Blue Moon (Book One in The Blue Crystal Trilogy) Read Online Free

me,
staring at each other. Then she smiled a dazzling, friendly smile
and the moment was gone. The classroom came back into focus and I
took a deep breath, feeling exhausted and energized at the same
time. I looked around, expecting everyone to be watching me, but no
one appeared to have noticed.
    “Violet, why don’t you sit next
to Emily?” suggested Mrs Pritchard. “There’s an empty desk
there.”
    “Thank you,” said Violet, in a
voice as clear as crystal, and came to sit alongside me. She turned
and smiled once again, although not with the previous intensity,
and this time, I grinned back.
    “We were just examining the
difference between …’ began Miss Widdicombe.
    “Shakespeare’s use of trochaic
rhythm and iambic pentameters?” said Violet, smiling confidently.
“I know. I heard as I came in.” She then proceeded to give a
detailed explanation of each, backed up by examples from the play,
and we all stared once again, mouths agog in disbelief.
    “I was just about to say that,”
Seth called out, and we all laughed.
    The rest of the lesson passed
in a haze, as we all gawped at Violet, quite unsure what to make of
her knowledge, her composure or her dazzling beauty. Miss
Widdicombe might just as well have been teaching us Chinese as
English, for all the notice we took of her and when the bell came
for the end of the lesson, she gathered her books with an
exasperated sigh and swept out of the room muttering something
about the end of term not coming soon enough.
    I turned to Violet. “It’s break
time, do you want to go to the café for a hot chocolate?”
    “That would be nice,” she
started to say, before she was literally mobbed by the rest of the
class, all asking questions at the same time.
    “Where do you come from?”
“Where are you living?” “Where do you get your skinny jeans from?”
“What are you doing tonight?” The questions came thick and fast and
Violet looked at me, shrugging her shoulders. She held up her hands
for silence and, miraculously, everyone stopped talking.
    “My family has come to live
here from Egypt,” she said in her crystal clear voice. “We had to
leave with all the trouble that’s going on. It was getting too
dangerous to stay. We’re going to be living in
Hartswell-on-the-Hill, at Hartswell Hall, which we’re turning into
a luxury hotel. There’s me, my mum and dad, and my older brother
Theo, who will also be coming to college. He’s already done
A-levels, but he wants to do a refresher course.”
    Thirteen female minds did the
same equation at exactly the same time. She had an older brother.
Coming to college. If he was anywhere half as gorgeous as his
sister, he was going to be an absolute heartthrob.
    “Now, if you don’t mind, Emily
and I are going to get a drink,” she said, and linking arms with
me, literally pulled me towards the door. “Sorry,” she muttered
under her breath, “I simply can’t stand all the attention, it
really freaks me out. Now which way do we go?”
    I guided her down the stairs as
if in a dream, realising too late that I’d left Tash behind. Never
mind, I’d see her at lunchtime. We could talk later.
    For the next twenty minutes,
Violet and I sat in the café, sipping hot chocolate, talking and
swapping stories. She exuded a natural warmth and radiance, and I
felt totally at ease in her presence. As our body chemistries
meshed, I felt re-energised and refreshed, glowing in her reflected
glory, and I remember thinking that she was a better tonic than any
pills or potions.
    I told her about life in
Hartswell-on-the-Hill, which didn’t take long, about my family and
friends, and about Hartsdown College. She told me of her life in
Egypt, of the heat and the dust, the markets and bazaars, the
colours and the spices, and the fabulous house that her family
owned, with its outdoor pool, many rooms and servants.
    “Servants,” I repeated. “I
can’t imagine what it must be like to have servants waiting