Dazzling Danny Read Online Free Page A

note to give to our mums and dads, for them to sign. I didn’t know what to do! I could get Carrie to sign Mum’s name, no problem; but next Wednesday my gran was flying home from Jamaica and we were all going to the airport to meet her. I didn’t want to miss seeing my gran!
    I told Coral about it, thinking that she would understand. Coral had been really upset last year, when her gran had died. She’d loved her gran as much as I love mine.
    “I’ve got to go and meet her!” I said.
    “Why?” said Coral. “You’ll see her when you get home.”
    I said, “I won’t! We’re taking her back to her place.”
    “Well, you’ll see her in the holidays,” said Coral.
    “I want to see her now, ” I said. “She’s been away for nearly two months!”
    “You can’t miss the dress rehearsal,” said Coral.
    “But what am I going to tell my mum and dad?”
    Coral said, “That’s your problem! Maybe you could try telling them the truth, for a change?”
    Girls can be really hard at times. Really unfeeling.
    “What about me ?” said Coral.
    What about her?
    “What about our pas de deux ?”
    “Oh! Pardy durr ,” I said, mimicking her like she’d mimicked me.
    Coral’s cheeks grew very hot and pink. I knew that I’d been mean, but she’d been mean to me! Did she really think our stupid dance was more important than my gran?

    “I might decide not to do it at all,” I said.
    Coral looked at me, horrified. “You can’t back out now !”
    “Yes, I can,” I said. “I can do what I like. I don’t have to be in the show if I don’t want to.”
    “If you didn’t want to do it,” cried Coral, “you should have said so right back at the beginning.” She made this little choking sound. “You’ll just go and ruin it for everyone!”
    Now she was starting to cry. I hate when they do that!
    “You’re just being mean and selfish and – and cowardly ! Tears went rolling down her cheeks. She wiped them away,angrily, with the back of her hand. “Danny Allbright,” she said, “if you back out of the show I’ll never speak to you again!”

    Huh! What did I care? She was only a girl.
    I said this to Darryl, next day, as we mooched round the playground together. Darryl was my best friend! Surely he would understand?
    “So you mean… you’re not coming to the dress rehearsal?” said Darryl.

    “I’ve got to meet my gran,” I said. “She’s old! She mightn’t live much longer.”
    Darryl has met my gran. “She’s not as old as all that,” he said. “She could live for years!”
    “But what would I tell my mum and dad?”
    “Dunno,” said Darryl.
    He wasn’t being at all helpful.
    “Wish I’d never agreed to be in the stupid show,” I said.
    “Bit late for that now,” said Darryl.
    “I could still drop out! If I wanted to. I think I probably will,” I said.
    Darryl gave me this look. Like I was a bit of bird splodge, or something nasty that had crawled out of a bin.
    “Not surprised Coral said she wouldn’t speak to you again!”
    “Think I care?” I said.
    “Not sure I’d want to speak to you again, either,” said Darryl; and he turned, and went running off across the playground to join some of the others in a football game.
    I thought that Darryl was being veryunfair. It is no way for a person’s best friend to treat them.
    When I got in after school my sister was there. She was in a really annoying mood.

    She kept snapping her fingers and waggling her hips and singing “ GO for it ! Just – GO for it !” and giving me these sly looks. I shoved at her and she fell against the corner of the sink and screamed, “Ow! That hurt!” Mum told me crossly to stop behaving like a yob.
    “I don’t know what’s come over you these days!”
    She must have told Dad about it, because later that evening Dad said he wanted to speak to me, and he gave me this long lecture all about manners.
    “I want you to be a tough guy, but I also want you to be a gentleman. Gentlemen do not go