Read Online Phosphorescence by Raffaella Barker - Free Book Online Page B

is amazed.
    â€˜You mean they’re actually talking to you?’
    â€˜I promise you, I am Pansy’s new BF’ Delighted by having surprised Nell so much, I drop into the sofa and deliver the most impressive bit. ‘She’s bringing me a black cherry alcopop to school tomorrow. It’s from the States. Everyone’s drinking them there apparently.’
    â€˜Cool, but I bet you won’t like it. You hate the taste of alcohol. Just make sure you do drink it so you can tell me exactly what it’s like and I can pretend to everyone here that I’ve tried it too – oh. Hang on, Lola, Mum’s shouting something.’
    Half listening to Nell’s muffled conversation with her mum, I gaze around the sitting room of the flat. I can’t call it ‘our’ flat and definitely not ‘home’. Although it is much better with the cushions and stuff. The trouble is, they are a bit like my new clothes – all bought at once to fill the space, not accumulatedover time, and with love, the way things are in a home.
    Mum isn’t back from work. Early summer afternoon sunlight slices through the dusty window and on to my legs. I wriggle down so the warmth plays on my midriff, now permanently exposed to show I am accepted by the crowd. Mum won’t be back until about seven, so I can play my music as loud as I like, or I could if I wanted to. It’s funny, though, I haven’t really taken advantage of the empty flat. At home I always played loud music, and I would never hear Mum yelling up the stairs at me to turn it down. The sound in my bedroom under the eaves used to swirl and fill my room – even the whole quayside if I had the windows open. Dad used to come right in and stand there smiling at himself because I wouldn’t notice him and I’d carry on fiddling about, putting up posters or singing along. He never minded my music like Mum did, which is funny considering he is surrounded by quiet all day with his work. Maybe that’s why.
    Here, though, the silence of the flat is too enormous, and I find myself being hushed in it. I always take my shoes off when I come in; you don’t need them on here, and the people downstairs might complain if they heard me clumping about in my stacks. It’s weird that in the city there is no need to go outside – from getting back after school until the next morning when I go down the stairs to the street door for school again. At home, being outside was as much of life as inside, but here it hardly exists. I miss the sea. I hadn’t realized how loud it was until I cameaway. Now all the traffic out on the road doesn’t talk to me the way the sea used to, keeping me company in my room in Staitheley. Cactus would hate it here, and the people in the flat below would definitely complain about his claws skittering on the floorboards and the way he used to yap and jump in circles when I came back home. I am usually silent in the flat. The only time I shout is when I’m on the phone to Nell, because she knows just how to wind me up and make me really laugh.
    She is teasing me now. I call her the minute I am back from school, and I am dying to tell her something. As usual, she goes straight to what I want to talk about.
    â€˜Hey, Lola, how’s your love life now you’re friends with the cool crew? It is so boring here. There is no one new to meet. And Josh is doing exams so he is always busy.’
    â€˜Actually, there is one guy.’ I keep my voice casual, although I have thought of nothing else since break today. ‘I’ve only seen him, not actually spoken to him, but this boy called Harry Sykes is gorgeous.’
    â€˜How old is he?’
    â€˜He’s nearly seventeen. He’s got exams so he hasn’t been in school that much. He’s been studying, but he’s a skateboarding freak and he’s a graffiti artist.’
    Nell laughs. ‘How can you be a graffiti artist?