Chapter 4
‘H...hello.’ I said.
She was wearing white shorts and a t-shirt, lemon in colour. She was quite thin and her hair long red hair waved about a bit in the sea breeze.
‘Are you on holiday?’ she asked.
‘Yes...no...I mean yes.’
She laughed.
‘Don’t you know if you’re on holiday?’
‘S...sorry, I mean, I am sort of on holiday, I’m here with my Auntie Claire?’
‘Claire; Oh from up at the cottage?’ She pointed in the vague direction of the one I was staying at.
‘Yes, that’s right; are you?’
‘Am I what?’
‘On holiday.’
‘No, I live here.’
‘Where?’
She pointed at the cottage near the edge of the beach.
‘It must be neat staying so close to the sea?’
‘Yes, it’s great; I can go out on my sailing boat when Mummy lets me.’
I was getting over my shyness now but was trying to be careful not to say anything that might give the game away. I tried to keep the conversation off me and onto her.
‘I saw you,’ I said.
‘Sorry?’
‘I saw you from my bedroom window, you were in a boat. It was you wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, probably; what’s your name?’
Em...Erm ...Melissa.’
‘It must be horrible?’
‘What?’
‘To have a stutter like that; my Uncle Henry has a stutter, he daren’t say anything with a P in it.’
‘Oh.’
‘Sorry, I don’t want to make fun of you. I’m a bit silly like that. Mummy says I always put my foot in it up to my knees; I’m Felicity but that’s a mouthful so call me Flic.’
She put her hand out and I shook it up and down.
‘Gosh, you shake hands like a boy; my arm nearly fell off!’
‘S...sorry.’
‘That’s okay, only joking.’
We stood the looking at each other; both a bit quiet, not knowing what to say
‘You’re wearing makeup, it looks nice.’
‘T...thanks.’
‘Mummy won’t let me yet unless it’s a special party or something. She says that my skin is nice as it is without covering it up...’
‘Hello!’
We both looked round to see Claire walking down the beach towards us; she wasn’t smiling.
‘Hello, Felicity, I thought you were at school until term finished?’
‘No, we had an outbreak of measles at school and everyone came home a week early.’
‘Oh.’
Felicity looked at me.
‘I go away to school and only come home in the hols, where do you go to school?’
‘Fabians’,’ I replied without thinking. I could hear a sharp intake of breath coming from Claire which she sort of changed into a cough.
‘Ooh that’s a posh school. Are you here for long?’
‘Probably a couple of weeks, we’re not sure yet,’ saidClaire quickly, ‘look, Felicity; we have to go back to our cottage now; things to do, unpack and everything.’
‘Okay; maybe, I’ll see you around, Melissa.’
‘Y...yes.’
‘Sorry about the stutter thing, Melissa; do you want to go out on my boat, while you are here?’
‘That would be great!’ I said enthusiastically, ‘Can I C...Auntie Claire?’
‘We’ll see; now let’s get back, Melissa; we have things to do dear and we haven’t had breakfast yet.’
I waved goodbye to Felicity and followed Claire up the path to the cottage; we had had breakfast, so that was a lie, had she been lying about anything else? I didn’t know, but I was getting to be a suspicious.
Looking back to the beach; I could see Felicity walking down to the seashore. I thought she was nice and would very much like to be her friend. Lets face it–I lacked friends.
When we reached the cottage, Claire went into the kitchen with me following closely on her heals.
She sat down on a stool and then looked at me, questioningly.
‘How were you with Flic?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Felicity; everyone calls her Flic. Did you say much to her?’
‘Not really, we only talked for a few minutes before you came up. She seemed nice.’
‘Yes, she’s a nice girl; she was friends with my...erm, well never mind that. Look, I’m sorry we didn’t have time to stay on the beach.’
‘Can I go back there later?’
‘We’ll see. Now would you like something to drink?’
‘Yes please.’
She got up and went over to the looked in the fridge.
‘Hmm, I need to do some grocery shopping or we might starve. Would an orange juice be okay?’
‘Yes please.’
She pulled out a carton and poured me some juice and then made herself a cup of tea. Then she picked up a biscuit barrel and offered me a shortcake. I never turn down the offer of a biscuit, no matter how worried or upset I was.
Dad sometimes said that I was shallow, whatever that means.
A few moments later we were sitting at the kitchen table and I looked up at Claire, she seemed distracted.
‘Claire?’
‘Hmm,’ she said.
‘How long will we be staying here; you said to Flic a couple of weeks?’
She frowned a bit and I hoped that she wasn’t going to be angry with me for asking.
She sipped her tea and then looked at me.
‘I don’t know, Melissa; it’s all complicated. I received a phone call from your dad while I was up here getting the sun cream; I wasn’t going to tell you about it, because I thought that you might get upset.’
Whilst she was talking, my heart flipped a bit at the thought of my father ringing; I stood up eagerly.
‘Is he okay; when will he be coming home, where is he, what’s happening?’
‘Shh, Melissa, I’m trying to tell you! Things are complicated; the police are definitely looking for him and so are some rather nasty people who want to do him harm. He hasn’t been traced yet and he has to go even deeper into hiding until he can sort things out. He has people over here that are doing their best to try to sort out the mess and until they can come up with something to help, he is going to be out of contact,’
‘I wanted to speak to him.’ I whispered, tears coming unbidden to my eyes.
‘I know, honey; he only had a few minutes and he was very disappointed that you wasn’t with me. The trouble is, he doesn’t want any sort of trace from his or my phone, that’s why the call was so quick. I can’t ring him back because he is going to change phones or SIM cards every time he rings here. Perhaps next time you will be here and be able to speak to him.’
‘Okay, can you at least tell me where he is?’ I sniffed.
‘Here, have a tissue. No I can’t tell you as I don’t know myself. Anyway, if either of us are caught, and we knew where he was, we might let slip and tell the police something. It’s better that we don’t know his location.’
I wiped my eyes, noticing the trace of makeup on the tissue. I couldn’t think about the situation anymore, it was too upsetting.
‘Flic doesn’t wear makeup.’ I said waving the soiled tissue at her.
Claire shook her head.
‘Always the tomboy; she does occasionally use makeup, like a lot girls your age; remember it does help your disguise and makes you look a little older. I remember...well never mind that, I’ll tell you another time. Now let’s get washed up and then I have a surprise for you!’
I helped wash up the breakfast things, wondering what the surprise was. After finishing, Claire took off her apron and then looked at me with a smile on her face.
‘I need to do some shopping in town, also you need some more clothes — now don’t look like that; girlie shopping can be fun, anyway, once we’ve been shopping, then we’ll have something to eat. After
that, we can go to the cinema and see what’s on; I’ll have to do the food shopping last, to stop stuff spoiling. How does that all sound?’
‘Okay, I guess.’
‘Well don’t sound too enthusiastic, will you!’ She came over and gave me a hug then looked at me.
‘I’m sorry your dad can’t be here. I want him here too. He asked me to look after you and treat you like my own and that’s what I’m trying to do. Can you just go along with this and try to enjoy yourself? Your dad wants that more than anything.’
‘Does he?’ I said smiling slightly.
‘Yes he does.’
That made me feel a little better.
‘Can I get some shorts, jeans, capri’s and t-shirts?’ I asked, changing the subject.
‘All right,’ she laughed.
‘Great; so what’s on the pictures?’
She laughed, ‘that’s more like it; we’ll see when we get there. Now you, young lady need to change into something more appropriate.’
‘I look okay!’
She laughed.’ You have a lot to learn!’
An hour later, we were in the car heading towards town. I was wearing a thin cotton sundress, the label said Next and it was light blue with a white and red design. It had side zipper and was quite cool in the rising temperature. Mind you, the air con was kicking in and I did start getting a bit too cool and goosebumpy after a while. To add to my chilliness, I wasn’t wearing any socks, just some white sandals. Still it was preferable to being hot!
I did look in the mirror before we left. As usual, Claire insisted that I wear a bit of makeup. I licked my lips; the pink lipstick tasted slightly of strawberries, it was nice, but it still felt weird. The strange thing about all this was that I was getting used to wearing this stuff, you know the makeup and über girlie clothes. It wasn’t that bad, after all, my appearance was just a disguise. Underneath was the real Emma and I was just acting. I was glad that Georgie couldn’t see me now though, as she would laugh at me, she was more a tomboy than me and that was saying something.
The car went along the country lanes as I listened to Coldplay on my iPod, using my ear-buds. I turned my player up loud, ‘cos Claire insisted on having Abba on her car CD player again.
Finally, we arrived in town and Claire parked the car in a multi storey car park. I was a bit nervous as there were so many people there. What if someone realised that I was Emma, the daughter of a wanted person?
It was strange going around the shops with Claire. She was obviously getting into the shopping thing straight away. She dragged me into countless shops and I tried on about a million things like dresses, skirts, tops and blouses (what’s the difference?) Capri pants, jeans, you name it, I wore it!
It was funny, but after a while, I relaxed a bit and began to enjoy myself, trying on all the different clothes and stuff. Claire wasn't my mum, but she seemed to care for me, so it was the next best thing.
We came away with several bags of clothes, which we left in the boot of the car.
‘Right, a bit of lunch and then the cinema. After that, we’ll get some food shopping and go home. Okay with you?’
I just nodded. I don’t know where she got the energy from!
We had lunch in McDonalds and then went to the cinema. We watched Bridge To Terabithia and I must admit, I cried when Leslie died! It was a sad film with a happy ending.
After a while I temporarily forgot my problems, relaxed and enjoyed myself.
After the film, we went back to the car and then went to Tesco’s for the food shopping. It was one of those huge mega-supermarkets that are open 24 hours a day. They sell everything from toilet rolls to TV’s, so you can get almost anything you might need there.
We got a trolley, and I pushed it around while Claire filled it up. We were over by the TV’s and we stopped for a minute.
‘Can you wait here? I need to get some rice.’
‘Okay,’ I said, rather bored with everything.
Getting out my iPod, I turned it on and listened to the music.
Watching people walk by and humming away, I glanced at a bank of different TV’s, all for sale on three shelves. Suddenly I gasped, as from about nine of the TV’s, there was a picture of me and my dad!
I pulled out my earplugs, just as the picture disappeared from the screens. The sound was down and I couldn’t find anything to turn it up on any of them! Then my heart fell as the pictured turned to adverts.
Claire came up and saw that I was upset.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘There...there was a picture of me and Dad on the TV’s.’ I pointed.
She went pale in the face.
‘Come on, we have to go.’
We left the shopping trolley, full of food and headed for the exit in a hurry.