Bright Girls

Bright Girls
Clare Chambers

Outstanding voice in girls’ fiction.Fifteen-year-old Robyn (the “sensible”) one and her older sister Rachel (anything but!) arrive in Brighton to spend the summer with their estranged Aunt Jackie, who runs a ballgown hire business from her ramshackle multi-storey home. They have been forced to leave their home in Oxford, where they live with their father, because of threats to their safety, the nature of which only gradually becomes apparent.A perfect summer read and a brilliant study of sisterly devotion and rivalry, coupled with a frisson of mystery and a wonderful dollop of humour.

Bright Girls

Clare Chambers

To Christabel and Florence

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#uccaef28a-fd83-51d7-a280-a6dd14582d45)

Title Page (#u2372144a-116a-5bd9-9a41-e250163a0714)

One The Arrival (#uc42e46bb-9df7-5fe4-a3dd-9a9d1b1df912)

Two The Neighbours (#u08b6e0fb-dd2f-546c-811b-fd6d690e4af1)

Three Auntie Jackie (#u87a17939-4671-5c9b-b068-f6a812d34133)

Four Big Sister, Little Sister (#uc2a16d52-2acb-5ce0-b3df-23cdff9874ea)

Five The Bucket and the Bell (#u2d0e26d7-3135-50a8-b96a-0cf9de0937e6)

Six Adam (#ua7a3bf1c-6be3-5a3a-82b4-f543990e4b6d)

Seven Of Rats and Men (#ueeea8179-bba0-5e18-ae46-f431cb6545e7)

Eight Experience Preferred (#u44284e55-4518-54fd-8222-41be15689fdb)

Nine Oxford (#ufeb82cd7-bdb7-5b79-afea-59bd828d95fa)

Ten The Handyman (#ubc757e65-dea9-52cc-9307-4b2c976fce14)

Eleven Total Peace of Mind (#litres_trial_promo)

Twelve Brass (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirteen Dark Chocolate (#litres_trial_promo)

Fourteen An Invitation (#litres_trial_promo)

Fifteen A Quick Exit (#litres_trial_promo)

Sixteen Evacuation (#litres_trial_promo)

Seventeen A Little Favour (#litres_trial_promo)

Eighteen A Promise is (usually) a Promise (#litres_trial_promo)

Nineteen Confusing Behaviour (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty LBDs and All that Jazz (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-one Mr Elkington (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-two Bad Behaviour (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-three Confessions of an Understudy (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-four Cinders (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-five I could Have Danced All Night (But not in these shoes) (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Six Alice (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-seven The Gambler (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-eight The Visitor (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-nine Practically Famous (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty Charlie’s Revenge (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-one On the Sofa (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-two A Genuine Fake (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-three Ruth (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-four The Jealous Guy (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-five A Roof Over Her Head (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-six Mr Elkington’s Revenge (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

One The Arrival (#ulink_d138a962-bded-5ceb-b17f-fe52f94b44ec)

There was no one to meet us at the station, which didn’t surprise me. My only distinct memory of Auntie Jackie, along with various hints dropped by Dad, had convinced me that she wasn’t a hundred per cent reliable.

Rachel and I stood on the forecourt with our luggage, in the evening sunshine, scanning the cars as they pulled in to collect or deposit passengers, our attention continually drawn away down the hill to the horizon and the blue wedge of sea. Living in Oxford, almost as far from a proper beach as you can get in Great Britain, we had only been to the coast on a handful of occasions, and the seaside still seemed something full of mystery and promise.

“Would you recognise her?” I asked, when the crowd of commuters had melted away and no one had come forward to claim us.