Read A Desirable Residence for Free Online Page A

the companionable atmosphere of shoe bags and radiators, playing on Fuller’s Nintendo. But there was always the danger that his mother would come and find him, as she had that memorable day when he’d borrowed Martin Pickard’s Walkman and forgotten what time it was. She’d completely flipped, and thought he’d been run over or abducted, and got all hysterical and gone to find Mr Sharp. When they’d arrived in the cloakroom and she’d seen him, curled up on the bench, completely absorbed in Michael Jackson, she’d nearly burst into tears, according to Pickard. Daniel had always been grateful to Pickard after that, for not telling everyone about it and making it into some big class joke. But he never wanted it to happen again.
    So after a while, he tore himself from level three of Mortal Kombat and mooched slowly out of the cloakroom, up the stairs, through the hall and out into the drive of Dene Hall. His mother’s car was parked near the school building, and Andrew, his younger brother, was already strapped into the back seat. Daniel preferred it when Hannah, their housekeeper, came to pick them up. She was really cool, and played tapes really loud and swore at people in her Scottish accent when they got in her way. But he’d known his mother would be there today. She always came on the first day of term. And besides, she’d want to hear about the scholarship class.
    Just thinking about it gave Daniel a secret, elating feeling of pride. It was the way Mr Williams had said, so casually, ‘And, of course, Witherstone. You’ll be sitting a scholarship of some sort, I should imagine.’ He’d given Daniel a little smile—that showed he knew how chuffed Daniel was but wasn’t going to say—and then told everyone to get out their maths books. And all day, Daniel had carried around a little glow inside him. Even when Miss Tilley told him she couldn’t fit him in at any other time, and he’d have to come for his clarinet lesson at eight-thirty on Monday mornings, he’d smiled, and said that was fine. It was as if nothing could go wrong.
    But now he was going to have to tell his mother. He looked at her face, smiling at him questioningly through the windscreen. At least she knew enough not to get out of the car, like she used to, and call out really embarrassing things like, ‘How did your spelling test go?’ But she would still want to know whether Mr Williams had said anything about scholarships. And then he’d have to tell her, and then the glow would be gone.
    It wasn’t that she wouldn’t be pleased. It was that she’d be too pleased. She’d talk about it too much, and ask him all about it, and ask how many other boys were in the scholarship class, and what had Mr Williams said to him exactly, and then tell her again, start from the beginning, and tell her which lesson they were in when he said it, and had they mentioned which schools they might sit and was anyone trying for a scholarship at Bourne?
    He’d have to tell her all about it, and talk about it all the way home, and then hear her tell Hannah, and his father, and probably everyone else in the world as well. It would be like the time he won that clarinet competition, and she’d told every single mother in his form. It was really embarrassing.
    As he neared the car, she leaned back and opened the rear door for him.
    ‘Jump in,’ she said. ‘Good day?’
    ‘All right,’ he muttered.
    ‘Did anything happen?’
    ‘No. What’s for tea?’
    ‘Hannah’s doing it. Something special, I’m sure.’ She backed the car smoothly out of its parking space, and out of the school drive. A few moments’ silence elapsed. Daniel stared doggedly out of the window. Andrew was reading a comic that he must have borrowed from someone at school. Daniel glanced at him.
    ‘Can I read that at home?’ he said, sotto voce .
    ‘OK,’ said Andrew, without looking up.
    ‘What’s that?’ said their mother brightly.
    ‘Nothing,’ said Daniel. His mother