Free Don't Even Think About It by Roisin Meaney Page A

the end. I got some pearly pink nail varnish like Miss Purtill, but I don’t think it’s me really. It’s not loud enough, if you know what I mean. (Not that I’m loud, of course – I’m a real lady, ha ha.)
    Last Saturday Ruth Wallace told me she could smell my breath a mile away, and it was like mouldy cheese. I’m getting very tired of her stupid comments. One of these days, I might just have to think up some of my own, wheelchair or no wheelchair.

A quarter to eight, Friday, middle of December.
    The show at the Comp was on last night, and it was brilliant. Chloe and I had to sit about halfway down the hall, but there was nobody tall sitting in front of us, so we could see the stage quite well.
    I spent a lot of the first half looking for Bumble. He was quite hard to find, since he was just one of the gang, but I finally spotted him. He was wearing a bomber jacket and drainpipe jeans, and his hair was greased back. He looked older – and quite sexy, actually.
    Wonder if anyone fancies him.
    Catherine Eggleston wasn’t bad as Sandy, but her singing was nothing special, except that it sure was LOUD – boy, could she belt out those songs. And she didn’t forget any of her lines, which was probably a good thing.
    Chris Thompson was excellent as Danny. He totallygot the American accent, and he was brilliant at singing and dancing, much better probably than poor Bumble would have been, I have to say. Oh, and Chris’s voice has well and truly broken – he sounds great now.
    At the interval, Chloe and I got warmish bottles of orange and chatted to a few of our old classmates who were in the audience, or helping out around the place.
    And guess what – Trudy Higgins, Catherine Eggleston’s best friend (the one who got the dead beetle in her lunchbox, remember?) told us that Terry McNamara, who played Kenickie, was heartbroken when Catherine Eggleston finished with him, and that it was really awkward while they were rehearsing.
    Funny, I assumed it was Terry who had broken up with Catherine, not the other way around. But I suppose it makes sense really – Catherine Eggleston is just the type who’d break people’s hearts.
    After the show, Chloe and I were hanging around the door waiting for my dad to pick us up, and I was keeping an eye out for Bumble, when who should come over to us but Chris. He said ‘hi’ and the three of us chatted for a while.
    He asked us how we liked our school, and he seemed really interested, you know? Not just as if he was being polite. I’d never really had a proper conversation with him before.
    And wouldn’t you know it, just then Dad drove up and we had to say goodbye. But as we were walking towards the car, Chris called after us to say that a gang of them were going to Nosh on the first day of the Christmas holidays for lunch, if we wanted to meet up.Nosh is a really cool burger bar with loads of cartoon characters painted on the walls, and paper tablecloths that you’re allowed to draw on with crayons.
    I think we’ll go. Chloe says she doesn’t know if she will, but she always says that, and I always manage to persuade her.
    I’d kind of like to see Chris again. And Bumble, of course – he’ll probably be at Nosh too. I’m sorry I missed him after the show. Must phone him later to tell him how great it was.

Five past three, Saturday, a week before Christmas.
    Today is not turning out too well.
    At breakfast this morning Dad asked me how I’d feel about going to Marjorie Maloney’s house for Christmas dinner. I suppose I should have seen that coming really, but I didn’t. It had never once occurred to me that of all the people we could spend Christmas Day with, we might end up with her.
    I felt like telling him I’d rather drink sour milk out of a mucky boot, but … well, it’s kind of hard to explain, but the way he asked me, as if he really cared about what I wanted, as if he’d understand if I said I didn’t fancy it … I mean, he could have just told me we