Read Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery for Free Online Page A

phobia, though.
    At first Donna was suspicious of me because I wore jeans and liked running around and shouting and ‘behaving like a boy’. When I turned fourteen and discovered hair products to turn my frizz into curls, and started wearing mascara and lip gloss, she changed her tune. Now I was ‘too tarty’. Not a suitable friend for her precious baby, anyway.
    Who cared? I bounced into Jack’s room – where the boy wonder was curled up asleep, bare legs poking out from under his Tottenham Hotspur duvet – and sat down heavily on his calves.
    â€˜Oi!’ he said, sleepily, blinking at me. There was a distinctive whiff in the air. Stale deodorant mingled with freshly-delivered fart. I was sure Raf’s room never ponged like that. It’d be full of fresh air and classy aftershave. I wondered if I’d ever get to smell it.
    â€˜Whoa. Hey, Lia. Here for an early morning encounter with Little Jack? It’s just that I think we’ll have to get rid of my mum first, somehow.’
    His voice was loud enough for Donna to hear, bustling around on the landing. She gave a loud snort and slammed the door to her bedroom.
    â€˜Shut up, you moron,’ I said. ‘Dream on.’
    â€˜Oh go on, Lia. Just a quickie. You know youwant to. Otherwise, what are you doing here?’
    â€˜I’ve got something big to tell you!’
    Jack looked puzzled. And then slightly concerned. ‘Bloody hell, Lia, if you’ve messed up. . .’
    I thumped him.
    â€˜I have won the lottery. I am now worth eight million pounds. If I wanted to, I could buy all the houses in this street.’
    â€˜Bollocks,’ said Jack. ‘You have absolutely no idea about house prices. You should talk to my cousin Eddie – he’s an estate agent in Hemel Hempstead.’
    â€˜Shut up about Eddie. The point is not house prices. The point is that I have won the lottery.’
    Watching Jack grasp an idea is like chucking a coin into a deep wishing well. There’s a long pause, then
plop, splash
and little ripples as comprehension dawns.
    â€˜Jesus Christ! Bloody hell!’ Jack ran through his long vocabulary of swear words at increasing volume, and launched himself across the duvet to give me a bear hug, just as Donna stormed through the door.
    â€˜Jack! Mind your language! And what’s going on here?’
    â€˜Nothing, Ma, although technically you have no right to ask that question given that I am sixteen andthis is the privacy of my bedroom. If I choose to entertain a girl here, you’ll just have to lump it.’
    â€˜But it won’t be me,’ I said, shrugging him off. ‘Jack, I’m going to call Shaz, see if she can meet up down the Broadway Café. Half an hour?’
    Shaz was busy, so it was just Jack and me having breakfast at Tithe Green’s main eating place, which used to be a greasy spoon before it got a manager with ideas and wipeable Cath Kidston tablecloths.
    â€˜Right,’ he said, spooning sugar into his tea. ‘Tell me.’
    â€˜I told you. I won eight million pounds. And a bit more.’
    â€˜On that ticket? The one we bought the other day?’
    â€˜Yup.’
    Jack had this big goofy grin that you mostly saw when he scored a goal or when it was time for Food Tech, his favourite subject. Or when he was thinking about sex. So he was quite a smiley boy, really, because his life revolved around food, football and fantasy. His dual ambitions were to play for Tottenham and to win
MasterChef
.
    â€˜Of course, ideally I’ll do both and then it’d have to be
Celebrity MasterChef,
’ he told me once. ‘But that’s OK.’
    â€˜Bloody hell, eight million, that’s so cool,’ he said, as his plate of bacon, eggs and sausage arrived.
    â€˜Breakfast’s on me,’ I said, generously, spreading strawberry jam onto a croissant that had been crafted by my dad’s fair hands just a few hours