Read Online Secrets at Silver Spires by Ann Bryant - Free Book Online Page B

definitely quite clear that Jessica Roud couldn’t spell to save her life.
    One day I was sitting in my usual place, roughly in the middle of the room, with Isis and Sophie just behind me. Mr. Reeves was setting us some comprehension work, and as usual he told me not to worry if I couldn’t get through it all. “But I’m expecting the rest of you to manage the whole thing,” he added, before turning his attention to his laptop. Immediately there was a buzz of noise, but Mr. Reeves was already in his own little world, slapping a CD into the CD player and frowning at the case, too engrossed to tell us to be quiet.
    I could have died, but I just sighed inside and tried to settle down to read the mass of words in front of me. A moment later though I felt my face getting hot because Sophie said something to Isis in a voice just loud enough for me to hear.
    â€œHey, Isis, don’t you wish you could do about half the work of everyone else and not even get told off?”
    â€œYou’re not kidding!”
    My throat felt suddenly as though it had something stuck in it and I couldn’t swallow. Half of me wanted to turn round and shout and scream, but the other half was scared and cowering. I tried not to move at all. Maybe they’d think I hadn’t heard. Everyone else was taking the opportunity to chat with their friends while Mr. Reeves was engrossed with trying to find the right place on a CD, bits of music blasting out every so often, the noise level rising.
    I forced myself to try and read the words on the page in front of me instead of just staring at them, but I’d only sounded out half a sentence when Isis’s voice made me freeze.
    â€œHey, Sophie, how about we deliberately make a few spelling mistakes? Then all the teachers will be really nice to us.”
    That did it. My misery and temper started to roll into one because I was never going to be able to cope in this world of words. Not caring about anything any more, I ripped a page out of my English book and handed it back to Isis. “There you go!” I said in a hiss. “Why not start with those? There are at least three spelling mistakes on every line, because I can’t help it. I can’t spell. Satisfied?”
    I turned away abruptly, feeling my face flooding with colour. It was pathetic, what I’d just said. I was going to be the laughing stock of the class. Why couldn’t I have thought of something calm and clever to say that would make them feel small, like Naomi had done?
    Around me the class chatted on happily and Mr. Reeves pointed the remote in small impatient jerks at the CD player. Isis and Sophie fell silent behind me but I imagined them rolling their eyes at each other. And when I dared to glance round I saw that no one seemed to have noticed the little pocket of despair where I sat in the middle.
    For the rest of that day and for the next two days I don’t remember feeling happy at all. Isis and Sophie looked at me as though I was an amusing little child, and although they didn’t make any nasty comments in the next English lesson, and didn’t come anywhere near me and my friends in the dining hall, I was still tense and anxious. What if they said something to Grace and the others, now they knew for sure that I’d got a big problem?
    And if I wasn’t replaying that whole horrible English lesson and getting myself worked up all over again, I was trying to think what I could possibly do about the eyes for my art piece. It would be such a shame if this one vital part was missing when I’d worked so hard on the wire bodies. All four of them were finished now, and each figure was made with two strands of wire twisted round into a double, and then three doubles plaited together. It had taken me ages. My girl figure looked incredible, with the bubble wrap in the exact shape of a skirt, and on the top half I’d wrapped the bubble wrap round so it looked like a