Read Online Losing Nicola by Susan Moody - Free Book Online

recommendation.
    Orlando, who’d been lounging in an armchair, moved in on my behalf. ‘If you think about it, though, Alice’s plaits are such a bother to do,’ he said, smooth as dripping. ‘You’d save a lot of time if you don’t have to do them every morning.’
    â€˜That’s very true.’
    â€˜So I
can
have them cut off?’
    â€˜Let me think about it. I don’t want you growing up too fast.’
    When a couple of days later, Fiona agreed that I could go to Bette’s Salon and have my hair cut short, I was ecstatic, although I felt a brief pang at the loss of my moments alone with my mother. The desire to enter what I perceived as Nicola’s far more sophisticated world was too strong. I believed I would end up looking something like Nicola, that I would become a different shape, a different size, a better, prettier, more fascinating person at the snip of a pair of scissors. With my plaits gone, I too would emerge from my dumpy chrysalis and fly like a butterfly in little denim skirts and skimpy tops, charming everyone.
    Enchanted as I was by Nicola, I had to admit that there was a more sinister side to her. Once, as we sat on the beach, idly throwing stones into the sea, she asked us what we were most afraid of. ‘I’m absolutely terrified of spiders, for instance,’ she confided, gazing at us with wide eyes.
    â€˜That’s called arachnophobia,’ said Orlando.
    â€˜Oh, you’re
so
clever, Orlando. I wish I was clever like you.’
    â€˜Do you really?’ He stared at her, one eyebrow raised.
    â€˜Of course I do. I’d get top marks at school, and I wouldn’t be afraid of anything, just like you.’
    â€˜Who says I’m not afraid of things?’
    â€˜Like what, then?’
    â€˜Clowns,’ I said, thoughtlessly. ‘You hate clowns.’
    â€˜Clowns?’ Nicola laughed. ‘You’re afraid of
clowns
?’
    â€˜Not afraid. I just think they’re stupid.’
    â€˜Isn’t that the whole point of them?’ said Charles.
    â€˜What’s there to hate about a clown?’ Nicola persisted. ‘I mean, is it their big feet you don’t like? Or those stupid bobbles they wear? Or is it their faces, all painted up, and those big slobbery lips?’ There was a curious light in her eyes, a small smile on her face.
    â€˜Nothing particular,’ Orlando said. ‘I just don’t like them.’
    â€˜It’s their faces, isn’t it? Those awful white masks. Terrifying, I suppose, if you’re frightened of that kind of thing.’
    Orlando got up. His upper lip was sweaty as he stood looking down at her. ‘There’s a money spider on the collar of your blouse,’ he remarked.
    She screamed, batting at her neck, twisting around in panic as though trying to shake the thing off.
    â€˜Here, let me . . .’ Julian bent close, pretending to examine her blouse. ‘I can’t see anything. He’s having you on.’
    Orlando grinned brutally. The pebbles shifted under his feet as he turned to climb the shifting slopes of the beach. ‘I’m going to the library,’ he said. ‘You want to come, Alice?’
    â€˜Yes, go on, Alice,’ said Nicola, her eyes vicious. ‘Go and be a little swot like him.’
    I was torn. I could see how badly Orlando needed me to be on his side in the unspoken war between the two, but I wanted to stay with Nicola, be part of whatever hidden spell she exerted. ‘I’ll stay here,’ I muttered, not meeting his eye, knowing I was making the wrong decision, that by letting him down, I was letting down myself.
    Although the rest of us were away at school, during term-time Nicola took the train every day to the grammar school, the school where Prunella Vane taught domestic science and Bella had recently started.
    â€˜That girl’s really awful.’ Bella told us, half-admiringly, when we came