The Real Rebecca by Anna Carey Read Free Book Online Page B

Fran’s house and her mobile went straight to voicemail so I couldn’t talk to her. And Cass was at her piano lesson so I couldn’t get through to her either. I am both enraged and bored. What a terrible life I have. Also, I am still really, really hungry. But I don’t want to go downstairs.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER
    Mum just came to the door.
    ‘Rebecca?’
    ‘Go away,’ I said. Was that toast I could smell? Does she have toast? Is she trying to lure me out with food?
    ‘Look, I’m going to leave the book outside the door. I think you’ll really like it. It’s not really about you, seriously . No one will think it is.’
    ‘Huh!’ I said. I wish I could have come up with a more witty riposte, but in fairness I was practically dying of starvation.
    I heard her go downstairs and then, I’ll admit it, I opened the door. There was a copy of the stupid book with a plate of scrambled eggs on toast sitting on the top.
    I took the whole lot inside and ate the eggs on toast in about two seconds. I felt a bit better after that. It seemed like I’d been starving for ages so I thought it must be about two o’clock at least but when I looked at the clock it was only half eleven. It just feels like this day has been going on forever. Anyway, the stupid book is now sitting on my head. I have read the blurb and it looks awful. Apparentlyit is about a girl called Ruthie (oh my God, my mother is pathologically obsessed with the letter ‘r’ – she can’t even call a fictional child by a name starting with another letter. What does it mean? A psychologist would have a field day with her). Anyway, Ruthie really wants a boyfriend and comes up with all sorts of schemes to meet a boy. And then she meets one on holiday. Yawn. I’m going to start reading it now.
LATER
    Oh my God. I have read nearly the entire book and unless it improves dramatically in the last thirty pages I am never talking to my mother again. Well, actually, I’m not talking to her again anyway. But still. Ruthie is horrible. She and her equally horrible friends are obsessed with boys. Now despite what Rachel may say about my pure and holy love for Paperboy, I am not obsessed with boys. I may be slightly obsessed with Paperboy, and a few very good-looking guitarists, and a couple of actors, but I’m not obsessed with boys in general. But Ruthie just thinks about boys and nothing else. She doesn’t, like, read anything, orlisten to music apart from boy bands. She would never take part in a spontaneous synchronised dance session. Also, she and her friends are really annoying. They say things like ‘you go, girl!’ and are really sassy. Sassy people are always obnoxious in real life. Ruthie and her friends never laugh about anything. They just give each other makeovers and go shopping. Where do they get the money to go shopping? It’s not like Mum hands over loads of cash to me. Far from it, in fact.
    Anyway. Basically the book is all about how Ruthie and her friends have a competition to see who will get a boyfriend first. Also, they are in a girl band together and sing drippy songs into their hairbrushes. They do all sorts of stupid sad things like pretending to like football so random boys will like them. And at one stage Ruthie follows a boy into a toilet! That sounds kind of filthy but THANK GOD there are no sexy goings-on in the book. I’d have to emigrate if there were. Anyway, they are all really competitive and their crappy girl band breaks up because they play lots of tricks on each other and I actually can’t understand why they’re friends at all as they all secretly seem to hate each other. In the end they all go and eat pizza together andrealise the virtues of friendship and how it’s more important than boys, but frankly if I had managed to escape from the society of these horrible cows for five minutes it would take a lot more than a pizza to make me see any of them ever again.
LATER
    Just after I wrote that last line there was a knock on