Ice Lolly by Jean Ure Read Free Book Online

realise that I’ve made another of my mistakes. I’m always making mistakes. Like my inappropriate remarks. Maybe I can go to the library at lunchtime and find something else. I don’t want one of Mum’s favourite books being sneered at!
    Period 1 on a Friday is maths. It’s not one of my best subjects, though I’m better at it than Mum was. at least I don’t have to use my fingers! When we went shopping together, Mum always gave me the job of adding the prices and checking the change. But next year, when we’re put into different sets, I don’t think I’ll be in the top one. Not for maths. I will for French and English,and maybe history and geography. and Spanish, if I do it. If I’m still here. I suppose I will be. I can’t think of any reason I’d be anywhere else.
    For a moment, as I unpack my bag and take out my maths books, I desperately wish I was back at Gospel Road. I don’t care what Auntie Ellen says about this school being better, and smaller, and not so mixed, I’d got used to where I was. I think maybe I am not very good at coping with change. I am not a very adventurous sort of person.
    I gaze round at the rest of the class. It is hardly mixed at all. Almost everybody is English. Maybe everybody. There are two black kids and a few Asians, but they are all English. They all speak English. They were all born here. At Gospel Road, people came from everywhere. All over the world. I am scared I shall forget how to say hello in all those different languages. I can remember French and German; they’re easy. Bienvenue and willkommen. And Spanish and Italian. Bienvenido, benvenuto. But I can’t remember Urdu orGujarati! And Polish and Turkish. They are all disappearing, cos I don’t hear them any more and there’s no one I can ask. at Gospel Road we had them written out and stuck on the classroom doors. They don’t do that here.
    I’m squeezing my eyes tight shut, trying to visualise some of the words and see if it will jog my memory. Suddenly I hear the voice of Mr Gurney, telling Carla Phillips that he’s not having her and Maisie Thompson sitting together any more.
    “You’re here to learn maths, not fritter away your time painting your nails and doing each other’s hair. Maisie, change places with Tiffany. And Carla, you can come down here and sit next to Laurel. I want you where I can see you.”
    My heart sinks. Carla’s like the class bad girl. Does whatever she pleases. I sort of admire her, in a way, though I don’t really like her. She probably doesn’t like me, either. If she’s ever noticed that I’m here, which she may not have done.
    Mr Gurney says, “Well, come along, come along! We haven’t got all day.”
    Carla snatches up her bag and comes banging resentfully down the aisle, crashing into desks as she goes. She lets herself fall with a big THUMP into the seat next to mine. My pen bounces off the top of the desk and I bend down to get it. On the way back up I catch Carla’s eye. She glares at me and curls her lip. I feel like saying, “It’s not my fault,” but that would just make her even madder. Maybe she thinks it is my fault. If I hadn’t been sitting by myself, Mr Gurney might not have moved her down here in the first place. She’s incredibly angry. All huffing and puffing and slamming things about. Mr Gurney ignores her and starts drawing triangles all over the board. I do my best to concentrate, though it’s difficult with Carla behaving like some kind of hurricane.
    After a few minutes she stops all her frenzied activity and starts sniffing the air. She leans in towards me and sniffs again. Then she makes a noise like“Yeeuurgh!” and catapults away from me, clapping her hand dramatically across her face. Mr Gurney spins round.
    “Now what’s the problem?” he says.
    In muffled tones, from behind her hand, Carla announces that she’s being gassed.
    “What are you talking about?” says Mr Gurney.
    Carla pegs her nose between finger and thumb.