The Good Girl by Fiona Neill Read Free Book Online Page B

already buried.
    ‘It’s radioactive,’ shouted Ben. ‘Like a nuclear winter.’
    ‘God, you can see for miles,’ said Adam, looking across the street to the fields beyond. His anxiety about getting back home to visit the grave had dissipated as soon as the prospect of a party presented itself.
    ‘It’s to do with the luminosity of snow,’ explained Romy. ‘The snow albedo is really high. I learned it in Physics.’
    ‘You are so knowledgeable,’ said Harry. It was the wrong thing to say. Romy was immune to flattery, and his increasing desperation to maintain the closeness they had once enjoyed only pushed her further away. She had never been a people pleaser.
    ‘Millions of Physics students know that,’ said Romy with a shrug. ‘It’s in all the textbooks.’
    The recently cleared path to the front gate was covered in a thick layer of fresh snow and beneath it was as slippery as glass. Ben gingerly stepped out to test the ground and fell over. He lay on his back, rolling around like a seal and giggling. A half-eaten chocolate reindeer slipped out of his pocket. Romy pulled him up.
    ‘Let’s go through their back garden,’ said Ben. ‘It’ll be easier for Grandpa.’
    ‘How do we do that?’ questioned Ailsa, suspicious of Ben’s sudden attack of empathy.
    ‘There’s
nothing wrong with my legs,’ protested Adam. ‘The doctor said I’ve got the flexibility of a thirty-five-year-old.’
    ‘I’ve created an opening,’ Ben announced. ‘It’s a really good route. But you mustn’t tell anyone.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ asked Harry.
    ‘I took down some of the fence so that I could come and go into the woods,’ explained Ben. He had timed his revelation well.
    ‘Wreck head,’ said Romy. It was probably an insult but since Ailsa didn’t know what it meant she could hardly pull her up. Instead Ailsa’s attention was drawn to Romy’s long bare legs. She was wearing a denim miniskirt and fur-lined Ugg boots. Don’t say anything, she warned herself.
    ‘You’ll freeze,’ Ailsa said seconds after this thought.
    ‘I’ve thought about the message I’m sending out,’ said Romy. ‘I’m telling people that I have really healthy circulation because I don’t feel the cold, which means I have a good supply of oxygen in my bloodstream.’
    ‘The message you think you are sending might not be the message that other people receive,’ Ailsa pointed out.
    ‘They all wear the same thing,’ Luke intervened. ‘Marnie and Becca look exactly the same.’
    Ailsa tried a new tack. ‘Have you ever considered why female singers perform in their underwear while the men get to keep their clothes on?’ she asked, remembering something she had read in a book she had bought for the library at her old school.
    ‘Because
they make more money,’ replied Romy. ‘There’s an inverse correlation between the amount of clothes they wear and the money they earn. Look, I’m not exactly going out in my underwear, Mum.’
    ‘I can practically see your knickers.’
    ‘If Luke was wearing this outfit would you have the same reaction? Because I think there’s a double standard operating here.’
    ‘Girls are becoming conditioned to the idea that they have to look sexually available all the time by showing more flesh than boys,’ said Ailsa. ‘You don’t see Harry Styles dancing in his pants.’
    ‘Unfortunately,’ said Rachel.
    ‘Girls have nicer bodies,’ said Luke.
    ‘Not helpful, Luke,’ said Ailsa. ‘Or Rachel.’
    ‘It’s because we live in a country where we aren’t required to hide our sexuality behind a veil,’ said Romy. ‘What is it you’re scared of, Mum? Do you think I look slutty? That I might get the wrong attention from the wrong man? Because if I do, I think that is his problem not mine. Or is it that I don’t reflect well on you? Because I thought that feminism was about being free to wear what you like.’ She sounded genuinely confused. And so was Ailsa. There was a lot of