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

Catherine Eggleston was in floods of tears, but I have to say she wasn’t the only one. Everyone was passing around autograph books, or just copies, and getting e-mail addresses and phone numbers.
    It just feels very weird right now. Tomorrow Bumble and I are going into town to meet up with a few of the others for lunch. Wonder if we’ll all drift apart, when we’re scattered in different schools.
    Not Bumble and me, of course, even though he’s going to the Comprehensive and I’m going to St Rita’s. We’ll be best friends forever, even if we end up living on opposite sides of the world. But guess what? The only other person who’s going with me to St Rita’s is Chloe Nelligan – can you believe it? Old garlic breath Chloe. I’ll have to practise breathing through my mouth until I make new friends.
    I think I need some ice cream now. If I sneak past the sitting room Dad won’t hear.

Seven o’clock, Saturday, middle of July.
    It was SO hot today. We went to the seaside, me and Dad and Bumble. Yesterday was Bumble’s thirteenth birthday. I got him a faded grey t-shirt in Next that I knew he liked, and he wore it today.
    My nose is burnt, because I forgot to bring sunscreen with me. When we dropped Bumble home, his Mam gave me a little tub of natural yoghurt to put on my nose, but it seemed such a waste of good food. I love yoghurt, especially with a banana chopped into it. Luckily, we had one banana left at home.
    One good thing is that Marjorie Baloney has kept her distance since the whole shoplifting business. She and Dad still go out, usually on Friday nights, but she hasn’t been around to our house since that day, which suits me just fine, and Dad never mentions her. He’ll probably get sick of her any day now, and that’ll be the end of that.
    Dad only goes into work in the mornings while I’m on holidays. In the afternoons, he works from home, on the computer that he brought back home again. He said nothing when he carried it into the house, and neither did I. I haven’t gone near it, even when he’s out at work in the mornings. Who needs it now?
    I can’t believe I’ll be starting secondary school in a month and a bit. It’ll be the first time Bumble and I won’t be together since Junior Infants.
    That was where we met. We were sitting beside one another on our first day at school, and I hit him and made him cry when he broke one of my crayons, and I was put sitting on a chair facing the wall, and the next day he gave me a new box of crayons that his mam bought when he told her what happened, and we’ve been best friends ever since.
    Of course we’ll still meet after school and at weekends and stuff, but I’m a bit afraid it won’t be the same. He’ll probably start hanging around with boys now, and maybe he’ll be ashamed to be seen with me, so we’ll have to meet in secret.
    Or maybe I’ll have to disguise myself as a boy. I’ve been practising making my voice lower, just in case. Bumble’s voice was the first to break in the class, just after we went into sixth, and he got an awful slagging from the other boys. I bet it was because they were jealous that Bumble sounded all grown up, and they were still talking like girls.
    And now Chris Thompson is the only one whose voice still hasn’t broken. Hopefully he’s not in a hurry to get a girlfriend. Maybe some girls wouldn’t mind having aboyfriend with the same kind of voice as them, although I have to say I’d be a bit embarrassed.
    But apart from his voice, there’s nothing wrong with Chris – he’s easily the cutest-looking guy from our old class, with greenish-brown eyes and lovely floppy, dark blonde hair, and a gorgeous dimple in one cheek when he smiles, much nicer than my horrible chin dimple.
    And really straight teeth too, once his braces came off.
    Next week I’m going to be fitted for my new school uniform. It’s brown and