Fizzypop by Jean Ure Read Free Book Online Page A

it when she’s happy, but it is somewhat embarrassing when she starts dancing and twirling in the middle of the street. I guess it’s one reason she would have made a good model; she doesn’t care who sees her.
    â€œStop fizzing and popping,” said Skye. “This is a serious quest.”
    Was it? I supposed it was. After all, it’s not every day a person gets to gaze upon the very spot they were abandoned as a tiny baby.
    â€œIt’s like visiting a shrine,” I said.
    We caught the tram at the top of the road and went trundling off to Old Town. There’s a big supermarket down there, right next to the Arcade, which is where we used to go on the toy train when we were little.
    â€œOh! Look,” I cried, as we got off. “The train’s still there!”
    But Jem wasn’t interested in the train; she was anxious to get to the shrine. I could understand her impatience. This was a big moment for her.
    â€œSo what exactly are we looking for?” said Skye.
    â€œMarket Square. The church is just off it. I looked it up on the map, it must be…” Jem pointed, rather wildly. “That way!”
    â€œThat’s the bus garage,” said Skye.
    â€œAll right, then… that way?” “That goes down to the canal. You haven’t got the faintest idea,” said Skye, “have you?”
    â€œBut I looked it up!”
    Skye regarded her, pityingly. “You know you have no sense of direction,” she said. Jem had once famously got lost between our classroom and the toilets at primary school. They were both on the same corridor! “I’d better go and ask or we’ll be here all day.”
    â€œI looked it up,” whimpered Jem.
    I told her not to worry. “I expect you’re in a bit of a state.”
    Jem admitted that she was. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week!”
    â€œIt is a historic event,” I said.
    Market Square turned out to be on the opposite side of the main road leading out of town. It’s a three-lane highway, crammed with container lorries and huge great trucks. Quite scary. Skye told Jem to “Wait for the lights and don’t go rushing off ,” like she was a child. But Jem accepted it meekly; I think she was starting to feel a bit anxious.
    We reached Market Square at last, and there was the church. Very old and forbidding, with a scrubby patch of graveyard and a few crumbly graves. And there, right ahead of us, were the steps. Jem stopped, transfixed. Like she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
    â€œCourse, this is daytime,” I said. “It would have been night time, probably, when she left you here. I can just picture it… creeping up, holding you in her arms—” I clutched again at my imaginary bundle. “Looking all round to make sure no one could see her. Giving you one last kiss… mwah!” My lips brushed the air. “Then laying you down ever so gently at the top of the steps.”
    â€œWhy not in the porch?” said Skye.
    â€œCos she wouldn’t have been able to get in!” Really, Skye has no imagination. “Not at dead of night. The doors would’ve been locked. She’d probably have laid you just here —” Very carefully, I knelt and set down my bundle. “Here, in the corner, so’s you’d be sheltered.”
    Jem suddenly raced past me, hurled herself on to the top step and curled into a ball.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” cried Skye.
    â€œI’m being me, as a baby! I’m trying to feel what it must have been like.”
    â€œCold, I reckon. What time did they discover you? Did it say?”
    â€œYes.” Jem nodded, proudly. “Someone walking his dog, last thing at night. It was the dog that found me.”
    â€œDogs do that,” I said. “They’re very good at finding things. Rags once found a baby bird in the middle of the road, and know what? He didn’t