The Kindness Club on Mapleberry Lane - Part One: A Summer Surprise by Helen Rolfe

Author:Helen Rolfe [Rolfe, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781398700260
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2020-09-02T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Four

Audrey

Audrey stomped down the stairs to ask her mother where the bigger suitcase was hiding. She still needed to pack before being sent to her gran’s in the middle of nowhere, like an evacuee being sent away for safety. Ridiculous. Sid was one of the few friends she had, and just because he knew how to have a laugh and joke, her mum thought they needed to be separated by more than one hundred and fifty miles. She’d at least had the decency to let Audrey send him a text message to tell him she was leaving.

Sid was a friend, nothing more. In fact, Sid was gay, the whole school knew. But her mum didn’t, so Audrey wasn’t going to be the one to enlighten her. Where was the fun in that?

‘Where were you anyway?’ Audrey called when Sam finally came back inside with a whole load of cardboard from the car. ‘What are they for?’

‘Packing. I’ll help you make up the boxes. I got four, that should do for now.’

‘Mum, I only need a suitcase, that’s way over the top.’ In the kitchen she opened the fridge and pulled out the bottle of orange juice.

‘A suitcase isn’t enough.’ With a huff of frustration, she added, ‘You need to spend some time away from here.’

Audrey set down the bottle of juice and reached for a glass. Maybe this was about more than Sid. ‘You said that already and I’ve agreed. I’m going to Gran’s for a couple of weeks, I get it.’ Her mum had dragged her up to the school for a meeting and they refused to budge on the suspension, saying she’d had enough warnings about her behaviour and the punishment fit the crime. Mr Burgess’s eyes had twinkled when he’d said that word, as though he loved nothing more than to set an example by dishing out punishments. But whatever, it didn’t bother Audrey all that much; she could use the online portal to keep up with her schoolwork for the next two weeks and she didn’t plan to spend that many hours cooped up with her gran anyway. She planned to get out and about, find the nearest town, hopefully somewhere with a bit of life.

‘Audrey, it’s not only for the rest of this term.’

‘Then how long is it for?’ She supposed she was getting off lightly going to a village to hang around instead of here. Sid was being hauled into his dad’s office every day, doing boring things like photocopying and making cups of tea for people, although he said it was marginally better than school apart from the fact nobody in the office really spoke. He said one day he did an experiment: he held a pin up high above his dad’s desk and asked the lady sitting at the desk next to him if she heard anything. When she said she did and he announced it was a pin dropping, she failed to see the funny side. All that happened was that he got told by his dad to stop clowning around.

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