Read Online Is by Derek Webb - Free Book Online

late afternoon sun was making the bricks glow on the houses over the road.
    Maybe I should go down the road and see Brian, I thought. But I didn’t move. I was thinking about Is. Why had she told me all those things?
    She said her mother had died and her father had remarried when she was four. But it was her father that had died. So Mrs Williams was her real mother, not her stepmother at all.
    â€˜Penny for them.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Penny for your thoughts,’ said mum. ‘You looked miles away.’
    â€˜Oh, did I? I suppose I was.’
    â€˜Shall I get you some tea then?’ she said, as she put her magazine down and got up. ‘Or what about a drink and we’ll both eat with Dad when he gets home?’
    â€˜Okay, yes.’ I looked back out of the window, lost in thought again for a second. ‘At least I’ve got a dad though. Isabel hasn’t.’
    A horrified look crossed my mum’s face. ‘What do you mean Rob? You mean he’s died! But when? Oh, poor Isabel!’
    â€˜Years ago.’
    â€˜But…? What are you talking about, Rob? I don’t understand.’
    â€˜Neither do I. I’ve only just found out myself. Isabel’s father actually died three years ago and she lives with her mother on her own.’
    â€˜I thought she lived with her stepmother. I thought her mother died and her father remarried…’
    â€˜That’s what I thought too. It’s what she told me.’
    â€˜Why on earth would she say such a thing?’ Mum shook her head in disbelief and disapproval. Then she sighed, ‘Ah well, I’ll make some drinks shall I?’
    â€˜If you ask me,’ she continued from the kitchen, ‘that Isabel lives in a fantasy world.’
    That certainly seemed true enough. After all, if Isabel believing she was Isambard Brunel wasn’t living in a fantasy world what was? Reincarnation indeed! Who did she think she was kidding?
    Mind you, I had to admit she did seem to know an awful lot about Brunel. She must have seen a film or read a book or something – yes that was it. And all this about her father was just another fantasy. It was then I realised another thing. It must have been Isabel who smashed that ballerina. Of course!
    The blazing row had been between her and her mother, not between ‘Dad and Penny’, like Isabel had said. Next day when I got to school I was going to have a good talk with Isabel Williams.
    As it happened, when I arrived at school the following morning, there was no sign of her.
    â€˜Isabel Williams,’ called out Mr Gregory and, hearing no reply, he looked up.
    â€˜Isabel Williams,’ he repeated, looking straight at her empty chair. He could see there was nobody there. Did he expect the chair to answer? How on earth he got to be a teacher I’ll never know. He was like a dinosaur: an enormous lumbering body with a pea-sized brain. The thought of Brontosaurus Gregory made me giggle.
    â€˜Morgan!’ The booming voice of Bronto stopped me mid giggle.
    â€˜Yes, Sir?’
    â€˜Something amusing you, Morgan?’
    â€˜No, Sir.’
    â€˜Then why are you giggling, may I ask?’
    â€˜I don’t know, Sir.’
    â€˜â€œI don’t know, Sir,”’ Mr Gregory imitated me in a particularly silly voice.
    Then he reverted to his normal silly voice: ‘And I don’t suppose you know where young Williams is this fine day either do you?’
    â€˜No, Sir.’
    â€˜Is there anything you do know, Morgan?’
    I resisted the temptation to say ‘No, Sir’ once again and instead tried to look contrite.
    At that Mr Gregory ignored me, thank goodness. ‘Wilson.’ he continued.
    â€˜Here, Sir.’
    And so another day at school began…
    * * *
    Finally it drew to a close and I decided to go round to Isabel’s on the way home to see how she was.
    I was right at the corner of Walton Road and about to turn