Mates, Dates and Cosmic Kisses by Cathy Hopkins Read Free Book Online Page B

down. ‘Now what was I saying about James Parker Henson and me?’
    Lucy looked relieved that she hadn’t caught on.
    After I left the girls, I took the tube to Chalk Farm, where Dad lives now with his new wife Anna and their little boy Tom. Tom’s gorgeous. He’s only three. I like
going to Dad’s as it’s so much more relaxed than Mum’s house. I reckon she drove him out with all her constant cleaning and stuff.
    Dad lectures in English at a university and the house is always cluttered with books and journals and papers. I feel at home there, as at least his house looks lived-in, unlike ours which is a
cross between a hotel and a hospital clinic.
    I was really heartbroken when Dad first left. I was seven at the time and for ages was convinced it was my fault and that I’d done something wrong.
    One day Mum and Dad sat me down and explained that sometimes people can still like each other but can’t live together any more and that’s what had happened to them. Then they both
said that no matter what happened, they both loved me and always would.
    I felt better after that – that is until Angus moved in with my mum a couple of years later. I didn’t like him at all at first. I asked if I could go and live with Dad, but he was
living in a tiny flat at the time and there was no room for me.
    Eventually, I decided that there was only one way to deal with Angus, and that’s to pretend he’s our lodger and be polite but nothing else. I mean, he’s not my dad, is he? A
lodger that just happens to sleep in the same bed as my mum, but I shut those kind of thoughts out of my head straight away. Yuk. I don’t want to even go there.
    I was looking forward to spending some time at Dad’s and thought I’d spend the afternoon working on my songs.
    ‘Excuse the mess,’ said Dad as he opened the door, paint-brush in hand. ‘We’re doing up the study.’
    ‘You’ve got paint all over your hair,’ I laughed, looking at the white streaks in his normally dark hair. ‘Did you actually manage to get any on the
walls?’
    ‘Hi, Izzie,’ said Anna, appearing behind Dad. ‘Welcome to the madhouse.’
    Anna was one of Dad’s students when they met five years ago. A mature student, he told me, in case I thought he was cradle-snatching. But mature or not, she’s still twelve years
younger than him, round and pretty with long auburn hair. She and Dad look right together. Dad always dresses in typical lecturer gear – jeans and leather jackets, looking most days like
he’s just got out of bed, and Anna still looks like a student, in jeans and sloppy jumpers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in a skirt or dress.
    I was glad when Dad met her, as I used to worry about him all alone in his small flat when I went to visit. I got on with her immediately and always found her easy to talk to. When they decided
to get married I was the first to congratulate them, secretly hoping that they’d find a bigger house and then I could move in with them. But when they moved to this flat Tom came along and
it’s clear there’s no room for me unless I sleep under the kitchen table.
    I stepped over the various paint cans and boxes strewn in the hallway and made my way into their kitchen. Somehow I didn’t think I was going to get any work done on my songs that
afternoon.
    ‘Izzie love . . .’ Dad began.
    ‘Yeees?’ I said. I knew that tone of voice. He wanted something.
    ‘First,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a book for you.’
    I laughed to myself. Another for the box at the bottom of my cupboard, I thought. He was always giving me books to read – has since I was tiny. I got War and Peace for my ninth
birthday. I don’t think he’s quite tuned into books for teenagers these days.
    He handed me a book from the shelf in the kitchen. ‘Dorothy Parker. I think you’ll like her.’
    ‘Thanks, Dad,’ I said unconvincingly.
    ‘No really,’ said Anna, who was sympathetic to some of the heavy-going books he gave me to