Read Online Leopold Blue by Rosie Rowell - Free Book Online Page A

ladder. The next moment she disappeared into the ceiling.
    At last I crawled next to her, behind the spotlights, grubby from sweat and dust.
    â€˜Cool, huh,’ she said.
    I nodded, feeling dizzy. It was as though we were perched high in a tree. All I had to do was stretch out my arms and take off. I laughed.
    â€˜What?’
    I shook my head. The giggles bubbled up, unstoppable.
    She started laughing at me. ‘Shh!’ she said.
    â€˜Sorry.’ I pressed my lips together to try and stop. ‘Sorry,’ I said again. I held my nose, and snorted like a pig, which made her laugh a generous, full-throttle laugh that transformed her face. It made it look kind.
    I followed her back with barely a downwards glance. This was a Madge thing to have done. I bet Simon had never done this type of thing. He would have been too busy coming top of the class.
    â€˜My mum thought you might want to come for lunch,’ I said, trying to sound off-hand. ‘The boarding house must be pretty dull on a Sunday.’
    â€˜Sure,’ replied Xanthe after the slightest pause. ‘Why not.’
    â€˜What does your dad do?’ I asked as we started down the bottom ladder. I made my voice light, as though the question had only then occurred to me, not one of a stack of things I was dying to know.
    She stopped. ‘I’m not really sure.’
    My heart lurched. ‘I’m sorry. Your parents are divorced?’
    â€˜No.’
    No wonder she was so odd! ‘Did he die?’ I asked quietly.
    She threw her head back and laughed.
    I clutched the railing.
    â€˜My dad is very much alive,’ she said, ‘He’s a businessman. He spends a lot of time in Russia. Mostly to get away from Shirley, I suspect.’
    â€˜Shirley?’
    â€˜My mum.’
    â€˜Nice name,’ I said, grasping at something to say. I tried to imagine a life where my father travelled to Russia and my mother was called Shirley. Xanthe stopped to deliver a particularly withering look.
    The end-of-day bell rang as we emerged from the hall. The afternoon burst into slamming doors and shouts and running feet. At the entrance of the main building, where I would turn down towards home, and she towards the boarding house, she paused. ‘You’re alright, Madgie,’ she said. Then she grinned.
    I looked down to hide the blush that spread through my cheeks. ‘You’re OK too,’ I said, but she had vanished into the bustle of girls without a backwards glance.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    My stomach woke me early on Sunday morning. It squeezed and pinched like a coiled-up dishcloth. I stared at the purple curtains above my bed. They made me sick. Six months ago, flicking through one of Mum’s
Fair Lady
magazines, I had seen the curtains that would change my life. The fabric was a pattern of spring blossom in dusty pink and yellow and green against a cream background. They were airy and sophisticated and if only I were only lying in bed looking at them, I’d have had nothing to worry about.
    I groaned and turned my back on them, to face an aged and curling poster of Munch’s ‘The Scream’.
    The night before, in a fit of nerves, I had torn down the ‘Too cute to care’ kittens poster that had been on my wall so long that large greasy spots marked each corner. The Garfield poster followed that and the breaching Bottlenose dolphins. All that remained was Kirk Cameron smiling down at me from the ceiling. He had to stay – he knew too many secrets to be thrown away.
    Beth had appeared as I stared at the grubby, flecked walls. ‘Do you want to borrow my Bon Jovi posters?’ she’d asked. It was a big offer. ‘But if she likes them you have to say they are mine.’ she added.
    I couldn’t imagine what music Xanthe listened to but I had a feeling it wasn’t Bon Jovi. In the end I had settled on ‘The Scream’ from a box of posters in the attic. Last night it seemed edgy