Jubilee by Shelley Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

enough American influences in this country already, don’t we?’
    Mrs Brecon pressed her lips together and looked away. Little Colette, squashed up against her on an armchair, glanced quickly at her mother’s face. From the settee Mrs Tominey, Satish’s ally because she let him hop over her fence to retrieve lost balls without asking each time, addressed Miss Bissett.
    ‘Of course I see your point, Verity,’ she said. ‘Quite right. This American nonsense is all over the place. Hard to work out what’s British sometimes. But how many of the children are really going to eat spicy chicken?’
    Mrs Miller glanced at her notes. ‘You know, it is rather a grown-up menu at the moment. What about using good old British beef for the burgers, Verity? Would that be a happy compromise?’
    Miss Bissett’s smile was a grudging admission of defeat, and the conversation moved on to dessert. With the inclusion of beef in the menu, the children’s food had been put definitively beyond Satish’s grasp, and he wondered again about coronation chicken and the pleasures it might offer. Then the sitting room door opened and Cai appeared, beckoning. He’d come into the house quietly, sneaking through the back. Satish went over to him.
    ‘Cai! Nice entry. Are you undercover?’
    ‘What?’ His friend frowned. ‘No, we’re not playing spies. I was just getting some stuff sorted out. Listen, come upstairs. Be really quiet.’
    Satish looked at Sima, and then back at Cai. His hesitation was for form only, and she knew it; cutting her eyes away from him dismissively, she reached for another biscuit. Too young or too old for the other kids in the street, and indentured to her mother, she was used to being the odd one out. Sima usually played in other houses in other streets, with girls she’d met at school. She didn’t expect much from Cherry Gardens, Satish told himself.
    Sarah’s door was shut, a plastic Do Not Disturb sign depicting Snoopy asleep on his doghouse. Satish reached for the handle.
    ‘No,’ whispered Cai. ‘Listen.’
    Behind the door, the girls were playing a record. Satish could hear a bouncy piano accompaniment, a loping drumbeat. He looked at Cai, quizzical.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘David Soul,’ said Cai. ‘It’s completely spastic. Listen.’
    They moved quietly up to the door and pressed their ears to it. The blond fluff of Cai’s hair tickled Satish’s lips and chin. David Soul was duetting with a high-voiced woman.
    ‘It’s a soup recipe ,’ Cai told him. ‘A musical soup recipe.’
    Satish tried to make out the words amidst the sound of his own hair rubbing against the door and the occasional thumps and creaks from within. Cai was right. The song was a list of ingredients; he caught a reference to tomatoes and onions. There was mention of garlic. He and Cai looked at each other, world-weary. David Soul exhorted the woman to mash some black beans. Then suddenly the track finished, the needle scraping across the grooves. In the silence that followed, they could hear the girls talking.
    ‘You said he was a seven,’ said Sarah. ‘Most men couldn’t do that. Believe me, I know.’
    ‘What? How?’
    ‘I can tell you—’
    But Sarah’s revelation was cut off by a swell of violins. The boys groaned.
    ‘Not this crap again!’ muttered Cai. ‘It makes me want to puke .’ Satish nodded agreement. They’d heard the track incessantly the previous winter. Now here it was again: Don’t Give Up On Us, Baby .
    ‘That stupid film,’ whispered Satish. ‘When he sings behind that fence thing.’
    ‘That spazzy horse,’ said Cai. Satish agreed. A car was cool, a horse was spazzy. He knew that.
    Whatever the girls had been talking about, they’d stopped now and were giving themselves freely to the music, singing along with varying degrees of tunefulness. After a while the boys could hear more movement in the room – were they dancing? Satish could make out soft thuds, and muffled commands from Sarah