Read Amethyst for Free Online Page A

grinning and smiling and being so maddeningly nice, I’ll die!
    Copper pointed to the bed. ‘We cut off the legs and replaced them with stone pillars,’ she said proudly. ‘And there’s an iron headboard. Questrid helped make it. He said you wouldn’t want to sleep on wood, it might give you a headache. It does to him – or it used to.’
    ‘He’s right,’ Amy said. ‘Even being in here …’ She stopped. ‘Well, I’ll see how I get on. Which is your room?’
    ‘Just here.’ Copper opened the next door along the corridor and stood back to let Amy into her room.
    ‘Oh, and this,’ she added, waving towards the bed, ‘is Ralick.’

9
Ralick
    Amy stopped dead. She stared at the scruffy ball of fur on the bed.
    ‘A stuffed toy?’
    ‘My wolf cub.’
    Wolf cub! She’d forgotten all about it. The wolf cub she had to steal. The reason she was here. How could she forget?
    The little cub uncurled itself. Its fur was darker than Silver’s, a soft gold, with white-blond patches round its eyes. A dark streak ran down its forehead and from each eye, joining to make a dark line down the bridge of its nose. It had golden eyes.
    ‘What did you say it was?’ she gulped.
    ‘He’ s a wolf cub,’ said Copper. ‘He’s four months old. He’s still got his baby fur, but later he’ll be more silvery-coloured. Isn’t he gorgeous?’
    ‘Er, yes.’
    Then Amy saw a strange thing. She saw Copper and the wolf cub exchange a very particular look. It wasn’t just that their eyes met, nothing so simple, no, she was sure. They looked at each other as equals, as friends. As intelligent beings.
    Granite was right, she thought. This cub is special.
    Ralick yawned and stretched. He rolled over so his little pink tummy showed. His out-sized paws hung limply as Copper rubbed his underneath and stroked his head. She fondled his thickly-furred ears and cooed at him.
    ‘I don’t know why he’s up here. He slipped away when you knocked at the door. I expect he didn’t like all the commotion. He’s my very closest friend, Amy. I hope you two will get on.’
    The way they gazed at each other was sickening. Amy felt herself growing tight and angry. As if some internal spring was being wound up, and was getting shorter and springier and about to burst.
    ‘How sweet.’
    ‘Thank you. He is. Ralick and Questrid are special. And now you, Amethyst. I’m so glad Ruby arranged for you to come and stay.’
    Amy smiled weakly. There she goes again, she thought, gushing like a waterfall, and nice. So NICE.
    ‘I’ll go and unpack my things,’ Amy told Copper.
    ‘Do you want me to help?’
    ‘No, no,’ said Amy. ‘Thanks.’
    She scuttled into her bedroom and closed the door.
    She snatched her hand away from the door as she shutit: Yuk! Even the handle was made of wood. It was shaped into an acorn, and so realistic that if it hadn’t been so big, a squirrel would have been fooled. She stood very still so the floorboards wouldn’t creak, closed her eyes and tried not to breathe the wood smell in too deeply.
    It was all so weird. That horrible wolf cub thing, she thought. I hate it. And I hate Copper. Why do they look at each other like that? Secrets. They’ve got secrets but I’m not jealous. How could I be jealous of a wolf and a Wood girl?
    But she was …
    All her life her uncle and aunt had drummed into her how plain she was. How stupid. The only thing they’d praised her for was for spoiling things. They’d told her stories about the weak and wishy-washy Wood Clan and the superiority of the Rocks. Now here she was, surrounded by wooden things and Wood People – and it wasn’t the way they’d described it at all.
    Copper truly seemed to like her. Nobody had ever liked her before. Because how could anyone like her? A spoiler? But Copper didn’t know about her spoiling skills …
    Amy went over to the window. She needed more air. She felt weak. The effect of Copper liking her was actually making her feel wobbly, as if bits