Spellbinder by Helen Stringer Read Free Book Online Page B

handle it three days ago!”
    Belladonna slipped out of the front door and marched off to school, quite cheerful, under the circumstances. Things might look grim—she had lost her parents for a second time, she hadn’t done her homework, and a huge black hound seemed to be watching the house—but at least she didn’t have to go to work in an office.
    The morning was cold, one of those crisp, clear days when you can see your breath and the frost sparkles on the grass. A few optimistic leaves still clung to thebranches of the trees that shaded Lychgate Lane, confident of a few more days of sunshine before the long winter nights and gloomy winter days condemned them to months of suspended animation. Belladonna was surprised, and a little ashamed, to realize that she was swinging her bag and listening to the birds, instead of trudging gloomily and giving in to the foreboding she was fairly sure she ought to be feeling right about now.
    She pushed her hair away from her face and tipped her head up to drink in the sunshine. She’d hardly ever missed school (except for a few colds and that time she’d had the flu and been off for a week), but on days like this she could understand why some kids skived off and spent the day in the park.
    Unfortunately, the walk to school wasn’t a long one and, as if to bring her back down to earth, Math was the first class of the day, forcing Belladonna to make up some less-than-convincing reason why she hadn’t done her homework. Mr. Fredericks hardly seemed to listen, moving right on to the next exercise. So far as he was concerned, if students couldn’t be bothered to do their homework, then he couldn’t be bothered to teach them. Belladonna sighed. She had only managed to keep up with Math by slogging away and making sure she did every single piece of homework. Now she’d missed one exercise and suddenly everything was a mystery. She had the sinking feeling that she would never again know what was going on in this class.
    She looked over to the window. The morning light had turned thin and gray, and she could see large black birds fighting in the bare branches of the trees at the end of the football pitch. As she watched, she became aware that she was being stared at too. She turned her head. Steve quickly looked down at his book and pretended to be working. She knew he was pretending because he always sat right at the back and spent most of his time whispering with his friends. He wasn’t whispering today, though.
    After an interminable forty minutes, the bell sounded and everyone packed their bags and headed for French. Belladonna trudged along the corridor, wishing she’d called in sick and wondering what Aunt Deirdre was doing. Would her parents be back when she got home? Would everything be back to normal? Or was this going to be “normal” now? As she moped, lost in dismal thought, Steve caught up with her.
    “Hey.”
    She glanced at him and managed a nod.
    “Does that . . . what happened yesterday,” he seemed to be trying to avoid saying the word. “Does that happen to you all the time?”
    “Ghosts, you mean?”
    Steve nodded quickly, glancing around to make sure none of his friends was nearby.
    “Yes,” said Belladonna, “all the time.”
    They walked on. He glanced around again.
    “Are there any here now?”
    Belladonna stopped. She didn’t have the patience for this. She opened her mouth to speak and then realized that there weren’t any. Not a single one. She looked back the way they’d come, half expecting to see Elsie loitering near the girls’ toilets, or those two little boys who sometimes raced down the corridors, or that daunting old teacher with the black academic gown and the haggard expression who lurked near the stairs to the science labs. Nothing.
    She looked at Steve and shook her head. “No.”
    “Oh,” he seemed almost disappointed.
    “It’s really strange,” she muttered as they trudged on toward their French class.
    Steve grinned.