Red Ink by Julie Mayhew Read Free Book Online Page B

sit down because she wasn’t doing it properly. If it had been me who wasn’t allowed to join in with my friends, Mum would have used her hands-on-hips voice and told the others not to be so mean. She doesn’t do it for herself though.
    This time, when Auntie Aphrodite started Greek dancing we just watched, even though Mum practised lots this year in the kitchen in our house with Greek tapes she got from the market. When the ladies dance in a circle, it looks like they’re trying to screw themselves down into the ground. Auntie Aphrodite’s boobies wobble lots. You must not smile when you do Greek dancing because it’s a serious thing. I’m not sure why. It just is.
    We only see Auntie Aphrodite and Granbabas for one night because they’re too busy to see us again. Even though Mum is Granbabas’s only daughter and I’m his only granddaughter and we have come all this way just for a week, just for them. Granbabas’s farm takes up all his time. I never knew melons could be so much trouble. Auntie Aphrodite has four children and eleven grandchildren that take up all her time and they live in Crete so that means they’re more important. The rest of the week, me and Mum will do beach things together. Really, that’s more fun than pretending to be happy.
    Mum will try to do a big hug thing when we say goodbye and Granbabas will try to get out of it. Maybe he knows we’ll be back next year, so he’s not that upset about us going. Mum kisses Granbabas’s brown and wrinkly cheek and tries not to cry, but he’ll not kiss her back. Granbabas doesn’t ever look like he’ll cry, because that’s more of a girl thing. Auntie Aphrodite will just do a shooing thing with her hand and look embarrassed. I always wave properly.
    On the beach I write a postcard to Chick with my new aeroplane pen, because I promised I would send her something and I am missing her like mad. The pen has four sliding buttons down the sides. One for blue ink, one for black, one for green and one for red. I choose red and start writing.
    “No!” Mum screams. She snatches the postcard off me in a way that really, really scares me. “This is what you are wishing for? You are wishing that Kathleen is dead?” She is ever so cross.
    The frightening moment steals my voice. My eyes are trying to cry but I make them stop because it’s silly to cry about a postcard. Mum is pointing a corner of the card at me. It has pictures of pretty Greek pots on it. They are called urns.
    I manage to shake my head. No, I don’t want Chick to die. She is my best friend in the whole universe.
    “Then you do not use the red ink,” Mum says. She strokes my hair flat which means, it’s okay now, she’s not angry any more. She gives me back the postcard, which has a little crease on it now.
    “You write to someone in the red ink, you wish them dead,” Mum says.
    So I click the red sliding button back up, even out the postcard’s crease with my thumb, and choose the blue ink instead.

4 DAYS SINCE
    When Chick’s dad comes upstairs, I get the urge to recite the planets to him.
    M ERCURY, V ENUS, E ARTH, M ARS, J UPITER, S ATURN,
U RANUS, N EPTUNE
    I’ve been up in Chick’s bedroom on my own for the last hour; I need to speak something out loud. I’ve learnt the planet order and don’t need to look at my book any more. I wonder if Mr Lacey would be interested. I’ve got no idea what he’s into. I don’t think he actually has any interests. There are some bowling balls on the shelf in his study downstairs but I’ve never heard Chick mention her dad actually using them. Who owns bowling balls but never goes bowling? Weirdos, that’s who. Mr Lacey revolves around Chick and Mrs Lacey and forgets about being a real person himself. Trying to talk to him about the universe would be pointless.
    There is no one I can talk to about the universe.
    Mr Lacey is peeping around Chick’s bedroom door. His hair is thin on top with blond candy floss around his ears. At this