Poppy's Garden by Holly Webb Read Free Book Online Page A

her lunchbox out and grabbed an apple, biting into it quickly before the bell went.
    Still, the apple didn’t make up for her usual toast, even when she always had to fight it out of the hands of Jake and Alex, who could easily eat a whole loaf between them at breakfast. Poppy practically dragged Izzy and the others into the lunch room, and dived gratefully into their class box to grab her lunch. “I’m so hungry…” she moaned, pulling out her sandwiches.
    “Yeah, we saw you chewing on your pencil all the way through IT,” Emily agreed. “I thought you weregoing to eat the whole thing.”
    “It’s all in my teeth,” Poppy admitted, shuddering.
    Maya sniggered. “Maybe you’ll come up with an amazing new remedy. Lead – it must be really good for something.”
    “Actually, lead’s poisonous,” Izzy pointed out. “But it’s OK, Poppy,” she added quickly, seeing Poppy go white. “They don’t actually put lead in pencils. They never did. The grey bit’s made of graphite.”
    Poppy didn’t say anything. She just kept staring into her lunchbox, her cheese and dandelion sandwich halfway to her mouth.
    “Honestly.” Izzy gazed at her worriedly. “I didn’t mean to upset you. There really isn’t anything poisonous in pencils, I promise.”
    “You didn’t upset me,” Poppy whispered. She pushed her lunchbox across the table towards Izzy and Maya, who were sitting opposite. “Look.”
    “Your lunch can’t be that bad,” Emily said, leaning over to see. “And if you will get your mum to make you those stupid sandwiches, you can’t really complain. Did you get a slug in one?” Then she frowned, her nose wrinkling. “What’s
that
?”
    “I don’t know,” Poppy whispered, watching wide-eyed as Izzy lifted out the little clay figure. It lookedlike it was made of that special modelling clay you could bake in the oven. It came in lots of bright colours. She’d got some somewhere…
    “Did – did your mum put that in?” Maya asked, looking confused.
    “No!” Poppy said, in horror. “Of course she didn’t! Why would she?” She swallowed, gulping in a breath. “And it wasn’t there this morning when I got my apple out,” she added.
    The four of them stared at the little figure lying on the table. It looked a tiny bit like Poppy – as much a clay figure that was only about five centimetres high could. It had longish, yellowish-brown hair, with a few blue and green streaks. It could almost have been cute, except that the mouth was much too big for the face, and it was wide open, with nasty little teeth modelled out of white bits of clay all round the edges. It was either shouting at somebody, or crying. It was horrible.
    “Someone
made
that of me,” Poppy whispered. “It’s one of those things you stick pins in. I can’t believe someone did that…”
    “Someone!” Maya exploded. “We know exactly who!” She nodded across the room at Ali’s table. She and Lucy and Elspeth had chosen to sit very close,funnily enough. They were staring at Poppy over their sandwiches, smirking. Until Miss Grace walked past on lunch duty, and they suddenly looked all angelic.
    Izzy nodded. “We can’t prove it though. And they’d never admit it. Are you OK, Poppy? Do you want to go and tell someone?”
    Poppy shook her head. “What good would that do? You’re right, we can’t prove it was Ali.”
    Emily was frowning. “Are we sure it
was
her though?”
    “Who else would do something like that to Poppy?” Izzy asked her.
    “Mmm. I know. But Ali’s never been into – you know. Spells and witchy stuff. Has she? When Maisie had that stupid book all about spells last year, Ali told her she was totally thick and it was all rubbish. So why would she start doing that stuff now?”
    Maya shrugged. “Since when has she ever behaved like a normal person?”
    Poppy zipped her lunchbox shut and put it on the floor by her feet, leaving the figure lying in the centre of the table, until Izzy put a piece