Read Online Lottie Project by Jacqueline Wilson - Free Book Online Page A

didn’t go round to Jamie’s house after school. Lisa and I went round to Angela’s house first because her big brother had just got some dead flash roller blades for his birthday and we were hoping we’d get to her home from our school a good half -hour before he got back from
his
school, so we could all maybe have a sneaky go on his blades. But he’d got wise to Angela’s wily ways and installed a brand-new padlock on his bedroom cupboard. We found his old skateboard stacked in a corner but we weren’t really into skateboarding any more, and anyway, one of the wheels was all wobbly.
    Angela’s mum was doing a day shift at the hospital so she couldn’t fix us anything exciting to eat so we all went round to Lisa’s instead. That was far more promising, because Lisa’s mum was being a hostess for a jewellery party that evening and so she was making all these fiddly little vol-au-vents and tarts. She let us sample them while she got busy icing a cake. Lisa wanted us to go straight up to her bedroom, but I hung around her mum for a bit, watching how she did the icing with this natty little squeezy bag.
    ‘I always wondered how people wrote those little messages,’ I said. ‘Is it difficult?’

    ‘No, pet, it’s easy as anything,’ said Lisa’s mum, and when she had finished she let me practise icing these cookies she’d baked. I iced my name and then Lisa’s and then Angela’s. That was dead crafty, because we got to eat them!
    I asked Lisa’s mum how she made the cake and she thought I was angling for a slice of that too.
    ‘Sorry, pet. I’m saving it for the ladies at my party. Hey, maybe your mother would like to come?’ She hesitated. ‘I mean, just for the chit-chat at the party. I know she’s not really in a position to buy any jewellery right this moment.’
    ‘She goes to bed really early now. Because she has to get up at five for this new job,’ I said.
    Lisa’s mum’s smooth face went into a crease of pain.
    ‘Oh my goodness. She’s being so
brave
,’ she said, as if Jo went and wrestled with a pit of poisonous snakes instead of one unwieldy industrial cleaner.
    ‘But I really would like to know how to make a sponge cake like that. We don’t make cakes at home,’ I said.
    ‘Well, it’s so simple. And really not very expensive. Tell your mother you just need to put the butter and the sugar and the flour in the blender and—’
    ‘No, we haven’t got a blender.’
    Lisa’s mum stared as if I’d said we hadn’t got a
kitchen
.
    ‘Oh. Well. I suppose you could mix it all by hand. I know!’ She went to her shelf of cookery books beside the spice rack and pulled out an old fat book; the pages had gone a little yellow. She flicked through it.
    ‘Aha! This was
my
mother’s cookery book. She certainly didn’t have a blender. Yes, there’s a whole section on cake-making. Do you think your mother would like to borrow it?’

    ‘It’s not for Jo, it’s for me. I’d
love
to borrow it,’ I said eagerly. ‘I want to suss out how to make cakes. Proper ones, not the packet sort.’
    ‘Well, good for you. I wish my Lisa would get interested in cookery. You’re a strange girl, Charlie. You’ve always seemed such a tomboy. I never thought you’d get keen on cake-making. Still, you’re all getting older. It’s only natural you’re changing.’
    ‘I’m not changing,’ I said quickly.
    ‘What’s that saying? “Too old for toys but too young for boys.” Though my Lisa has certainly started on boys already. It’s Dave this and Dave that until we’re sick of the sound of him! Which boy do you like, Charlie?’
    ‘None of them,’ I said firmly.
    ‘Give it another six months,’ said Lisa’s mum, smiling at me.
    I had to stay polite because she’d just lent me the cookery book but when I got home to Jo I moaned like anything.
    ‘She’s treating me like I’m retarded or something,’ I said. ‘Like I still play with my Barbie dolls.’
    ‘What’s wrong with Barbie