Wasted by Nicola Morgan Read Free Book Online Page A

think, to take it in one’s stride and just let things happen. Jack thinks he can manipulate luck. But she is not so sure. She wants to believe, but he could be wrong.
    She’s quite happy to go along with it though. After all, it’s just a game. Won’t make any difference. It’s even kind of interesting.
    As she’s lying in bed later, not really trying to sleep, just enjoying thinking about the evening and all the feelings of it, she hears her mum come back. There’s a crash of something being dropped, the door shutting too noisily, her mum cursing as she knocks against something. It’s the sound of a drunk person trying to be quiet. Just one person – it doesn’t seem as though Julia has come back with her. Which is lucky, since then there’d be double the noise and a load of laughing and in the morning Jess would have to look at Julia’s large middle-aged body spilling out of the skimpy clothes she’d been wearing the night before and would have to remind her that no, she can’t smoke in the house because that’s the house rule. Julia would roll her eyes and look scathingly at Jess and Sylvia would say something vaguely irritating to both of them. And the house would smell of stale cigarettes and dregs of wine and residual sweaty perfume.
    Soon, the house is silent again. Her mum has gone to bed. Jess wonders if she ought to go and check that she’s OK. No, her mum should look after herself.
    A few minutes later, there’s a hurried stumbling of feet across the landing, a groan and the sound of her mother vomiting in the toilet.
    Jess turns on her side, pulls the duvet over her head, and eventually blocks her mother out.

CHAPTER 9
THE COLOUR OF LOSS
    IT is the following day, a head-rushing hot Saturday. It will soon be evening, when darkness will bring something perilous to Jack or Jess. But for now it is day and the sky is clear. Some things will happen that are not dangerous at all. Although perhaps all those things, too, are part of the whole jumble and you just can’t untangle it: small things having huge and unpredictable effects, like butterfly wings in New York causing hurricanes in Indonesia. Or whatever it is.
    In the morning, Jess had fed Spike and was leaving the kitchen, toast in mouth, tea cooling in mug, when Sylvia groaned down the stairs, gripping the banister with one hand, one finger and thumb of the other pressing tightly into her forehead as though she could squeeze out the pain if she pressed hard enough.
    â€œGotta go, Mum. I’m going to Jack’s house – band practice? You look rough.”
    â€œThanks. What band?”
    â€œJack’s band, Mum. I told you. Anyway, gotta go. Don’t know when I’ll be back. Sometime this afternoon. Then I’m out tonight.”
    Sylvia made a noise sufficient to suggest that she vaguely understood this and had no strength to disagree.
    Soon afterwards, wth the curtains of her mum’s bedroom still grimly closed, Jess leaves the house, refusing to think of her mother, though it’s not easy. A brief anger flashes.
    The moment when she arrives at Jack’s house is not one she will forget. He has come to meet her at the end of the road and his wide smile as he says hello makes her heart turn over. He grabs her hand and leads her into the garage. Jack’s garage is large and contains no sign of cars. To be fair, there are two garages, and the other one presumably has a car in it, but this one is seriously kitted out for a band practice.
    The fractional silence, as the band turns to see this girl that Jack has found, is something loaded. One boy lets out a long, low whistle, then comes to greet her from behind his drums.
    â€œMeet Tommy,” says Jack.
    A girl with a nest of streaky blonde hair and black-rimmed eyes smiles at Jess from behind a keyboard and says, “Hi, I’m Ella.”
    â€œThat’s Chris,” says Jack, and Chris raises his