Megan 3 Read Online Free

driver pulled up with another big jolt, waking Jack. ‘You’re here,’ he said, and he didn’t help me out with Jack, as the other one had always done, but left me to manage bags, baby, chair and everything on my own.
    ‘Thank you very much!’ I said. ‘Lovely journey,’ I added sarcastically – but very quietly. I had to be careful in case I had him for the rest of the term. I put the rucksack on my back, Jack over my arm in the seat, and dragged along the bag of books with the other hand.
    Vicki appeared at the office door with a big smile on her face. She was the manager of the place and she was lovely – all the staff were. There were usually four or five of them: half looked after the babies and half tutored the lessons. Girls came and went: there were usually a couple of pregnant ones or girls with brand new babies, but there were also girls with toddlers; children up to three.
    Poppies was actually four Portakabins linked together. Each had two rooms, and together they made a small school unit with a nursery attached. We were in the grounds of a big comprehensive, Oakley, although we were completely separate from them and couldn’t actually see the school building from where we were.
    ‘Good summer?’ Vicki said, and beamed at Jack. ‘Hello, my favourite boy!’ she said, and he gave a scream of delight. ‘He’s getting along well, Megan,’ she said, opening the inner door for me. ‘He’s looking really grown-up.’
    ‘He’s a year and a month now,’ I said proudly. ‘He’s taking a few steps on his own.’
    ‘Any words?’
    ‘A few,’ I nodded. ‘He says “bye-byes” and “g’bye” and “’lo”,’ I said. ‘But sometimes he gets the goodbye and hello muddled up and says goodbye when you meet him.’
    Vicki laughed. ‘We’ll have him saying lots of words by the end of term,’ she said.
    As I went in, another taxi drew up at the gate and Vicki waved to the girl inside – someone I didn’t recognise – and went down to greet her. I carried on to the nursery to settle Jack, really pleased to be back. Here, I had something to do and girls to chat to. If Jack was getting on my nerves I could offload him, and if I was worried about anything I could ask the staff. They obviously knew better than I did, but, unlike Mum, they didn’t ram it down your throat.
    Our lessons weren’t like they’d been at real school, either – not half so disciplined. They couldn’t be really, because although the girls turned up most days, if their babies were ill, their taxis didn’t arrive or they just didn’t fancy it, they didn’t bother to come in. And sometimes lessons were disrupted by the babies or, more excitingly – as had happened last term – by agirl going into labour. It was all much more laid-back than school: if it was a nice day your tutor might take you out somewhere, to see an interesting building or something, or lessons would be shelved because someone had turned up from the health service and wanted to talk to us about a baby’s speech development or the like.
    I said hello to Joy and Stacey, two girls who’d been there last term, and we chatted a bit about what we’d done in the summer. Stacey had just got engaged to her boyfriend and was wearing a blue sapphire ring, which she flashed in front of our eyes at every opportunity.
    There was a girl I’d never seen before sitting by the window with a very small baby wrapped tightly in a shawl on her lap. She was my age, or a bit younger, had fair curly hair and was pale and quite thin considering it couldn’t have been long since she’d had her baby. She had some funny old clothes on, like jumble sale stuff, but maybe that was because she couldn’t get into anything of her own yet.
    ‘You OK?’ I asked, because she was looking anxious.
    She nodded. ‘First day nerves,’ she said.
    I grinned. ‘It’s not like school – you don’t have toworry. Everyone’s really nice.’
    She shot a nervous look around the room.