Radiance by Alana Curran (best english books to read for beginners TXT) 📕

“Just to get some things for my Halloween costume,” I told her.

“You haven’t got your costume yet? There won’t be any left in the stores,” she informed.

“It’s alright, I’m making my own,” I insisted.

“Cool, see you later then,” she grinned.

“Bye!”

I was about to go through the shop’s door when it opened, hit me on the head and knocked me over.

Everything went blurry and I lay staring at the sky.

“Oh crap! Are you alright?” I heard a familiar voice say.

A figure hovered over me and as my eyes focused, I realised it was Trevor.

“I’m fine,” I sighed, climbing back up to my feet.

“Sorry about that, I didn’t see you coming in,” he apologised.

“That’s ok,” I insisted.

“Well, what brings you here?”

“Just getting some bits and pieces for my costume, some strings of white material to give it that tattered look,” I explained.

“Nice, but you could just buy a costume,” he reminded me.

“I’m trying to make mine original and Hattie told me that all the good costumes would be gone by now,” I sighed.

“Oh yeah, she’s probably right,” he agreed.

“What are you dressing up as?”

He tapped his nose to show that it was on a need to know basis.

“I’ll need to get home, mum’s making pumpkin pie and she can’t really make it without the pumpkin can she?” he laughed, holding up a plastic bag with a raw pumpkin inside.

“You got a pumpkin in a material shop?”

“No, I got the wool for grandma’s scarf, she loves to knit,” he corrected.

“Oh.”

“See you later then?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

I went through the door, folding up the umbrella.

There were plenty of aisles and I finally came across one with white silk and white netting, so I bought a roll of each and made my way back home.

Grandma had bought some pumpkins and we were scraping out the guts so we could make jack-o-lanterns out of them.

“And once we’ve got all these guts out and seeds picked out, I can make some pumpkin pie,” she smiled.

“I’ve never really tried pumpkin pie before,” I informed.

“Really? It’s so beautiful, even Arthur and Daisy look at me pleadingly when they smell it baking in the oven.”

“Cool,” I smiled, dumping the last spoonful of pumpkin guts on the scrap plate and began to mark out the face with a marker, then grabbing a knife to start cutting. “Can’t wait to try it.”

“I can’t wait to get these lanterns on the front porch for the trick or treaters to admire,” grandma smiled. “Speaking of which, I need to get the cookies out of the oven.”

“Cookies?” I repeated.

“Of course. Every year I make little bags of homemade, Halloween cookies in the shape of witches, brooms, ghosts, etc, etc and I put them into a little sandwich bag for the trick or treaters. I also have a spare bowl filled with toffees and boiled sweets in case I run out.”

“Oh, that’s pretty cool.”

“I’ll give you some to give to your friends if you like.”

“Oh, yes, that’d be great,” I smiled.

I carved out the lantern’s face skilfully and successfully managed to get each tooth perfect.

When I finished, I realised I still had to get my costume ready.

Putting the white dress onto another manikin which grandma owned, I began to cut pieces of the material, thankful that none of it seemed to fray too badly. It was really coming to good use and I was beginning to realise that the whole clothes designing point which grandma had pitched when I first moved to Knoughville was definitely a good idea.

I decided to use the spare silk and netting as flowing scarves to put round my neck and had an idea to use more of the silk as bows for my hair.

Now all I had to do was look for my chunky boots with the silver buckles and my costume would be complete.

My computer screen lit up and since I forgot I had put it on standby, I jumped a little.

I got a video chat request from Thistle.

Having not talked to my sister in ages, I was really excited and clicked accept straight away.

Her face came up to the screen and I was surprised that she actually allowed the pink dye in her hair to wear away and show her natural, wavy, blonde locks that hung down past her shoulder.

“Thistle!” I gasped. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You too, you look so different,” Thistle laughed. “You have a fringe.”

“Oh yeah, forgot that I got that done,” I smiled. “Is everything ok at home?”

“Yep, we’re all missing you. Tina called round last week and she was so devastated that she had missed you,” she frowned.

“Aw, poor Tina, send her my love,” I sighed.

“I will,” she promised. We waited for a moment in silence. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

“My friend?”

“The girl with the blue hair, standing behind you.”

My eyes widened and I spun round, my hair whipping the air as I turned to see...nothing. No one was standing behind me.

I turned back and my heart began to pound.

Standing behind poor, confused Thistle was Radiance’s taller and much more scary sister that I bumped into loads of times...Cymbeline.

I didn’t dare say a word, I was too baffled to understand. How could Cymbeline travel to Costa Stalluna? No one in Knoughville even knew where it was. I was scared...really scared.

Cymbeline walked closer to Thistle, who still didn’t know she was behind her and she put a hand at each side of Thistle’s head. She wasn’t touching her head, but her hands weren’t far away from Thistle’s ears.

Thistle’s face fell and she looked worried.

“ALI! SHE’S GOING TO BITE YOU!!!” she shrieked.

I turned round screaming, but once again, found myself alone in my bedroom.

Suddenly remembered that I was looking away from the screen when Cymbeline was standing right behind my sister, I spun round saying,

“Thistle, watch out for...”

I stopped.

Thistle was looking at me, looking as if nothing had happened. Cymbeline was gone, as if she was never there. I rubbed my eyes, irritated.

“Watch out for what?” she asked.

“Who did you say was behind me?”

“Behind you? What are you talking about?”

“The blue haired girl, you said a girl with blue hair was standing behind me,” I reminded her.

“Oh, Ali, that bad weather and all those hours of school really must be getting to you,” she sighed sympathetically, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

I was puzzled, in fact I was more than puzzled. I was gobsmacked. What was happening? Was I going mad?

“But...”

“Alessia, I think you need some sleep,” she suggested.

“I can’t go to sleep now, I’m going to a Halloween party tonight,” I told her.

“They celebrate Halloween in England?” she gasped. I nodded. “Cool, I’m going to beg mum to take us all to England on holiday next year around this time so I can see what it’s like.”

“I wish you could just jump on a plane and come today,” I sighed.

“Me too, sister,” she giggled. “Have you made any new friends?”

“Actually, I have,” I smiled. “My main friends are Karen, Trevor and Dwayne.”

“They sound nice, but let’s not hold back,” she laughed. “Do you fancy anyone over there?”

I was going to say a plain no, but I thought about all the boys that were in my class and were around my part of town. The first person I thought of was Trevor. Sure he had a pretty face and really good hair, but I wasn’t sure if I really fancied him.

“Well, I suppose Trevor is...”

“Trevor!” she squealed. “Tell me all the good bits! Have you kissed yet?”

“What? No!”

“Where did you go on your first date?”

“Thistle, we are NOT going out,” I insisted. “He doesn’t like me that way and I don’t like him that way.”

Unfortunately for me, as soon as I said those words, grandma came in.

“Sweetheart, Trevor’s here, should I let him in?” she asked.

I didn’t say anything, just stared at Thistle who was squealing and laughing with excitement.

“I got to go, Thistle,” I sighed.

“No! I want to meet this boy,” she whined.

“Goodbye,” I smiled, logging out of the video chat and turning to grandma. “Let him in.”

She nodded and then left the room while I put a plastic cover over my costume.

Not long after grandma left, Trevor came in followed by Arthur and Daisy to seemed to like his company.

“Hey, beautiful,” he joked. “How’s the head?”

I remembered about getting hit in the head by the material shop’s door.

“The doctor said I have a concussion,” I lied. His face dropped into a shocked expression and I burst out laughing. “Totally kidding.”

He sighed with relief and jumped onto my bed.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked.

“Go where?”

“Duh, my house. Remember?”

“Oh yeah,” I sighed, shaking my head as if forgetting was a shameful thing to do.

“Grab your costume and let’s go,” he ordered.

“Can you hold my shoes?”

He nodded and I handed him the chunky boots.

“God, these things are heavy. How do you walk in them?” he enquired.

“At first it was hard, but then it all just sank in,” I responded, grabbing my plastic covered costume and an umbrella.

“No need for that, it’s not raining,” he told me. “Looks like Karen was right.”

“Wow,” I gasped, eager to see what the place looked like when it wasn’t raining.

We raced outside where his Trevor’s mum was parked and I stopped to take in the smell of dust after rain which I loved so much. The same smell that occasionally was around in Costa Stalluna which everyone cherished, because it was so rare to have the peaceful scent in the atmosphere.

“Are you coming?” Trevor asked.

I snapped to attention and quickly clambered into the seven seater car.

“Hello there, you must be Alessia,” his mum smiled.

“Yeah, you must be Mrs. Chodary.”

“Oh, just call me Jerry sweetheart,” she insisted. “Trevor hasn’t stopped talking about you since you moved here.”

I looked at him immediately and saw that he had gone all red.

“She’s my friend, mum, why wouldn’t I want to talk about her?” he asked.

“Yeah, but...”

“And I’m interested that she’s from an island I never heard of before,” he added.

The way he was making up all these excuses was cute, but I decided it really didn’t mean anything. When I first met Tina, I babbled about all the things we had in common for months and I knew that Trevor and I had quite a lot of things in common.

We both loved action movies, Labradors and watching fat people fall over on the internet.

“Thank you so much for letting me come over to get into my costume,” I said to Jerry.

“No problem, honey, we do this sort of thing every year, it’s really fun and the kids love it.”

“Mum, we’re not kids,” Trevor groaned.

I laughed and then something in the rear view mirror caught my eye. I saw myself and in the back row of seats was Radiance....again!

I gasped and turned round to (once again) find that no one was there.

“Are you ok?” Trevor asked, sounding very worried.

I looked at him, his big, brown eyes full of concern.

“I’m fine,” I answered. “I just thought I saw something in the mirror.”

“Oh,” he sighed. “I was wondering.”

When we arrived at their house, it was already dark and it was only five o’clock, but that was what the autumn was like in Britain. I had already completely forgotten what it was like when the sun was always shining and I didn’t need a coat or an umbrella with me.

I climbed out of the car, trying to forget how weird the day had been and went through the front entrance and into the living room where Karen and Dwayne were already dressed and with Hattie and some other girl from my class, who’s name I could never remember.

“Alessia!” Karen gasped, running up to me and giving me a hug. “I’m so glad you made it!”

“It’s good to see you Karen, haven’t seen you since yesterday,” I laughed. I took a minute to observe her costume which was a store bought red Indian costume with the little feather head dress and everything. “Nice outfit.”

“Thanks,” she smiled.

I looked at the other two. Dwayne was