GLAZE Read Online Free Page A

year above me.’
    ‘And I know you, Petri Quinn, who is too bright for her own good and has a habit of getting into trouble by following strange boys places she shouldn’t.’
    I don’t know what he’s on about at first and then… I remember.  
    Last year, I saw Dave Carlton and his gang—the Hoodz, which would be funny if it weren’t so depressing—follow a tall, brown-haired boy behind the games hall. The boy was new to school, and wearing a uniform that was too small for him. I knew Dave well enough to guess what he was up to. His mates chanting ‘get the pussy’ made it pretty clear.  
    I’ve never been very good at controlling my temper. Not since I was bullied for months after I went up a grade and I learnt that a brilliantly witty comeback won’t stop girls from throwing your bag on the top of the bus shelter, but a swift punch to the stomach will. So I’d followed Dave to find his friends had cornered the new kid and were about to give him the usual City High welcome.  
    I’d Frisbee’d a dustbin lid at Dave’s head before he had a chance to start throwing punches and knocked out his front tooth.
    Dave and I ended up in detention for a month after. I’d managed to stop him from fulfilling his promise of knocking my teeth out by doing all his maths homework for him. It was an uneasy truce. But I was still alive.  
    I hadn’t seen the boy in the too-small uniform again. Not until now.  
    ‘If you go to City why weren’t you with the official school protest? Why were you with those, those...’ in my bubbling rage I struggle to find the word.
    ‘Vandals? Thugs?’ he says standing up and sending the chair spinning behind him.  
    ‘I was going to say dicks, but yes, OK.’
    ‘They’re useful.’
    ‘They’re idiots.’  
    ‘It wasn’t them firing rubber bullets.’
    ‘No, but they were the ones throwing bottles and panicking everyone. If they hadn’t stormed in, then the protest would have continued peacefully and everyone would have been happy.’
    He laughs through his nose. ‘Happy, sure. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? As long as everyone is happy.’
    ‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ I say, annoyed because I get the feeling he’s mocking me but I’m missing the joke.  
    ‘Glaze,’ he says, looking away from me and back out through the window.
    ‘Glaze? You have a problem with Glaze making people happy? That’s a new one. I’ve heard people being angry that it makes people stupid. But happy? What’s wrong with that? Doesn’t it make you happy?’
    ‘I don’t know. I’m not on,’ he says, looking down at his feet.  
    ‘You’re not on?’ I say, annoyed that I’m repeating everything he says like a moron. ‘But you’re, what eighteen?’
    ‘Seventeen.’
    I’m shocked. I think he’s the first person I’ve met who could be chipped but isn’t. It should make us allies of sorts, outsiders together. But I just think it’s weird.  
    ‘Is it some kind of religious thing? Because I know that some imams declared it forbidden. Zizi, my mother, met with some Islamic leaders last year to listen to their concerns.’
    ‘No,’ he says, before I have a chance to launch into the full story behind how Zizi won them over. He pushes open the doors and heads down the stairs, taking two steps at a time.  
    ‘Oh, OK. Hey, wait for me.’
    I scramble after him, letting the door slam shut. I don’t want to be left on my own in this deserted office block. There’s something so sad about a place that was once bustling with people being deserted. I can almost imagine their voices echoing around this stairwell; the hushed gossip, secret arguments, all taking place away from the prying eyes of the office.
    ‘Where to now?’ I ask when I catch up with him on the next level down.  
    ‘You go home,’ he says, grabbing hold of the banister and swinging himself down the whole flight of stairs at once.  
    ‘That’s it? You rescue me and then