Cassie Read Online Free

was comfortable with her madness, mainly because there was method in it.
    Cassie
    This room is strange. I don’t like it.
    Mum has put up the bells. I lie here and I can see them. They twist in the air, catch the last of the light, tinkle like laughter.
    Mum is somewhere off to the left, wrapped in darkness. She is worried. I can taste it.
    I’m worried too. Worry tastes like metal. This is especially sharp.
    I’m scared.
    Holly
    My name is Holly Holley and this is my bedtime routine.
    Nine-thirty: shower.
    Nine-forty: brush teeth, comb hair, lay out school clothes for tomorrow.
    Nine-fifty: snuggle into bed with Gladly, my cross-eyed bear. (No one knows about Gladly. No one will ever know. He is a Raph substitute.)
    Think about Raph until I drift off to sleep.
    Not tonight.
    Tonight I think about a girl in a wheelchair. A girl who can’t control her body. I think about how she will change my life, if only for a month or so.
    I’m scared.

2
    Holly
    Holly was stunned.
    It was just as well she was sitting in school assembly or she would have fallen over. Mr Wilson, the principal, was trying, with complete lack of success, to call the rabble to order when Demi Larson strolled down the aisles of seated students and stopped in front of Holly. She smiled, crouched and whispered in her ear.
    The whole school hushed and watched. Demi spoke for a few moments, patted Holly on the shoulder and made her way back to Kari and Georgia, the other members of that select group known as ‘The Demi Set’.
    Mr Wilson took advantage of the quiet to start his whole-school address.
    But Holly found it impossible to pay attention.
    She was stunned.
    Though that didn’t stop her smiling or her heart from hammering wildly.
    Holly
    My name is Holly Holley and I suppose I should have expected Amy’s reaction.
    â€˜A sleepover at Demi Larson’s?’ she whispers over Mr Wilson’s mumblings. Then – I swear it’s true – she stifles a yawn. Honest! ‘I’d take a good book if I were you.’
    Sometimes I think Amy is just jealous. She never sounds jealous, it’s true, but I reckon that’s an act.
    Take a book, indeed! But that gets me thinking. What will I take? What is the custom with sleepovers? Do you take food? And what about sleepwear? I certainly can’t take my pyjamas with Eeyore, Pooh and Piglet on them. Maybe I can dip into my Plastic Surgery Emergency Fund and buy something silky from Kmart. I am so absorbed in this train of thought, that I almost don’t hear Amy’s whispered comment.
    â€˜Anyway,’ she says. ‘I thought you had guests arriving on Saturday night.’
    â€˜Oh God,’ I wail.
    Nine hundred faces turn towards me.
    â€˜I am not irreligious, Holly Holley,’ the Principal drops into the ensuing silence, ‘but I think you’ll find that’s worth an after-school detention.’
    Holly
    Holly opened the car door for her mother when she arrived home.
    â€˜Hiya, chicken,’ said Ivy, brandishing a plastic bag full of mysterious ingredients. ‘Got some beaut stuff from the shop today. I think the meal tonight is going to be one of my best.’
    â€˜I can’t wait. Do you want help preparing it?’
    Ivy Holley climbed out of the car, frowned and took a closer look at her daughter.
    â€˜Are you all right, sweetie?’ she said. ‘Not feeling ill, or anything?’
    â€˜Mum, I need a favour.’
    â€˜Ah, that explains it. Well, let me get in the door, chicken. I’ve been rushed off my feet all day and I need to get this stuff into the fridge.’
    Holly helped. She unpacked all kinds of things she didn’t recognise and put them away without comment. Judging by what she could see, it seemed a remote chance that anything edible would be on offer tonight. But that was a normal state of affairs. Ivy sat at the kitchen table and took off her shoes. She put one foot up on her knee,