Sequins, Secrets, and Silver Linings by Sophia Bennett Read Free Book Online Page A

years,” Crow says. “Before, I just knitted. It was so cold when I came to London. But then I went to the V&A with Yvette. I saw Balenciaga. Vionnet. Now I practice.”
    Good grief. I usually think that removing a collar or slapping on a few sequins (or Wite-Out) is pretty creative. Next to this kid I’m obviously hopeless and destined not even to be allowed to make the tea for a designer. I find a small spot on the floor to sit down, lost in wonder and sad contemplation of my future career at McDonald’s.
    I have an idea, though. There may be one other thing I can do to help.
    “Can I borrow a couple of things?” I ask. “I promise I’ll bring them back.”
    Crow gives a shrug that I interpret as a yes. I take one of the new silk skirts and a couple of Crow’s sketches that are lying in an untidy pile near the sewing machine. Needless to say, they’re brilliant. Bright, spiky dancing girls cavorting around the pages in light-as-air dresses and vertiginous heels. The kind of thing I’ve been trying to draw since I was six. Crow doesn’t ask what they’re for, but although she thinks I’m slightly barmy, she does seem to trust me, which is encouraging.
    As we leave the room, Edie and Florence hurriedly wind up their conversation. Both of them are mopping their eyes.
    “Thank you,” Florence says, wrapping me in a bear hug with her strong frame. She does the same for Edie.
    “That girl’s a genius,” I tell her. “Seriously.”
    Florence smiles thinly. “Her school says she needs extra help. She’s special needs.”
    “She’s special, all right.”
    Now it’s Florence’s turn to shrug. We leave them in the tiny flat and make our way back past the smell of dead mouse. Three streets away, all the houses are owned by millionaires. London is crazy.

Chapter 10
    S o?!”
    Edie looks innocent. “So?”
    “So what did Florence say?”
    We’re back in Edie’s room and it’s late. Her little brother, Jake, went to bed hours ago. I’m sleeping over and her mum has just informed us that “sleep means sleep,” but we have far too much to talk about. We weren’t really in the mood on the way back from our visit, but now I feel ready to catch up and Edie is busy on Google and Wikipedia, looking up the missing facts in the story she got from Florence.
    “She said what I suspected,” Edie says, with more than a hint of smugness.
    “Which was?”
    “Well, I tried to talk to you about it before, last week, but you said it was dull and distasteful.”
    “I think I was trying to watch Gossip Girl at the time,” I point out.
    “Obviously you had better things to do.”
    “It was a major episode. Anyway. Tell me now.”
    Edie hesitates. I can tell part of her doesn’t want to, because I wasn’t listening the first time. But another part simply loves explaining things to people who don’t know stuff, and this is the part that wins.
    “Well,” she begins, “lots of Uganda is perfectly safe and normal. The queen’s been there. But Crow comes from the north, near Sudan, and things are different there. The government’s been fighting a rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army for years and years. The rebels hide out in the bush and use children to fight. When things were really bad, they used to kidnap boys from their homes at night and make them maim and kill people. Even their own families. The girls were made to have the soldiers’ babies. So children who lived in remote villages used to walk miles and miles every afternoon to somewhere safe in a town, where there were people to protect them. They did it night after night, sleeping where they could. They were called Night Walkers.”
    “And Crow was one?”
    “Yes. That’s why her parents sent her here as soon as they could. Florence doesn’t like to talk about it in front of Crow. The memories, you know …”
    “But now? You said things were really bad. Are they better?”
    Edie frowns. “Not completely. They’re having peace talks,