Read Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 06] for Free Online

there’s
good to be had.
    I should turn away when he’s riding down the
street,
    But a blur of steel and black leather makes
my heart skip a beat.
     
    Dark rider, fly my way and thrill me with
your thunder.
    Steely strider, I’m just looking for a smile.
    Kick it over and accelerate, take me with you
miles and miles.
    Right or wrong, what’s going on, I’ve got to
move on.
     
     
     
     
     
    C h a p t e r   5
    Peculiar
Parents
     
    Contents - Prev / Next
     
    Mum was in the kitchen
chopping peppers when I got back from Muswell Hill. I took a deep breath and
prepared myself for the inevitable. Just bite the bullet, I told myself. Let
her have her say, look apologetic, then escape to the safety of my room.
    ‘Izzie…’ Mum began.
    Izzie? I thought.
What’s going on? She calls me Isobel when she’s mad. Was everything OK, then? I
was still determined not to speak to her, though, only the requisite, yes, no,
sorry, sorry. But as she went on, I began to feel
really
rotten. In
her own way, I could see that she was trying to be understanding. I don’t get
her at all sometimes. I’d mentally prepared myself for the ‘words’, but she was
being really nice, a total turnaround since this morning.
    Maybe this is some new
kind of torture, I thought, as she looked at me with concern. Or maybe she’s
been reading one of those ‘How to deal with your mad teenage daughter’ books.
That’s probably it. I don’t know. Whatever it was, my new mellow mum kind of
threw me. She was all, Are you all right? Did you get some lunch? Is there
anything you want to talk about? You know I have your best interests at heart,
and so on. I felt
awful
. I’d much rather be bawled out, I thought,
because now I feel guilty as hell that I’ve got a new stud in. Hell’s, bells
and poo. Sometimes I just can’t win.
    After the ‘words’, she
offered to drive me over to Dad’s, as I’d arranged to have supper there.
    ‘Er, no thanks, Mum,’
I said. ‘I promised I’d drop in at Ben’s on the way, just for half an hour to
run through some of the songs for the gig next Saturday.’
    She rolled her eyes.
‘You’re never in these days, Izzie. Look, call me from your dad’s later, I’ll
come and get you.’
    ‘Oh, don’t worry,
Mum,’ I said. ‘I’ll get Dad to drop me.’
    ‘Well, don’t be too
late,’ she called after me as I headed for the door.
     
    The boys were already
there when I got to Ben’s house in Highgate. There are four of them in the
band: Ben, who’s the lead vocalist and plays guitar and keyboard, Mark on bass,
Elliot, also on keyboard, and Biff on drums. The band’s called King Noz and
they’ve made quite a name for themselves locally, playing gigs in pubs and
local schools. I’m not officially in the band, but when I started going out
with Ben, I sang a few numbers with them and now I’ve become a regular.
    The boys were all out
in the garage, going over some of the songs for Saturday. I say garage, but
it’s really a den/music studio. Ben’s dad works as a sound engineer at the BBC
and he converted the garage into a studio for Ben to rehearse in. It’s totally
brilliant in there. At the beginning of summer, Ben and I went down to the East
End and bought loads of silk suit lining fabric, which we draped all over the
garage, from the ceiling and walls. He put up posters of Krishna, Buddha and
Guru Nanak and we persuaded his dad to collect this old sofa and chair that
we’d spotted on a skip a few streets away. It’s a really funky room now - it
looks like an Arabian tent and it smells eastern as well, because he burns the
joss sticks I got him for his birthday - lavender and amber ones. They smell
fab. Ben gave me a key to the room when we were going out and he hasn’t asked
for it back, which is good of him. He said I could go there if ever I want to
hang out on my own and get away from home. His parents are really cool and
never go in. They’re not daft, because I think if the band