, so if it is in fact real I will be very pleased.’
    Just then Friday stepped back out, but this time she was joined by another girl who looked exactly like Jacinta. The same height, the same hair colour, the same eye colour and the same petulant frown.
    â€˜What’s going on?’ asked Melanie. ‘Is your ward robe a cloning machine? That’s even more amazing than a doorway to Narnia.’
    â€˜This is not a clone,’ said Friday. ‘This is Jacinta’s identical twin sister.’
    â€˜Twins!’ exclaimed Melanie. ‘Okay, I can see that is slightly more plausible than Narnia or a cloning machine. But it still does seem very strange.’
    â€˜Which one of you is the real Jacinta?’ asked Friday.
    â€˜I am,’ said the girl from the wardrobe.
    â€˜I’m Abigail,’ said the girl who they had previously thought was Jacinta.
    â€˜So you’re both here,’ said Friday. ‘But you take it in turns going to classes and sleeping out here in the proper bed.’
    â€˜Yes,’ agreed the twins.
    â€˜Why?’ asked Friday.
    â€˜Yes,’ said Melanie. ‘Usually