Past Secrets Read Online Free Page B

past the Summer Street Cafe in case of neighbours lurking within.
    A minute later, she was at the bus stop on Jasmine Row, just in time to catch the 10.05 bus into the city, and Karl.
    Karl. She whispered his name to herself as she gazed dreamily out of the windows on the top deck. Karl and Amber. Amber and Karl.
    It sounded just right, like they were destined to be together.
    Destiny had never been a concept Amber had held much faith in up to now. Just a few weeks away from her eighteenth birthday, and a month from the hated exams, she felt that she was in charge of her own life.
    So she’d only been half paying attention when Ella read their horoscopes that fateful Friday at lunch. Horoscopes were fun but hardly to be relied on. Mum always insisted that Amber was responsible for herself and that life should not be lived on the word of what some astrologer had dreamed up for that day.
    Mum was firm that Amber should never follow the crowd or do anything just because of someone else’s opinion or because ‘everyone else is doing it’. It was a lesson Amber had followed very well up to now.
    ‘Crap for Aries, as usual,’ muttered Ella, reading hers quickly. ‘“Rethink your options but don’t let your enthusiasm wane.” What does that mean?
    Why doesn’t it ever give us hints on what’s coming
    up in the maths paper? Now that would really be seeing the future.’
    They were eating lunch on the gym roof strictly forbidden but the current cool spot for sixth years plotting
    their weekend and how to fit exam study in around at least one trip to the shopping centre to flip through rails of clothes they couldn’t afford.
    All study and no play made you go mad, Ella insisted.
    ‘Yours is better. “Single Taureans are going to find love and passion. Expect sparks to fly this weekend.”’
    ‘Sparks at the football club disco?’ Amber roared with laughter at the very ridiculousness of this idea. It was the same big gang of people she’d known all her life and you couldn’t get excited about a bunch of guys you’d watched grow up.
    Where was the mystique or the romance of that?
    ‘Patrick?’
    ‘Too nice. He’d want to walk along with his hand in your jeans pocket and yours in his and discuss the engagement party. Gross.’
    ‘Greg’s cute.’
    ‘He called me Chubby Face once. No way.’
    Growing three inches taller in the past year meant Amber had gone from being childishly plump to womanly and voluptuous. The addition of honeyed streaks in her rich brown hair meant that all the boys who’d previously talked to her like a clever younger sister suddenly sat up and took notice.
    This new power over guys was heady and Amber
    was still testing it, gently. But she wanted to go somewhere more exciting than the football club disco to do so. Somewhere, beyond the confines of Summer Street, the football club disco and St Ursula’s was Life with a capital L: pulsing, exciting, waiting for her.
    ‘You’re getting so choosy,’ said Ella. ‘You fancied Greg last year.’
    ‘That was last year.’
    ‘Should I get more highlights?’ asked Ella, pulling forward a bit of the long, streaky blonde hair that was almost mandatory in sixth year and examining it critically. ‘Your highlights look great but mine have gone all dull and yellowy.’
    ‘Use the special shampoo for blondes,’ said Amber.
    ‘It costs a fortune. I bet your mum buys it for you. Mine wouldn’t.’ Ella was indignant. Because there were only the two of them, Amber’s mum bought her everything she wanted, while Ella’s, with three older sons as well, could hardly do the same thing.
    ‘I’ll give you some of my shampoo,’ offered Amber. She knew how lucky she was and always shared any goodies with Ella. That’s what best friends were for. ‘Now, tomorrow night.’ The pewter eyes gleamed. ‘Not the football club disco, please.’
    ‘Well …’ Ella began. ‘We could try something different.’
    ‘… Something bad …’ Amber shivered