Girls Out Late Read Online Free

them. Russell and Nadine burble on about them.
    “What do you think of Animal Angst, Ellie?” Russell asks.
    I blink at him. I wouldn’t know Animal Angst if it howled in my ear. “Oh, OK,” I say cautiously.
    Nadine gives her eyes another roll, but she doesn’t betray me. I resolve to read the
New Musical Express
every week.
    We stand waiting for the bus. There’s a big poster for a horror movie over the road.
Girls Out
Even Later.
    “Great,” says Russell. “It’s coming out on Friday. The gory special effects are meant to be superb. Did you want to see it, Ellie?”
    I dither helplessly. Does he mean—do I want to see it
with him
?
    I want to go out with him, yes please! But I hate horror movies. I have to hide my eyes at all the scary parts. I can’t even listen to creepy music or I come out in goose pimples. I’ve only ever seen horror movies on video. It would be much much scarier on a huge screen. I’d probably make a right idiot of myself with Russell and end up cowering right under the seat. If I ever got
in
as it’s an eighteen. I haven’t got a hope in hell of convincing anyone that I’m eighteen.
    Russell is looking at me, waiting for a reply.
    “Mmmmm,” I say eventually, fully aware that this reply is not worth the wait.
    Nadine launches into a long rave about the director’s last horror movie. I stand and stare into the middle distance. Russell seems fascinated. He’s obviously realizing that he has been hitting on the wrong girl. He and Nadine are soul mates.
    “What did you think of
Girls Out Late,
Ellie?” he asks.
    “OK,” I mumble.
    “Did you like it?” Russell presses me.
    “Mmmm.”
    I seem to have taken to talking in initials: O, K and
M.
    “Did you like the creepy bit in the multistory car park?” says Russell.
    I look at Nadine for help.
    This time she betrays me by bursting out laughing. “Ellie never got that far,” she says. “She started to watch it round at my place but had to hide her eyes before the title sequence was over. She only got ten minutes into the movie proper before running right out of my bedroom and refusing to come back.”
    Russell grins. “So you find horror movies a bit scary, Ellie?”
    “Ellie’s the type of girl who’d find the Noo-Noo scary,” Nadine giggles.
    My face is certainly Po red. Russell must take me for a right idiot. He’s laughing at me.
    “Then
please
come to the movie with me, Ellie—you’ll be snuggling right up to me in no time,” he says.
    I manage to laugh too, though I still feel a bit foolish. I glance at my watch. Talk about girls out late! It’s nearly ten.
    Still, the bus is coming, I’ll be home soon. At least, that’s what I
intend.

time to go home
    I don’t know who to sit next to on the bus. Nadine gets on first and rather pointedly spreads herself out on a double seat. I make for the seat opposite but I suddenly feel mean. Nadine’s been my best friend since we were both five years old. I’ve known Russell less than an hour, for God’s sake. I spin on my heel and nudge up next to Nadine. Russell sits opposite. He leans forward to try to continue the conversation but this old lady huffs and puffs so he contents himself with smiling.
    Nadine and I can converse OK.
    “Gee whiz, I thought Magda was a quick worker!” Nadine mutters. “I’ve obviously underestimated your pulling power, Ellie.”
    “It’s nothing to do with me!” I whisper.
    “Rubbish, it was all your come-hither looks, staring at him all the time in McDonald’s.”
    “I was drawing him! I had to look at him. And, anyway, he drew me first. He was the one who started it.”
    “So, what happens now? Are you going to go out with him?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think he’ll ask me. He was just being friendly because of the art thing.”
    “
Ellie!
Are you being deliberately irritating? He’s obviously nuts about you.”
    “Do you really think so?” I whisper, delighted.
    Nadine sighs. “Look, when I get off the bus