Don't Even Think About It by Roisin Meaney Read Free Book Online Page A

imagine? Me and Marjorie Maloney, bonding. AS IF.
    So of course I told her it was definitely NOT OK, and to kindly leave my room, which she didn’t do.
    She put the plate down on my dressing table – not one of our plates – and she said, ‘Liz, I know how you feel …’ and I interrupted, because I couldn’t bear to listen to her, and I told her she
didn’t
know how I felt, she hadn’t a
clue
how I felt, and to LEAVE ME ALONE. And then I turned my back on her and listened to the doorclosing quietly when she went out.
    I can NOT believe that he got her to come up to my room. I can’t believe he did that. If he thinks I’m going to touch her crummy plate of food, he’s got another think coming.
    It sure smells good, though, and I’m starving. I’ve had nothing to eat since a Nutella sandwich at half twelve, and it’s well after seven now. But nothing in this world would make me touch Marjorie Maloney’s food.
    Anyway, I can’t see what it is, because there’s one of those silver lids on top that you get in hotels sometimes. Marjorie Maloney, trying to be posh. It’s pathetic.
Ten to eight
    It was some kind of fish pie. I left it as long as I could, so it wasn’t that hot any more, but I was so hungry I didn’t care. But I’m still MAD at Dad for getting that woman involved in our private affairs.
    As if she was part of our family, which she never, NEVER will be.
    If I still had that fiver she gave me for my birthday, I’d throw it back at her and tell her what she could do with her crummy money.
    Hey, I’ve just thought of a new name for her: Marjorie Baloney.
    God, I HATE the thought of school in the morning. Maybe Smelly Nelly will announce at assembly that we have a thief in our midst, or something. What a dope I am sometimes.

Bedtime, last day of primary school, ever.
    I can’t understand the way I feel today. I thought I’d be on top of the world – no more Santa, no more visits to Smelly Nelly’s office – but I’m not. I’m lonely and sad, and I miss everyone like mad already, even though I’ll probably meet most of them around town over the summer.
    Isn’t it funny? All through sixth class, we couldn’t wait to be finished with primary school. We counted down the days since Easter, and moaned and groaned about how bored we were – and now that it’s finished at last, there’s just this giant empty space.
    And now we’re going from being the oldest kids in school, the ones in charge, to being the youngest – that’ll be really strange.
    Mam says she remembers feeling exactly the same. I e-mail her from the Internet café most days now on the way home from school, and usually she answers meback straight away. The great thing is I can print off her mails, which I couldn’t do at home. I have a bundle of them in my knicker drawer, the only place I can be sure Dad won’t go near, ha ha.
    Of course I didn’t tell her about being caught shoplifting – but the good news is that Smelly Nelly didn’t tell anyone about it either. She did call me into her office, the day after it happened, but for once I didn’t try to be smart, or look bored or whatever. I sat quietly and listened to her saying all the same kind of things that Dad had said to me the day before, and then I told her that I’d definitely learnt my lesson, and would never do it again.
    And she smiled at me and shook my hand, and said she believed me, which for some weird reason made me feel really good. I know Smelly and I haven’t always been the best of friends, especially since Mam left, but right then, she was OK. She wished me luck in secondary school, and she said she hoped I’d keep making the most of my artistic talent, and that she knew I’d go far. Imagine.
    And now it’s three days later, and we had our graduation ceremony in the hall this afternoon, and Dad was there along with all the other parents, and loads of them had brought along camcorders and cameras, and it was like the Oscars.
    And naturally