Free Megan 3 by Mary Hooper

pleasantly.
    Ellie shook her head.
    ‘Because my daughter – Ria – is right in the middle of hers.’
    Ellie and I made startled faces at each other. So he did have children! I wanted to ask how many he had, and why he wasn’t living with them, but under Mum’s steely glare I didn’t dare.
    Jack got tired of his biscuit, threw it across the floor and went under the table to find his duck. We heard a
quack-quack-quack
as he pushed it up anddown between our legs, and then he emerged at the other end – George’s end – and stood up, putting a sticky hand on George’s smart office-sharp trousers to help pull himself up. George looked alarmed and brushed at his leg to dislodge Jack’s hand. ‘And why isn’t this young man joining us for supper?’ he asked.
    ‘He’s already had his,’ I said. ‘I can’t keep him going that long – we eat too late.’
    Jack, knowing he was being spoken about, gave George a beaming smile, and George just about managed to smile back. Jack then smacked his hand on to George’s thigh. ‘Man!’ he said. Or something like it.
    ‘That’s right. Man! Another word!’ I said delightedly to Mum and Ellie. ‘That’s about seven altogether now.’
    I lifted Jack on to my lap and bounced him up and down. ‘Clever, clever boy!’
    Jack chuckled, then he turned and reached towards my plate, trying to grab the pizza. I cut him a tiny slice of it and he wriggled off my lap and went back under the table with it. Ellie and I both laughed, but Mum tutted.
    ‘Megan!’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Bad habits…’
    ‘Your mother’s right,’ George said, brushing sticky bits off his trousers. ‘Neither of my children wereallowed to eat anything unless they were sitting up at the table properly.’
    Bully for them, I wanted so say.
    ‘Manners can’t begin too young,’ he went on.
    Ellie kicked me under the table and I kicked her back. Nightmare! It was going to be like having another Mum – only worse.

Chapter Nine
    ‘And so he just moved in!’ I said dramatically. ‘I came home on Friday and there he was taking up half the flat!’
    Claire and Josie gasped, giving me all their attention for the first time that evening. For ages they’d been comparing mobile phones, ringing each other and messing about text messaging, so much so that I’d begun to think that without a mobile phone I might as well be dead.
    It was Sunday night and the three of us were in
California’s
with all the beautiful people. Josie was wearing a short stretchy black top and snakeskin trousers and high heels, Claire was wearing similar trousers with what looked like a sparkly bikini top. I was just wearing my jeans and a T-shirt.
    ‘It must be
lurve
,’ Josie said. ‘Your mum must have had some sort of brainstorm.’
    Claire nodded. ‘She must have got it bad. Fancy him moving in already!’
    ‘It’s really weird. I’ve never even
seen
her with a man before,’ I said.
    ‘Is he married?’ Josie asked.
    I shrugged. ‘Dunno. He’s
been
married, because he’s got kids. And on Thursday night he said he slept in his car – so Ellie and I reckon he must have got chucked out from wherever he was living.’
    ‘Whoo-ee!’ Josie said. She stood up and I saw that a couple of boys had arrived at the bar just in front of us and she was going to try and get herself noticed. This was what the
whoo-ee
– all cute and perky, accompanied by both arms being stretched out – had been about. She’d had another tattoo done – a butterfly just below her collarbone on the right, and the low-cut top drew attention to it. The boys were all eyes, smirking and eyeing her up and down.
    ‘I wonder what it’ll be like,’ Claire said. She was looking at the two boys, too, but she wasn’t quite as obvious as Josie. ‘I mean, you’ve never had anyone living with you and your mum before, have you? D’you think he’ll be strict?’
    I nodded. ‘He is.’
    ‘Aw, he’ll be all right,’ Josie said. ‘My