End of the Alphabet by Fleur Beale Page B

simple. Take the books too and the pictures will help you understand.’
    The next day, we talked about the story I’d listened to. At the end of May, she said, ‘You are learning quickly, Ruby. You’ve got a good brain.’ She never missed a chance to tell me I was clever, smart and brainy. I felt clever, smart and brainy in her house.
    Life in our house was much the same. Mum didn’t talk about Max often, but she kept writing to him. He hadn’t contacted her at all, except for the call to say he’d arrived. I refused to think about him.
    His birthday was in June. Mum went into overdrive. She bought presents. She bought a huge card that sang
Happy birthday
when you opened it. She made Theo and Davey make him cards. ‘Ruby, you must get him a present. You can afford it with all the money you’re earning.’
    She’d never asked what I wanted to do with my money. I shrugged. ‘Whatever.’ It wasn’t worth a fight. I took Cat and Davey into town to the secondhand bookshop. I bought him the first Harry Potter. It was cheap, it looked almost new, but I didn’t care if it had half the pages missing, or that he had probably read it. I hoped he had. I also found six fashion magazines. They were quite recent ones.
    Mum posted the whole lot a week before his birthday. He didn’t ring, he didn’t write. Why did she expect anything different?
    We had exams in the last week of June. The teachers kept telling us to study. They got manic about it during the week before. ‘It’s okay for you guys,’ I moaned to the girls. ‘You
can
study.’ Nobody ever explained to me how I was meant to do it.
    ‘At least you’ve got a cast-iron excuse,’ Carly said. ‘It’s the pits at my house — Mum nags, Dad yells. Jasmine swans around telling me how hard she worked when she was my age. Yeah, right!’
    ‘We all have our crosses to bear,’ said Tia — crossing her eyes.
    ‘It’s boring,’ Megan sighed. ‘And I hate it. But the olds have promised they’ll give me a hundred bucks for my Brazil fund for every subject I do well in.’
    The bell went, but on the way into class, I had a blindingly brilliant idea. ‘Hey, guys! Listen — what if you all come over to my house on Saturday. Bring your books. You can read stuff to me. We’ll talk about it, and that way we’ll all revise it.’ I held my breath, scared they’d yell at me.
    But Megan said, ‘That would be fantastic. I’m in.’
    Carly shrugged. ‘Might as well. It’ll be better than being at home.’
    ‘Good,’ said Tia. ‘Aaron sent me a text. Wants me to go to his house to study.’ She keyed in a text as she spoke and read it out. ‘No, sorry. Have other plans.’
    Carly grinned. ‘My bet is he gets dumped before the end of the weekend.’
    She lost that bet. Tia dumped him between English and options.
    Mum was surprised when I told her the girls were coming over to study. But she smiled and said, ‘That’s good, Ruby. How about I make lasagne for lunch for you all?’
    I hugged her. Things were looking up.

Chapter Nineteen
     
     
    My first exam was on the same day as Max’s birthday. When I got home from work in the morning Mum didn’t say anything about the exams. She started right in on the Max thing. Did I think she should phone him? Would Hayden do something special for him? She yelled for Theo, then said, ‘I only hope he’s going to a good school. It’s so important for him to get his education.’
    Yeah.
    She forgot to wish me luck.
    I did the morning chores, dropped Davey at school and went to sit my English exam. I had a reader–writer and I had to go to the small office in the admin block. How to feel special in one easy lesson.
    That exam was a struggle. But I thought I did better than the last time because I wasn’t scared to ask Mr Webb, my reader–writer, to read things several times until I understood.
    Science was in the afternoon. Mr Webb pretended to roll up his sleeves. ‘Okay, Ruby — here we go again. Let’s blast