Alice in Time by Penelope Bush Read Free Book Online Page B

won’t be hanging around.’
    ‘We’ll only get chucked out by some grumpy Sixth Formers,’ I tell her.
    ‘If any do come in we’ll just tell them that we’re tidying up forBurty. They can’t check with her because she’s not here.’ This seems like a good plan and beats freezing our tits off outside. I’d hate to lose what I’ve managed to grow so far; which isn’t much, unlike Imogen who’s been blessed in that department.
    The art room isn’t the best place in the world to eat lunch. It’s filthy. Every surface is covered in dried-up paint and the sink in the corner is a work of art in its own right. I reckon if Burty pulled it out and entered it in the next Turner Prize she’d stand a pretty good chance of winning.
    Imogen starts drawing in her sketchbook and eating her lunch at the same time. I feel restless, though, and wander around the room eating my lunch as I go. Imogen is going on about the art lesson and how brilliant it was to actually be
taught
some drawing. Most of the time Imogen is sort of distant and self-contained but when she’s excited about something, she gets really intense and won’t stop talking. Sometimes the intense Imogen makes me uncomfortable. Maybe, deep down, I’m just shallow.
    ‘I don’t get it,’ I say to her. ‘You can draw really well already. And besides, can’t your mum teach you? She’s an artist.’
    Imogen’s mum is so cool. Whenever I go round to their house she’s in her studio, which is really the dining room, but she’s taken it over. There’s always a strong smell of turpentine and linseed oil, which can be a bit weird because it’s next to the kitchen and when it mingles with cooking smells the whole thing’s a bit overpowering. She always has the radio on really loud, playing something classical and dramatic and really noisy. Because she gets so wrapped up in her work, housework doesn’t come very high on Imogen’s mum’s list of priorities,and while I wouldn’t go so far as to say their house is a tip, like ours, it is definitely chaotic, but in a good, sort of artistic way, so that I always feel relaxed there. I often think that if I can’t live with Dad then I’d like to live in Imogen’s house. It’s the sort of place where you could just be yourself and not get hassled all the time.
    Imogen doesn’t answer my question, and when I look over, she’s got her tongue poking out so I know she’s concentrating and probably didn’t hear me. I think I’m restless because I’m thinking about Seth and I’d really like to talk about him, just so I can say his name. I think I must be going mad – I only met him this morning and I can’t think about anything else any more. Is this what love feels like? How can I love him? I don’t even know him and I’m hardly likely to either. He’s not going to be interested in a plain, nervous girl in Year Ten, for God’s sake. What I need is to get a grip.
    I’m over by the window, staring out, and I realise I’m scanning the playground for any sign of him. I can see a load of people hanging out down there, but of course there aren’t any Sixth Formers because they’re all nice and cosy in their common room. The girls in my year who don’t hang out with Sasha are all larking about with each other and some of the boys from our year as well. I wonder what it would be like to be part of a big group like that and have friends that are boys and not ‘boyfriends’. They look as though they’re having fun. What would happen if I went and joined them? I know what would happen. It would be really awkward. They wouldn’t actually be horrible to me, I don’t think, but they’d wonder what the hell I was doing there and it would take ages to be accepted bythem because I don’t share their history. I wouldn’t get all the in-jokes and stuff. Also, if I did any of that, Imogen would never talk to me again.
    I’m just going off into a daydream in which Imogen is in a car crash or is really ill or