The Angel of Nitshill Road by Anne Fine Page B

of her and Lisa on the other, and they started to march her, like a prisoner between guards, over the playground and right across Barry Hunter’s flight path.
    He saw them coming.
    Penny’s hand tightened round her bag of crisps. Oh, please don’t, she thought. Not now. Not with someone new watching.
    But already he was screeching round in one of his wide curves.
    â€˜Emergency! Emergency! The moving mountain is looming out of the mist! Swerve to avoid a crash! Boy, is she
huge
!’
    Celeste stopped walking. She turned to Penny, and asked pleasantly:
    â€˜Poor boy. Is he touched with the feather of madness?’
    Penny couldn’t even try to answer. For one thing she was forcing back hottears of embarrassment and shame. And for another, she’d never dare say anything about Barry Hunter to someone she didn’t know, in case it got back to him and made him worse.
    But Lisa wasn’t worried.
    â€˜That’s Barry Hunter,’ she was telling Celeste. ‘He’s a big bully. He bullies everyone.’
    Again, Celeste stopped to look back. Now Barry Hunter was tormenting Mark, snatching his pencil-box from him as he steered past.
    â€˜Give it back!’ Mark said.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜That box. It’s mine. Give it back.’
    Mark stamped over the playground after Barry. But Barry was quicker on his feet. Prancing and dancing backwards as Mark advanced, he held the box a few inches from Mark’s grasping fingers.
    â€˜Say please!’

    â€˜It’s my box. You snatched it. Give it back!’
    â€˜Manners! Say please.’
    The bell was ringing now.
    â€˜Give it back.’
    Mr Fairway appeared in the doorway.
    â€˜Give it back!’
    Mark was almost in tears.
    â€˜Say please,’ tormented Barry.
    â€˜Please,’ muttered Mark.
    â€˜A bit louder. I can’t hear you.’
    â€˜
Please
,’ shouted Mark in desperation.
    â€˜That’s not polite,’ said Barry. ‘Now say it nicely.’
    Mark was about to launch himself on his tormentor when suddenly Barry Hunter let out a scream of pain and swirled about, dropping the pencil-box and clutching the back of his leg.
    â€˜Who did
that
?’ Barry yelped.
    Celeste was standing right behind, eyeing him steadily.
    Mr Fairway was very close now. ‘What’s going on over here?’ he demanded.
    Barry knew when to cut his losses. He was about to melt away when Celeste’s ringing tones stopped everyone in their tracks.
    â€˜I do believe I bit him,’ she was telling the teacher.
    Mr Fairway was astonished.
    â€˜
Bit
him? But
why
?’
    Celeste spread her hands and saidvaguely, ‘Such herds of new faces. One cannot like them
all
. . .’

    The bell rang once again. Mr Fairway brushed his hand through his hair.
    â€˜Now this isn’t a very good start, is it, Celeste?’
    Celeste turned her angelic face up towards him and said cheerfully:
    â€˜Oh, scold me if you must. But not so hard I cry, because once I start, I weep buckets.’
    Mr Fairway let out a soft moan of horror. He was still standing wondering what to do when the head teacher’s voice floated over from the doorway.
    â€˜Everyone in line!’ Mrs Brown was shouting.
    They all obeyed at once, even Barry Hunter. Lisa took Celeste’s hand and led her over to stand next to Penny. Mark fetched up at the very end of the line as usual, fiddling with his pencil-box and dropping bits and pieces all over the tarmac. But everyone else, even Marigold, stood quietly staring at Celeste.
    And no one stared harder than Mr Fairway.

3
‘Comfy as a cloud . . .’
    Afterwards, no one could remember quite who it was who first guessed she was a real angel. There were enough clues, of course. Tracey overheard Mrs Brown complaining that Celeste had dropped ‘out of the blue’. When Ian took the register to the school office he heard the secretary telling Miss Featherstone that the new