Read Online The Blissfully Dead by Mark Edwards, Louise Voss - Free Book Online Page A

bizarre and irreverent behaviour. After the singing ended, Jess had got the giggles during the two minutes’ silence for Rose, when Chloe had suddenly found that tears were pouring down her own face, even though s he hadn’t known Rose in real life. It was the sight of R ose’s poor parents that had set her off. She imagined it was her who’d been brutally murdered , and that it was her mum and dad up there at the front of the small gathering , looking as though their lives were over too. Already annoyed because Jess wouldn’t tell her why she was acting so weird, she’d snapped at her friend, who had then stormed off, leaving Chloe to get the bus home in tears on her own.
    But before that, they’d made an arrangement to meet this afternoon, to go to the Rotunda – mainly because there was this boy who always hung out there that Jess had the hots for. Jess had been a no-show. Chloe waited for ages, trying to call her friend, before giving up. In the couple of hours since then she had sent a series of increasingly worried messages, apologising for the row and begging Jess to let her know she was all right. Silence.
    She tried to take her mind off it by returning to the story she’d been working on for over a week – it was her best yet, much better than anything she’d written before, she thought. Miss Jameson , her English teacher, told Chloe she needed to write from the heart, and Chloe was finally doing that, now she felt brave enough to write about the C-word. But she found that her thoughts kept drifting anxiously back to Jess, and after ten minutes’ staring at the screen without adding a single word, she gave up. She decided to check the forums instead, but only got as far as inputting her log in – F-U-Cancer – when her mum yelled up the stairs.
    ‘Supper, Chloe!’
    Chloe grimaced, closed her laptop and bade a silent farewell to the poster of Shawn from OnTarget sellotaped to the back of her bedroom door. She trudged downstairs. ‘What is it?’
    ‘Quorn fillets in tomato sauce,’ said her mother, sliding three empty plates out of the top oven where they had been warming.
    ‘The ones in breadcrumbs? What kind of tomato sauce?’
    Her mother sighed. ‘No. Not the ones in breadcrumbs. Normal tomato sauce, like pasta sauce.’
    ‘ Eurgh . I only like the ones in breadcrumbs. Where’s Dad?’
    ‘He’s not back from the match yet. Probably gone to the pub.’
    They sat down at the table. Chloe’s little brother, Brandon, was already seated, quietly tinkering with a Transformer. He looked up when he saw his mum dishing up the food. ‘Oh no, not broccoli.’
    Chloe’s mum slammed a plate down in front of him and glared at them both.
    ‘For heaven’s sake, can we not have just one meal where you two don’t complain about everything?’
    After that they ate in silence. Chloe wanted to ask her mum’s advice but was afraid she would get on the phone to Jess’s mum, and it would be really embarrassing, especially as they didn’t even know one another. She imagined her mother doing her posh phone voice and squirmed. Also, Chloe might then have to admit that she had got the bus home by herself after the OnTarget concert, which was strictly verboten . They only lived three miles away from Twickenham Stadium, but her dad would go mad if he knew she’d got the bus by herself after nine o’clock at night. Not to mention getting Jess into trouble too, for leaving her after the vigil. Jess might never talk to her again.
    But what if Jess was in danger? Rose Sharp’s face flashed into her head. No – if she’d gone missing like Rose Sharp, they’d know about it by now. It would be on the news and everything – appeals circulating on Twitter and Facebook. Jess was probably just still in a strop with her.
    Then why did Chloe feel so anxious? She glanced at her mum, who was still looking cross, then opened her mouth to say something . ‘Mum—’
    Brandon interrupted her. ‘Can I get down, Mummy?