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

“I’d better go get my own outfit on,” Trevor sighed, handing me my boots and making his way upstairs.

“So you’ve already met Hattie and Melody, so it’s about time you got into your costume, come with me,” Karen squealed, grabbing my wrist and dragging me up into her bedroom.

Melody. That was her name. I knew it was something like that...well, I really didn’t.

Karen closed her bedroom curtains, her chocolate brown hair bouncing around as she hopped round the room.

She, of course, turned around so I could take off my clothes and get into the dress, but she turned back again before I got to put the boots on.

“Wow! That’s just an amazing dress!” she gasped. “But aren’t you going to put on any tights?”

“I didn’t really...”

“Lucky for you, I have black fishnets,” she interrupted, running to her drawers and pulling out a pair of tights for me to wear.

“Aw, thanks Karen,” I smiled.

“Don’t mention it,” she insisted.

I struggled into the fishnets and then put on my boots before putting round the thin scarves I made with the leftover material and apart from the spare fabric which I was going to use into bows (which you already know about), I tied a bit of netting around my left leg.

Karen began to tie my hair into big pigtails by backcombing it and spraying temporary, black dye in my hair, while I put on my black eyeshadow and dark, red lipstick.

“Where did you get this costume, Alessia, it’s absolutely gorgeous,” Karen sighed happily, looking at me when I was all ready.

“I made it.”

“Wow! Really? You’re really good at that,” she gasped. “You can’t have made that, seriously?”

I nodded.

“I just got an old dress and went to the fabric store...”

“Oh yeah! Trevor told us all about how he hit you on the head and knocked you over,” she giggled. “He was really pissed with himself because of it.”

I bit my lip and we both went downstairs again.

“Wow, you look great, Alessia,” Hattie complimented. “Your costume is fantastic!”

“Ditto,” I smiled.

Melody shrugged.

“I suppose it’s alright,” she sighed.

Melody never really liked me since I accidentally called her Melanie the Thursday before.

Suddenly I remembered about the bags of cookies that grandma had given me which were in my bag.

“Oh, my grandma made you guys these cookies,” I told them, handing them each a bag.

Someone tapped my shoulder and I turned round. I screamed at a wrinkly, orange, white eyed face staring at me with a paedophile smile. I soon realised it was just Trevor in a mask.

“God, Trevor!” I gasped.

He took off the mask and laughed at me.

“Your face,” he chuckled.

I threw a face at him and gave him his bag.

I looked down at the rest of his costume which was when I finally figured out that he was dressing up as some sort of scary leprechaun.

“Trevor, if I knew you were going to dress up in something scary then I would have gotten a scarier costume and would have made your mask look like a piece of crap!”

“It is Halloween, Dwayne, not my fault you loved the idea of being a hippy and wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt,” he grinned.

Dwayne rolled his eyes and put his cookies into his trick or treating sack.

“Are we seriously going trick or treating?” Melody asked grumpily.

“Of course we are,”  Karen smiled. “It’s just to kill time until the party starts.”

“It starts at nine o’clock, it’s pretty early,” she moaned.

“Mel, we’re not going to wait here for three hours,” Hattie grunted.

“Yeah, but trick or treating is for babies!”

“Well, if you don’t want to come then you can just stay here,” Dwayne offered, eager to leave the house.

She rolled her eyes.

“Fine, whatever, let’s just go,” she growled.

Karen gave me a trick or treating bag and we went to all the houses in their neighbourhood.

At first I felt kind of awkward because it made me feel like a child, but it soon sank in and at one point, Trevor decided to go alone and scare some cranky old woman who didn’t give them anything the year before.

The lady screamed at his mask and hit him with her handbag. She was raging, so we ran off.

At the end of it all, Karen took out her camera and took a picture of us all to put in a scrap book.

We got lots of things, even apples with faces carved into them from crazy old women and men who lived on their own. It was pitiful, so we decided to accept them.

We headed back to Karen’s house so we could drop off our trick or treating bags and Melody was moaning the whole way there. I didn’t like her at all, she was annoying, high voiced, grumpy and nasty. There wasn’t really anything to like about her.

“Hurry up! If we don’t go now then it will be all over!” she exclaimed.

“Will you please shut up Mel!” Dwayne shouted. “If you don’t keep your gob shut then I’ll have to rip out your hair and shove it all down your throat. You’ll be coughing up hairballs for weeks.”

“You can’t do that to me! I’m a girl, you can’t hit a girl!”

“I’m not sexist, I don’t see a problem with it,” he grunted.

“And even if he couldn’t I’ll do it for him!” Hattie yelled, getting angry with all the arguing.

It felt like countless hours of whining from Melody until we finally reached the town centre which was filled with stalls, rides and a blazing bonfire right where the town statue used to be.

“Did they burn down the town statue?” I asked.

“No,” Trevor replied, “They move it if they need to make a bonfire, or build a stage or whatever.”

“Oh.”

The party was already in full swing and the music was booming from the speakers.

Before I got to open my mouth, Karen started squealing and ran over to a woman dressed as a witch holding a cute, little baby dressed in a pumpkin costume.

“Oh, Carol,” she gasped. “She looks beautiful.”

“You know her?” I asked.

“Of course, silly, these two are my sisters, Carol and Tegan,” she smiled.

I remembered her telling me about Tegan before, but I never knew about Carol. I began to wonder how many siblings Karen had that I didn’t know about.

“Look!” Hattie gasped. “A carousel! Let’s go on it Ali!”

She grabbed my wrist and dragged me over to a crowded carousel and somehow managed to amble her way through the line and jump on before anyone noticed.

I quickly jumped onto a plastic horse next to the one Hattie was sitting on. It was a little uncomfortable at first, with everyone’s eyes staring at me as I sat on a stupid, pink horse like a baby, but once the crazy carnival music played and the carousel began to spin round, I didn’t think about it much.

The carousel didn’t go too fast to begin with, but it began to pick up speed. The music sounding even more crazy and twisted as we spun round and round.

“Alessia!” Hattie yelled, I turned my head and she handed me a camera. “Take a picture of me!”

I clung my arm round the pole and held the camera at ready position. Hattie posed for the shot and I clicked the little, red button.

“Take on of me now!” I demanded.

“Ok, ok,” she laughed, taking the camera back and taking a picture of me on the silly, plastic horse with a name painted onto its butt: Stardust (corny or what?).

I was having fun until I looked ahead and sitting behind some random guy on a horse, was Radiance. She turned round and winked at me.

I gasped and looked at Hattie who didn’t seem to notice. She was on a carousel. There was no way she could escape now. Even though it wasn’t dangerously fast, only a madman would jump off just to drive me crazy.

However, when I looked back, I saw that she wasn’t on the horse. The guy was on the horse alone. I was beginning to feel sick now, I was almost glad that it was slowing down to let us off.

“Are you ok?” Hattie asked me when we were off. “You look a bit pale.”

“I’m fine, just a bit dizzy,” I insisted.

“Well, ok, there’s Mel and Trevor at that bell ringing game, shall we catch up with them?”

“Sure, why not,” I sighed.

When Melody saw us coming, her blissful smile dropped into a frown and she rolled her eyes sighing, obviously not pleased with our presence.

When Trevor saw us, however, he smiled and greeted us warmly, like a good friend is supposed to.

“You girls have fun?” he asked.

I nodded, but Hattie started babbling on and on about how fun it was and how they should have had a go at it.

“The carousel is for babies, that’s why I’m not going on it,” Melody sneered.

“I think it would be fun,” Trevor smiled. “Maybe I’ll go on it later.”

“Actually, it does sound like fun doesn’t it!” she quickly corrected.

Hattie and I rolled our eyes.

“Are you going to have a go at that?” I asked Trevor.

“Yep, I love these things,” he replied.

“That’ll be two pounds then for three tries, sir,” the man hosting the game declared.

Trevor hadn’t him two pounds and Melody gave him the mallet with a flirty smile plastered on her face.

Hattie turned to me and made fun of her expression behind her back, while I giggled quietly at it.

Trevor grasped the handle of the mallet, stood at ready position and smacked the target and, impressively, the little piece of metal when up and hit the bell with a loud ‘ding’.

“We have a winner!” the man announced, handing Trevor a cuddly toy stack of pancakes with a smiley face and a square of cuddly butter on it.

“Thanks,” Trevor smiled.

Melody applauded him with a huge, toothy grin on her face, but when Trevor gave me the cuddly pancake thing, she was pissed. She frowned and decided to sulk with me (she was just being a spoil sport now).

I loved the little pancake toy, it was so cute, but it was awkward just carrying it round in my arms and it was beginning to annoy Melody, so I bought a big Halloween bag and I put it inside.

There was a big long table with free Halloween cupcakes and cookies. I took a plastic bag and took loads of the cookies, then I soon got tempted to take some cupcakes and then Dwayne pointed out the big cake and I had to have a slice.

“Stop being such a pig, Alessia,” Melody grunted, making sure Trevor could hear. I felt really sorry for her, she was so desperate for Trevor and obviously saw me as a threat just because he gave me a toy pancake.

“Stop being such a bitch, Mel,” Karen snorted.

She rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, it’s Halloween, we’re supposed to be eating loads aren’t we?” I laughed, slightly worried in case I got the tradition wrong.

“I know, but aren’t you lot afraid of getting fat?” she asked.

Karen and Hattie looked up from their cupcakes, knowing that Melody had made a point.

“Get bigger clothes,” I suggested.

“Yeah, but no one likes a fatty,” she sniggered, looking at me and everyone knew she was referring to me.

I wasn’t fat, but I wasn’t like a skeleton like Melody was and so what if I liked cookies and cupcakes, it didn’t bother me.

“Just because I’m pigging out on one night doesn’t mean I’ll put on lots of weight and become physically obese,” I declared.

Hattie and Karen nodded in agreement while Trevor and Dwayne watched anxiously in case it was going to turn into a catfight.

“I don’t know, Alessia, you’re not too far off,” she snarled.

Hattie, Karen, Trevor and Dwayne’s mouth fell open and I couldn’t help myself. She had really done it this time.

I lunged forward, my fist clenched and I punched her right in the face. She shrieked in pain and began to cry