Emily Feather and the Chest of Charms Read Online Free

“Sorry.” Then she gulped, and ran off up to her room.
    â€œJust because you’re cross it doesn’t mean you get to break our stuff!” Robin yelled after her. “And you can’t stop us listening to that song either!”
    Lory’s bedroom door slammed shut so hard the stairs shook, and Robin went straight back to the table, opened the laptop and turned the volume up as high as he could.
    â€œAre you trying to annoy her on purpose?” Lark had asked, wandering in from the kitchen, nibbling on a banana and shuddering as she heard the voice float out from the laptop, syrupy-sweet. “Ugh, turn it down. That song makes me feel sick.”
    Emily nodded. “I can see why Lory’s cross. The first bit sounded OK, but now I can hear it properly and he sounds like he’s singing through about six spoonfuls of sugar. And the words aren’t much better.”
    â€œI know.” Lark sighed. “But that’s not why she’s cross.”
    Emily and Robin frowned at her.
    â€œWhy is she, then? She said it was a stupid song…” Robin asked, shrugging.
    â€œShe likes it.” Lark slumped down on the sofa next to them. “She doesn’t want to like it, but she’s flattered, and sort of embarrassed at the same time. Loads of the girls at school were asking her about it today. They were all really jealous.” She took a vicious bite of banana.
    â€œDo you think she’ll go out with him?” Emily asked, her eyes widening.
    â€œI hope not,” Lark muttered. “He makes my skin crawl.” And she had stomped off upstairs and slammed her bedroom door even harder than Lory had.
    Emily’s room was on the floor above Lory’s and she’d heard the song what felt like a few million times since then. Lory played it a lot. A few times Lark had come up Emily’s rickety little staircase and curled up on Emily’s window seat, staring gloomily out of the windows. She seemed a bit lost and in need of company. Emily loved it, having Lark to talk to. It made her feel older, and special. But at the same time it worried her, seeing her older sisters growing apart. And all because of a boy that none of them liked very much.
    Now Emily leaned towards the kitchen door and watched Lory flick her hair around and laugh as Dan said something funny. There was another rumbling growl from under the table.
    Lark heard her twin giggling and hunched her shoulders irritably.
    Emily sucked at her spoonful of cake scrapings and eyed Lark sideways. “Why does she suddenly like him now? She hated him a couple of weeks ago – when he wrote that song. She had a go at me and Robin for playing it.”
    Lark shivered. “I don’t know. I really don’t see why she lets him hang around. She used to say he made her feel sick. But now he’s sitting with us every lunchtime out on the field. Him and his mates, who don’t even say anything. They just laugh at his dumb jokes.” Lark let her spoon clatter into the bowl and put her chin in her hands.
    Robin eagerly snatched the rest of the mixture for himself, but Lark didn’t even seem to notice. Robin shot a worried glance at Emily.
    â€œShe does tell him to get lost sometimes, but she never sounds as if she means it all that much,” Lark added. “And now he’s coming to the house as well.” She shivered again, shaking her soft brown hair forward so it covered her face as she hunched over. “I don’t like him being here…”

After that, Dan Hargreaves seemed to be back every day, standing at the front door and chatting to Lory.
    â€œWhy doesn’t he ever come in?” Emily asked Lory a few days later, after she’d closed the front door and wandered into the kitchen, smiling foolishly.
    Lory looked at her in surprise, as though she actually hadn’t thought about it until now. “Well … I suppose I never asked him,” she