Free DEAD GOOD by D A Cooper Page A

uncover would be my enduring daydreams, and night dreams if I’m lucky, of Ed Loake. And just having a crush on someone at school isn’t exactly Headline News, is it? I mean Amber’s just as likely to hand over a full news report on that if she wanted to – it just wouldn’t make much money for her, that’s why she hasn’t. And won’t. And she’s rubbish at taking photographs so the story would be doubly boring with just a sentence saying ‘Madeline Preston fancies Ed Loake.’ My heart does its usual triple flip and speeds up at the mere thought of Ed Loake. Ed Loake. Ed Loake. He has the name of a Knight. The name of a warrior. The name of a…
     
    ‘Loser - if you ask me.’
     
    I spin in anger just in time to see Leo disappear backwards through the wall. He’s grinning and waving farewell and my god – if I had one wish right now it would be to die instantly so I could kick his smug arse right out of the land of limbo and into the depths of total hell. The utter, utter shit-for-brains! How dare he! I am going to have to find out how to stop him from listening in on my thoughts. There must be a law against it – I could probably take out some kind of restraining order to prevent him from coming within a certain radius of my brain or something. Maybe all I need to do is repeat crap in my head. Do a constant “la-la-la” over and over again when I think he might be around – or just plug myself into the… wait a minute. My trusty iPod Nano. Now why didn’t I think of that before? That’ll teach him a lesson – and I bet he’ll hate all the music I’ve got on there – hell, he probably hasn’t even heard of half the bands that are huge these days. Ha!
     
    Through the silence in my room I hear my phone beep and realise it’s still downstairs by the computer. And even though I know he’s gone, I still turn round before I close my bedroom door to check if Leo’s come back or not. And annoyingly I even find myself more disappointed than pleased that he hasn’t.
     
    My phone is buzzing by the keyboard in the living room.
     
    Can come over?
     
    the text message from Amber says. Which thoroughly irritates and annoys me and confuses me. What does it mean? Is she trying to say can she come over? Is she saying can I come over? See – this is what infuriates me about text letterage misuse. I am going to have to try and put this right – I’ll need to print leaflets, hold meetings, form some kind of Group like a political party but without the boring politics and start some sort of movement against the misuse of characters in a text message. Every character in every text should be used fully and specifically whilst making absolute sense to the recipient. In fact that could be our slogan. Well, I’ll work on it to make it snappier, obviously.
     
    So now I have to send her a text back to ask her what she means – whereas all she had to do was be specific in her original one and then I wouldn’t have to. And then after she’s answered my query I’ll have to respond with my answer, won’t I? And that’s almost my quota for the day used up already. Although it is nearly ten thirty now and another quota of three point three begins in two hours time – if I want this to be an exact science. Which of course it’s not.
     
    Then my phone rings.
     
    ‘So?’ Amber’s voice says eagerly as I answer.
     
    ‘So what?’ I say back.
     
    ‘Can I come round? I thought seeing as it’s dark and seeing as you’re living in a haunted house that maybe I could bring my extra-sensory skills into action for the good of mankind… well, the Preston family anyway. And I’ve been reading up about the fire in Ferndale Way. Hey! That is a great title for the film, don’tya think? Who’d you want to play you? Lindsay Lohan perhaps… oh no, I forgot, she’s a Lesbian now… okay how about one of the twins…maybe the one that…’
     
    ‘Amber!’ I have to hiss loudly to shut her up. ‘It’s late. It’s