A MILLION ANGELS
A sparkling novel from the author of SHINE and GLITTER.“We talk about everything, Dad and me.About all the mysteries inside of us. About all our wonderings of the world.But tomorrow my dad goes to war. Then what will I do?”Jemima’s dad’s in the Army and he’s off to Afghanistan again for six whole months.Her mum’s about to have another baby and hasn’t got the energy to worry about anything else.Gran is staying to help out, but her head is filled with her own wartime memories.So while Mima is sending Dad millions of guardian angels every night to keep him safe, who is looking out for her?The third novel from Kate Maryon – a sparkling voice for tween girls.
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Copyright
HarperCollins Children’s Books
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in paperback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2011
A MILLION ANGELS. Text copyright © Kate Maryon 2011.
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007326297
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2011 ISBN: 9780007435890
Version: 2016-11-24
For Jane, Tim, Sam, Joe & Ben,
I send a million angels to each of you every day.
Whatever you’re doing, wherever you are,
they fly from my heart to yours,
spinning their threads of gold, stitching us together with love.
Loving you all, for ever and always and more… and more. X
Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Tomorrow there will be no pancakes…
Chapter 2
His words bite me…
Chapter 3
My tongue is itching to ask…
Chapter 4
I’m going to collect these…
Chapter 5
You’ll be in for the chop, I promise…
Chapter 6
I’m not a puddleduck, OK?
Chapter 7
I turn to the window and stare out at the rain…
Chapter 8
Someone tries the door handle…
Chapter 9
I kick the back of the wardrobe…
Chapter 10
Just stuff, I say…
Chapter 11
She shows me the text…
Chapter 12
I love you, Dad…
Chapter 13
I think my family have forgotten about me…
Chapter 14
I’m not going, I snap…
Chapter 15
Georgie’s smile is as big as the sun…
Chapter 16
Her eyes glow…
Chapter 17
OH! MY! GOD!
Chapter 18
She avoids my gaze…
Chapter 19
My eyes search hers for the truth…
Chapter 20
I know what I did…
Chapter 21
Lonely is the emptiest place in the world…
Chapter 22
My words bite her…
Chapter 23
Truth is better than dare…
Chapter 24
It’s a nutty one. My favourite…
Chapter 25
For the first time in ages things feel normal…
Keep Reading
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Publisher
Tomorrow’s going to be different and I don’t like different. I like things the same. The same like Dad and me. The same like peas in pods and chips off old blocks. The same like our dark curly hair, like our gunmetal grey eyes, like the little dimple on our chins. It’s to do with pancakes too. My dad is the pancake king and I’m the princess. That’s what Mum and Milo say, and every Sunday while we’re waiting for them to get up and come downstairs we make a pile as high as Everest. Taller than the sky. The best pancakes in the world. Then we sit on the back doorstep to talk while we polish our boots. We brush and buff till they shine like silver, till we can see our eyes twinkling in the black. And we talk about everything, Dad and me. About all the mysteries inside of us. About all our wonderings of the world.
But tomorrow we won’t have pancakes because my dad will be gone.
The stars are bright tonight. Glittering bursts of silver shining through midnight blue. But grey clouds are grumbling across the horizon. Rolling across the moon. Rubbing out the stars, and the wind is whisking up a storm that’s sweating under my skin and heating me up with fear.
I’ve tried sleeping, but every time I drift off a huge eagle with sharp claws swoops down and drags me back. Then worrying images of bombs exploding everything to pieces start bouncing around again like popcorn in my brain. They pop, pop, pop and explode out of nowhere. Dark shadowy lumps that are hard to swallow. I’m trying hard to rub them out so my brain is blank and clean.
But it’s impossible to stop them.
If only there was something I could do.
My phone explodes in the dark.
Pip. Pip. U still awake?
It’s Jess. I don’t really like Jess and Jess definitely doesn’t like me. We’re not the same kind of girl. She’s all noisy and nosy, like her mum, Georgie, and I’m more quiet and like to be on my own. Well, I don’t really like being on my own, of course. I would like a friend. Just not a friend like Jess – someone much more like me. But that’s never going to happen because of everything about my life and how things are. So Jess and me just have to make do.
I text her back. Yeah, can’t sleep.
Pip. Pip. Me 2! Just can’t stop thinking they might die. U know, they might never come home. It’s really bad out there.
I try swallowing the hard lump that feels like popcorn sticking in my throat, but it won’t go down. I cross my fingers. I touch the little wooden table by my bed for luck.
