Read Online Lifesaving for Beginners by Ciara Geraghty - Free Book Online Page B

they were kids. Everyone believed it, including me. They’re even more identical than Fred and George Weasley. They are studying science in London, which happens to be the capital of the UK and England. Ten million people live in London. Ten million and two, now that Ant and Adrian are there.
    Damo thinks Ant and Adrian are cool. Probably because they have long hair and they don’t live at home anymore. Damo says that when he doesn’t have to live at home anymore, he’ll stay up all night and he’ll eat his dessert before his dinner and he’ll never eat one single green. That’s what he calls vegetables. Greens. Even carrots and cauliflowers.
    Tonight we are having beans on toast for our dinner. I don’t like beans so I am having toast. Adrian makes my favourite drink, which happens to be hot chocolate with two marshmallows on the top. If Mam was here she would make me eat the beans. Or she would make something else, like spaghetti Bolognese. I love spaghetti Bolognese. Spaghetti is made from flour and water. Miss Williams has a machine that can make spaghetti. I’d love a machine like that. Today, she asked us to write a story about anything we like so long as it had the words adventure and holiday and storm in it. She likes getting us to write long stories so she can text her boyfriend during the class. Damo says he’s read her messages and there’s lots of sexy talk in them, but I don’t know if that’s true.
    I wrote about me and Mam going on holiday to Spain. That bit is true. We really did go on holiday to Spain last year. In the story, I said we sailed there and there was a big storm one night and we got tossed overboard and we would have drowned if it hadn’t been for my lifesaving, because I was able to rescue everybody, even Mam. That’s not true. We went to Spain in an aeroplane. There was no storm but it rained one day and the waves were huge and Mam wouldn’t let me go swimming. Miss Williams liked my story. She says I’m going to be a writer when I grow up but I don’t want to be a writer. How boring is that? She also says that I might be a computer programmer on account of being the person she always asks to fix the computers at school whenever there’s a problem with one of them. She points at me and says, ‘Fix it, Bill.’ I like computers but I’m still not going to be a computer programmer, even if Bill Gates happens to be the richest man in the galaxy.
    No, what I’m going to be is a lifesaver. Maybe on a beach or in the swimming pool. So is Damo, even though he doesn’t go to lifesaving like me. I said I’ll teach him everything I know next summer, if Faith brings us to the pool. Or the beach, maybe.
    Faith and Ant and Adrian are drinking wine with their dinner. Adrian’s not really supposed to drink wine because of what happened when Dad told Mam about Celia. Adrian drank loads of wine that night and Dad couldn’t see out of his left eye for about a week afterwards, on account of the swelling.
    I drank wine once but I had to spit it out. It looks like blood. When you cut a worm in two, it doesn’t die. It just grows into two worms. Me and Damo cut one but nothing happened. It just lay on the path and didn’t move, and then we got bored waiting so we went and climbed the tree in Damo’s back garden. I can get to the middle bit but Damo goes all the way to the top. I checked on my way home and the worms were gone.
    After dinner, I go into the sitting room but the only movie that’s on is Up and I’ve seen it loads of times. Mam loves that movie but she always cries when Carl looks at the pictures of Ellie in his photo album.
    I pick up the zapper and change the channel. Some boring programme about women who make stuff out of lace. Who cares? Ads, ads, ads. Some show about men going bald. Football. People talking about football. Another football match. Film reviews. This is better. The latest Declan Darker movie. Faith says I’m not allowed to watch those movies until I’m