Читать книгу Sarah Lean - 3 Book Collection - Sarah Lean, Sarah Lean - Страница 14

I TOOK THE SPONSORSHIP FORM HOME. LUKE signed it. My brother’s thirteen. He looks like my mum; he’s got her thick brown hair and he’s just about as tall as she was. But he’s serious and boring.

I get on Luke’s nerves. I have to. He spends a lot of time in his room on his own, racing cars on his computer. His ambition is to beat someone called Sting who has the highest score. He tells me to shut up all the time; he can’t break records and reduce his lap times with me banging about in the background. Dad tells me to leave him alone. He says you have to give a man a bit of peace and quiet. I remember Mum used to say she liked noise in the house. She said, “When the kids are quiet, you know there’s trouble.” But Dad doesn’t seem to remember anything she used to say.

Luke calculated sponsoring me probably wouldn’t cost him much. But he said it would be worth every penny. “I wish it was forever,” he said.

Be careful what you wish for, that’s what Mum would have said.

“Dad, guess what?” Luke said, flinging the form miles away from my hands. “I’ve taken 1.4 seconds off my lap time.” He slid over the back of the sofa and sat next to Dad, slumping his feet on the table.

“Hmm?” said Dad.

“And that was in heavy rain.”

“Good for you,” Dad said, without looking away from the TV. “Take your feet off the table. And sit down, Cally. I’m trying to watch this.”

When Inspector Morse finished, I showed Dad the sponsorship form. He hesitated then read the details.

“Sponsored silence, eh?”

“Miss Steadman said I could do it.”

“She did?”

“And Mrs Brooks.”

“Good old Mrs Brooks,” he muttered. Which isn’t what he usually said about her. “Next Tuesday?”

“All day. Why?”

“Nothing. There’s a meeting at work. I’m going to be late home, that’s all.”

He wrote fifty pence in the box on the form that said how much you were going to pledge for each hour of silence. Then he looked at the telly again.

“Dad,” I said, “I saw Mum again. She came to school.”

He closed his eyes and rubbed his eyebrows, shook his head.

“She brought a dog with her.”

Dad crossed out the fifty pence and changed it to a pound. “Time for bed,” he said.

I watched him flick the channels to find another detective programme. He liked mysteries; he liked to try to guess whodunnit.