Read Scarlet Wakefield 01 - Kiss Me Kill Me for Free Online Page A

grating, high-pitched upper-class voices that could cut through steel faster than a circular saw.
    “Oh my God, no, you can’t wear Blue Aeroplanes! Put those back at once!”
    “What do you mean?” Sophia sounds baffled, as am I.
    “You can’t wear Blue Aeroplanes jeans! Only Plum can wear Blue Aeroplanes!”
    “Are you serious?” Sophia says.
    “Fine. Don’t believe me. Buy them and see what happens.”
    “What’ll happen?” Now real doubt is creeping into Sophia’s voice.
    Venetia heaves a giant sigh. “Plum will send you to Coventry for weeks. That’s what she did when Nadia bought Blue Aeroplanes. Don’t you remember?”
    “No, I don’t! When was that?” Sophia sounds petrified.
    “Last autumn. After half-term. You must have been there.”
    “I was in Kenya the week after half-term! On safari with Mummy and Daddy!” Sophia realizes. “But I do remember, I came back and we weren’t allowed to talk to Nadia. Only no one told me why, and I didn’t want to ask.”
    I grimace. Sophia is such a pathetic sheep.
    “Well, that’s why,” Venetia says. “And now you know.”
    I hear the sound of hangers shifting as, I presume, Sophia fearfully slips the pair of Blue Aeroplanes jeans back on the rail.
    “Secretly?” Venetia adds, in what she thinks is a lowered voice. “And promise you won’t tell?”
    “Oh yah, absolutely!” Sophia sounds very excited.
    “Nadia looked better in the jeans than Plum did. That’s why Plum got so angry. You know she doesn’t have much of a bum.”
    “Gosh,” Sophia says.
    “I heard Nadia cut the jeans up and sent them to Plum, and that’s when Plum took the Coventry thing off and we could talk to Nadia again,” Venetia continues. “But that’s just a rumor.”
    “Oh yah, of course,” Sophia says.
    They both sound very subdued now. I know they believe the part about Nadia cutting up the jeans.
    And so do I.
    “Well, there’s nothing in this bloody shop today,”
    Venetia says bluffly. “Since they only have that bag in yellow. God. Do you want to get a soy latte?”
    “Love to!” Sophia sings out.
    Honestly, I’m surprised Sophia doesn’t bleat instead of talk. I bet if Venetia had asked her if she wanted to get a slice of dead rat fried in batter, she’d have agreed. Anything to fit in.
    Mind you, it’s hypocritical of me to complain about that, isn’t it? What am I doing here if not spending a fortune on clothes that will help me fit in?
    I nose slowly through the curtains to make sure they’ve gone, like a mole trying to see if it’s safe to come out of its hole. When I’ve got enough of my face (about the amount you have out of the water when you’re floating in the sea) through the gap in the curtains to be sure that the coast is clear (goodness, I’m full of metaphors today) I emerge.
    “That looks really nice,” says the shop assistant from across the room.
    I turn to look at myself in the long mirror in its twisted silver frame. I already had a look in the changing room. I’m not an idiot—I know better than to walk outside without checking first to make sure I don’t look like a fat sausage squeezed into a skin too small for it.
    I’m wearing an aqua green top in a silky material, with lots of straps, including one that runs diagonally across one shoulder and down the back. The material is suspended from the straps in a series of gathers and angled folds that looked on the hanger like someone had taken drugs and gone crazy in the sewing room, but on me actually hang really nicely. It’s a bit like drapery from a Greek statue, and somehow, miraculously, I look grown-up and graceful in it.
    The salesgirl has also found me a pair of jeans that work. I.e., I didn’t pull them on, stare at myself in the mirror and think Thunder thighs, elephant legs, and burst into tears. Not too skinny, not too baggy. Nice dark denim, which is always safe. Pale denim is only for girls so thin and confident that they can wear stuff that’s so out