Read Indigo Blue for Free Online

nice… swimming club was excellent… do you think it’s too late for me to start gymnastics? My mum and your dad could take turns with the driving…’
    I shuffle past and park my stuff at Aisha’s desk, because I know that if I say anything to her or Jo right now I’ll live to regret it. And Aisha Patel might not live to regret it.
    I sit down, feeling sick and shaky. I make a big deal out of rummaging in my bag, because I’m scared that I might cry, and there’s no way I want anyone to see.
    ‘Hey, Indie, you’re back! How’s your gran? Is she OK?’
    Why the sudden interest in Gran?
    Aisha is fussing round my desk (her desk), beaming and telling me how much everyone’s missed me, how they were all so worried in case I’d gone forever.
    ‘What exactly are you talking about?’
    Aisha says it’s OK, they all know, because Kevin Parker’s dad met Max in the Fox and Squirrel a few days back, and Max told him we’d gone down to Wales because Gran was ill.
    ‘He thought you’d be away quite a while,’ Aisha gushes, all sympathy and concern.
    ‘Well, I’m not,’ I say coldly. ‘I’m back. And, yeah, I can see you’ve missed me.’
    Aisha looks crushed, and for a moment I feel bad, like I’ve stepped on her pet hamster or something. Then I remember. She’s the one who’s pushed me out of my seat. She’s the one who’s stealing my best friend.
    ‘I’ll get my stuff,’ Aisha says in a small, hurt voice, and I want to slap her for being so weak, so wimpy. If she were tough and mean and spiteful, she’d be easier to hate.
    Still, I’m doing my best.
    She scoops up her books and her bag and we swap seats. Jo pinches me hard as I flop down, and I giggle and swat her back and I can breathe again, because somehow, at last, everything is going to be OK.

‘So… how was Wales?’ Jo whispers later as we plough through a shedload of fractions. Miss McDougall can be really spiteful on a Monday morning.
    ‘Wales?’
    ‘You know, your gran, all that stuff. I don’t suppose you had time for postcards.’
    Jo, we didn’t go to Wales,’ I tell her. ‘My gran’s fine. Really. That was just some line Max gave out to Kevin Parker’s dad.’
    ‘Why would he do that?’ Jo puzzles.
    I shrug.
    ‘Embarrassed?’ I suggest.
    ‘About what?’
    I look at Jo. She really hasn’t a clue what’s been happening in my life over the last few days.
    ‘I told you we were moving,’ I say, inventing some creative fraction answers for Miss McDougall to mark wrong.
    ‘But Kevin Parker said that Max said…’
    I make a huffy noise, put down my pencil.
    ‘Mum’s left Max.’
    Jo whistles under her breath, and I can see, at last, I’ve got her attention.
    ‘I didn’t think… you’ve really moved?’
    ‘To the mouldy basement from hell.’
    Miss McDougall cruises noiselessy to a halt beside our desk and clears her throat in a talk-any-more-and-you’re-dead kind of way.
    I huddle down over my fractions, scrawl in a few more imaginary answers and doodle hearts and flowers and crescent moons all down the margins.
    At break, we lie in the grass at the edge of the sports field and paint our nails with purple glittery nail varnish from Jo’s stash.
    ‘Why did your mum leave Max?’ Jo wants to know. ‘Is he having an affair? Is she?’
    ‘ No! Course not,’ I say indignantly. ‘I think… I don’t know. Max was grumpy all the time. Mum just got fed up.’
    ‘Fed up?’
    Jo’s not convinced. She wants drama, passion, soap-opera details.
    She’s not going to get them, though. I need to get my head round what’s happened. I need to get so I don’t feel scared and ashamed and confused every time I think about it.
    ‘They were just rowing all the time. It wasn’t working.’
    ‘They fell out of love…’Jo sighs.
    Like I told you, she reads too many slushy magazines.
    I open the silver nail varnish and blob tiny silver spots on her perfectly painted nails.
    ‘Yeuchh! How am I going to eat my crisps now?’