Phoebe Finds her Feet by Kathy Lee

Author:Kathy Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scripture Union England and Wales
Published: 2011-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The St Margaret’s type

Rolf’s ear looked as if it would need stitches. I thought his owner would be furious, but he was actually quite understanding. He said, “I know Rolf can be a bit aggressive. Well done for managing to stop the fight.”

“Venice’s idea,” I said, and Venice looked modest. “But it was partly my fault for letting go of the lead. Do you want me to pay the vet’s bill?”

He laughed, then winced. (He had just had his appendix out, which was the reason he needed a dog walker.) “You wouldn’t say that if you knew what vets charge. No, don’t worry – our pet insurance will cover it. Come on then, Rolf boy, let’s take you down to see the vet, eh?”

Rolf whined piteously. But I didn’t feel too sorry for him. If he hadn’t run off, he wouldn’t have got himself hurt in the first place.

I was more worried about the little dog, badly wounded perhaps, and the girl with the bitten arm.

“Who was that girl?” Venice asked, as we walked back to my house. “Does she go to our school?”

“I don’t know. I’ve definitely seen her before, but not in school – in the park. My sister might know her, though. She looked about Georgie’s age, 11 or 12.”

We tried to describe the girl to Georgie. She had long, rather tangled, reddish-brown hair. Her face was totally covered in freckles. She was stick-thin, her clothes were scruffy, and her accent didn’t sound local. We had only heard her say a few words; Venice thought she had a West Country accent, I believed she might be Irish.

“Doesn’t sound like anyone at our school,” said Georgie. “Maybe she goes to St Margaret’s.”

“No, she didn’t look the St Margaret’s type,” I said. (It was a private school – you had to be rich to go there. Somehow, neither the girl nor her dog looked as if they had an expensive pedigree.)

“Perhaps she doesn’t go to school at all,” said Venice. “She might be one of the travelling people.”

“But they got moved on.”

“They didn’t move very far. They’re in a field outside Matton.”

Matton, where Venice lived, was three miles away. If the girl was living there, what was she doing in Sandersfield, lurking around Hill House? It didn’t make sense.

And I thought of something odd that the girl had said. “Matt was just protecting his—” and then she’d stopped, as if afraid of giving away a secret.

His home? His territory? Suddenly I remembered the old wash house which Pierre had explored, with its pile of sacks laid out like bedding. Could the girl and the dog be living there? Perhaps they were runaways, living rough in the outhouses of the empty building.

When I told Venice of my suspicions, she looked doubtful. “That was weeks ago,” she reminded me. “The French exchange was in September – we’re halfway through November now. You really think an 11-year-old could live there all alone for two months?”

“She’s not alone, she’s got the dog,” said Georgie.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.