One More Little Problem by Vanessa Curtis Read Free Book Online Page A

disbelief.
    ‘You’ve got me here just to read one email from one boy?’ she says. ‘Zelah. I can’t believe you rang me up just because of that.’
    I flush again and chew my lip.
    ‘OK,’ I say. ‘I maybe could have read the email on my own. But I don’t know how I’m going to react after reading it, do I?’
    Fran raises a pretty arched eyebrow at me until I sink down on to the edge of the bed.
    ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘So I’m having a lonely holiday. I admit it. But I do really need your help with the email from this boy.’
    Fran tosses her shiny plaits back and takes off her smart denim jacket, hanging it over the back of a chair and sitting down at my desk. She clicks open a designer glasses-case and slides a pair of expensive-looking pink frames up her nose.
    ‘Fine, let me see it,’ she says.
    I flip open Heather’s laptop and click on to the first email from Alessandro. Fran reads it in silence and then screws her mouth up to one side.
    ‘Well,’ she says. ‘The heavy metal bit is gross. Maybe he should hook up with your friend downstairs instead,’ and she tips her head in a dismissive way towards the open door.
    ‘But he doesn’t sound like a teen-killer, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
    I wonder if Fran’s forgotten to read the very last bit of the email so I point at the screen (not actually touching it, of course,because smudges are
Dirt Alert
and then I’d have to go and get a clean white cloth to wipe it off).
    ‘Yeah, so?’ says Fran in a voice quite at odds with her neat pink girly appearance. ‘Loads of people have parents in prison. Welcome to the twenty-first century, Zelah. I mean – there’s like nothing remarkable about that, is there? You were locked up in Forest Hill with all those weirdos. You should know about strange people by now.’
    I take a deep calming breath. I know full well that Fran’s just approving of jailbait fathers because it’s the opposite of what I’m expecting her to do.
    Difficult. She’s a difficult ex-best friend.
    There’s still that new email from Alessandro so I click on it with my arm trembling.
    It only asks whether I got his first email.
    ‘So you think I should write back?’ I say.‘S’pose I have been quite rude ignoring his mails.’
    Fran stands up to offer me the chair and then she looks over my shoulder and in a grudging, impatient sort of way, helps me to write a reply. This is what we come up with:
    Dear Alessandro.
    Thanks for your two emails. Yes my name really IS Zelah. I don’t think there’s anything weird about it but then again I’m used to it. I live with my demented father in West London and at the moment I’ve got a friend called Caro staying with me. She’s into Marilyn Manson in a big way and for some unknown reason my father thinks she’s the best thing since stale sliced white loaf. I haven’t got many hobbies ’cos I haven’t got time to do anything much other than try to get my father to job interviews and clean the house from top to bottom. But that’s another story. And by the way, sorry to hear that your father is in jail. Bummer. Anyway, write again soon. Zelah.
    I don’t put ‘love’ or anything crazy like that. Don’t want to give out false signals.
    Fran spellchecks the email and then I press the send button and my message to Alessandro whizzes off into cyberspace and my legs have gone all shaky and bloodless so I sit down hard on the end of my nice clean duvet and Fran goes off downstairs to make us some tea with sugar in.
    ‘I only use the white cup with the red flowers on!’ I shout downstairs after her.
    I know it’s a bit pathetic, but that’s my own special cup.
    Nobody else dares to drink from the Cup of Zelah.
    Fran spends the rest of the afternoon trying on all my earrings and experimenting with my make-up while she tells me how fantastic her life is and how shit mine must be.
    At five thirty she stands up, snaps her rosebud-framed glasses back into their silver