Keep You by My Side by Callie Langridge

Author:Callie Langridge [Langridge, Callie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books

13

Abi – Saturday 19 April 1986 – Morning

Abi pulled the plug from the kitchen sink and looked out of the window. The storm had cleared overnight into a perfect spring Saturday. There wasn’t a single cloud in the endless expanse of blue. The blind at the window barely rattled in the soft breeze coming in through the open kitchen door. It was days like this that made living at Cliff Cottage worthwhile. Almost.

Abi dried her hands on a tea towel and sat down at the table. ‘Done?’

‘Nearly.’ Penny patted a stack of foil-wrapped parcels. ‘Two cheese and tomato sandwiches and two apples.’ She took two fairy cakes from the pile cooling on a wire rack and placed them onto a fresh sheet of foil. ‘Are you sure your Mum won’t mind? Aren’t they for the beetle drive tonight?’

‘She said we could have one each.’

‘If you say so.’ Penny crunched the foil around the cakes to form another neat parcel, which she handed to Abi. ‘So where’s everyone run off to?’

‘Mum’s gone to meet someone about a catering job,’ Abi said and shoved the parcels into a carrier bag, not nearly as carefully or as neatly as Penny had wrapped them. ‘Dad’s gone into work to help with a stocktake and Nan’s down at the church hall putting up decorations for this evening. She’s spent all week making these crazy beetle things out of egg boxes and pipe cleaners, like you’d make at playschool. Look,’ she said, pointing to a black smear on the table. ‘She found an old tin of paint in the shed and gave them all a coat of it.’

‘I bet you helped her.’

‘Might have.’

‘You’re both big kids.’

‘Oi, I’ll have you know that my beetles were very professional, not like Nan’s weirdos.’ Abi curled up her arms and stuck out her tongue in an impression of a squashed beetle.

Penny laughed. ‘Right. I’m going to get my revision notes to take to the beach. Shall I get your folder too?’

‘You want to study? Today?’

‘I think you should. What did Mrs Bennett say yesterday?’ Penny pretended to adjust a pair of glasses on her nose and dipped her head as though looking at Abi over the top of thick bifocals. ‘Abigail Russell, it is not enough to excel in one subject alone. Where will pretty drawings and paintings get you without a creditable academic record to support them? Nowhere young lady, that’s where.’

Abi frowned. ‘Can I help it if I’m not a genius like you? How am I supposed to know why a stupid crow wants to say “love” or why the ghost of some old bloke wants to wander around on a turret just to scare his son?’

‘If it was Mouldy Munro giving you advice you’d be like “Oh, Mr Munro. Of course, sir. Anything you say, sir. Three bags full, sir.”’

Abi felt her cheeks colour. ‘No.’

‘Yes,’ Penny laughed. ‘But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone that you dream of having Mouldy’s babies.’

Before she’d even finished her sentence, Penny was out of her seat and in the hall.

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