Eva's Journey by Judi Curtin Read Free Book Online Page A

eat his exercise book.
    Mr Gowing was talking to me.
    â€˜Blah … Blah … Welcome … work hard … blah, blah and more blah.’
    He pointed to an empty chair. There was a boy sitting in the chair next to it.
    I was supposed to sit next to a boy?
    What if I needed someone to tell me if my hair was OK or if my tights were laddered?
    Something told me it was a bit soon to start arguing, so I walked over and sat down.
    And so my first day in my new school began.

Chapter Nine
    I looked around at the ugly grey walls of the classroom, and felt a sudden pang of sadness as I remembered the wood-panelled walls of The Abbey.
    I looked at the sullen-faced boy next to me who smelled of chips, and thought of Emily, who sat next to me at The Abbey. Emily was funny and clever and smelled of violets.
    I blinked quickly trying to hold back the tears.
    The classroom windows were closed and it was too warm. The sullen-faced boy looked like he was ready to doze off. Outside, the sun had come out. It was shining merrily, taunting us with its freedom. The stiff material of the school uniform was scratching the back of my legs, and my feetwere sore from dragging around the ugly, heavy shoes.
    I had to escape from this awful place.
    And Madam Margarita’s plan was the only one I could think of.

    I should probably explain right now, that I know this whole thing sounds totally stupid.
    A few months earlier, if you had told me I’d be visiting a fortune-teller, I wouldn’t have believed you.
    If you’d told me that I’d believe a fortune-teller, and actually do what she suggested in an effort to change my life, I’d have rolled around the floor and laughed until I was sick.
    But a lot had changed in those few months.
    And to me, the choice was clear – do what Madam Margarita suggested, or do nothing.
    And doing nothing just didn’t bear thinking about.
    I tried not to think too carefully about how exactly the whole thing was going to work – about how exactly I was going to get my old life back, just by helping other people.
    But I’d worry about the details later.
    It was time to get started.

    I looked around the classroom.
    Where was the unhappy person who needed my help?
    Well, for starters,
I
was unhappy.
    But that probably didn’t count.
    I rested my chin on my hands, and gazed around for a bit. Everyone in the room looked unhappy. But maybe that was only because it was maths class. Even the teacher, scribbling long lines of rubbish on the blackboard, looked like he’d rather be somewhere, anywhere else.
    Mr Gowing was explaining a maths problem, and telling us about some boring old Ancient Greek maths guy. I’d already done the same problem in my old school. I hadn’t found it fun first time round, so how exactly was it supposed to have improved in the months since then?
    Half way through the maths class, I foundsomeone who definitely needed some help.
    â€˜Yesss,’ I whispered to myself.
    The boy beside me woke up and stared at me like I was an idiot.
    â€˜
Yesss
, I really love maths,’ I whispered, and he looked at me like I was an even bigger idiot.
    As soon as the boy was busy gouging another hole in the desk with his compass, I took a closer look at the lucky girl – the first person in my ‘help people and get out of here’ project.
    She was small and pretty, and she was sitting right at the front of the class. Her name was Petronella (which, on its own, was a good enough reason to be unhappy, I thought).
    The other reason was that the teacher kept picking on her. Whenever she even whispered to the girl next to her, Mr Gowing shouted at her to be quiet – like whispering was this huge crime – and like the rest of the class wasn’t whispering madly whenever he turned to face the blackboard.
    And the worst thing was, no matter what Mr Gowing said, Petronella never even blinked. It wasalmost like she was so used to being