V for Violet by Alison Rattle Read Free Book Online Page A

to Dad, a leather jacket and a motorcycle is
exactly
what makes someone a bad person.
    The shop’s empty of customers now. I lean on the counter and try to stop my hands from shaking. I hear the roar of an engine from outside and it’s like the roar is coming from inside me too. ‘Thanks, Violet,’ he’d said. ‘Thanks, Violet.’ I can hear his voice in my head as clearly as if he was still standing next to me. I don’t know what’s just happened. But I know that whoever he was, I’ll see him again. I know that as surely as I know that the sun’s going to rise tomorrow. And for the first time in a long time, I’m glad to be me.

Lost in the Amazon
    It’s Sunday morning, and Mum’s back to being Mum again. There’s sausages sizzling in the pan, hymns playing on the wireless and Dad’s sitting at the kitchen table in his pyjama bottoms, vest and braces. ‘One sausage or two? Mum asks me without turning around.
    ‘Just one, please,’ I say.
    The sun’s shining softly through the nets at the window and the smell of breakfast makes my tummy rumble. Everything feels as it should feel; normal and safe and boring. I imagine Jackie sitting having breakfast with her nan, their big, brown teapot on the table between them. I’ll go round there in a bit and I’ll ask Jackie to come shopping with me next weekend. I’ll tell her I need her advice about what to buy. I need new stuff to wear, and she knows what’ll suit me best. She’ll like that.
    I can’t stop thinking about the boy from last night. I still remember the smell of him and the way his leather jacket stretched across his shoulders. Perhaps I’ll tell Jackie about him too; about this new thing that’s happened to me. Because that’s what best friends do. They tell each other everything.
    I sit at the table and the sun slants warmly across my arm. I smile at Dad as he spears a sausage, and he winks back at me. But then, as Mum puts a plate of breakfast in front of me and I look up at her to say thanks, I see, with a shock, that her eyes are all pink and puffy and her cheeks are flushed a deep and angry red, like the ketchup that Dad’s got smeared across his plate. But I don’t want to spoil my mood by asking questions again, and besides, I don’t expect there’ll be any answers.
    I want to keep the morning perfect; as perfect as the fried egg that Mum has laid on top of a slice of buttered toast for me. I cut the end off a sausage and push it against the yolk. The thin skin wobbles promisingly. I push harder, and in an instant the yolk breaks, the yellow insides spill out and soak into the toast, and the beautiful shimmering egg is spoiled.
    The back door at Jackie’s is ajar and I don’t think twice about walking in without knocking. ‘Hello!’ I call out. ‘It’s only me! Violet!’ There’s no one in the kitchen and no sign that anyone’s eaten breakfast. ‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ I shout. There must be someone up, for the door to be open.
    ‘That you, Violet?’ Brenda shouts out from somewhere in the house.
    I smile to myself. ‘Yeah!’ I shout back. ‘You two are having a lazy Sunday!’ I fill the kettle and turn on the gas. Then I swill out the old brown teapot and tip a handful of tea leaves inside. I fetch three cups and put them on the table along with the sugar bowl. I’m just pouring boiling water into the teapot and enjoying the dark perfume of the leaves, when the kitchen door opens.
    ‘Hello, love,’ says Brenda as she shuffles over to me in her slippers. ‘Didn’t expect to see you this morning.’
    ‘Just thought I’d pop in,’ I say. ‘And have a cuppa with you both.’
    She looks at me, puzzled. ‘Both? You think I’ve got the milkman hidden away upstairs or something?’ She cackles at the thought and pats the rollers that are tightly curled into her hair.
    ‘You wish!’ I laugh at her joke. ‘No. Not the milkman. You and Jackie. Thought I’d come and have a cuppa with
both
of you.’
    ‘But