Free Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams by Jenny Colgan

sounding in the distance, Rosie began to feel her optimistic mood draining away, particularly as the wispy clouds she’d noticed earlier had changed their minds and were massing greyly above her head. Rosie started towonder where she was going. In all senses. But she trudged on, turning into smaller and smaller tracks, sometimes sheltered by trees, sometimes barely a path before popping out on to what seemed like a road again.
    After about half an hour, she reached the crest of a small hill, but turning round realised she could hardly see back down; the clouds were closing in much more quickly than she’d expected. Just at that moment, the first drops started hitting her head, and she realised that, a) she didn’t have an umbrella with her, b) she couldn’t remember which way she had come and now she couldn’t see it either, and c) she was wearing her shaggy H&M shearling, which, while stylish, and relatively forgiving to her lumpy bits, was also made of thin wool and thus if the rain got any heavier would prove totally and completely useless.
    The rain got substantially heavier.
    ‘ Bugger! ’ shouted Rosie out loud at the sky, hoping this would make her feel better. It did, but not for long. Where was she? Where the hell? She took out her phone. Of course there was no signal. Who would need a signal out here, cows calling for home-delivery grass?
    The sky was nearly completely black; you could see so bloody far in the country. She could certainly see far enough not to get her hopes up as to the weather changing in the next five minutes or so.
    Rosie had never wished more fervently to see a Starbucks in her entire life.
    ‘Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!’
    Rivulets of rain had started to infiltrate the collar of her shirt and dribble down her back. There were droplets in hereyelashes. Her wellingtons might be keeping her feet dry, but stray raindrops were still finding their way inside and wetting her socks. Rosie wondered if it might be possible to drown. Didn’t cows drown if they looked at the sky or something?
    She turned round. She had to guess a route, and it would have to be downhill. She’d come uphill, hadn’t she? Hopefully, she’d be going down the same hill … and not, for example, the other side of a different one, that led into a crevasse or a ravine.
    Rosie realised she was shivering now. She couldn’t believe it had turned so very nasty so quickly.
    Suddenly, in the distance, she caught sight of a set of headlights. Her heart leapt. She’d be saved! It must be the farmer! Maybe he’d caught sight of her out alone on the wild moors on a mad day and was coming to rescue her! And he’d take her back to his lovely farmhouse kitchen and his rosy-cheeked wife would have a plate of scones and … She put her hand out to wave down the car as it swept down the muddy lane. Dazzled by the lights, she couldn’t see who was at the wheel. The car, a dirty white Land Rover, failed to slow down, even as Rosie pushed herself further from the shelter of the trees to wave her hands wildly. For her trouble, the car spat out a fan of muddy water all over her jeans and down her wellies, and continued on its way. Rosie had an impression of an angry-looking face at the wheel.
    ‘You arse !’ she yelled after it. ‘You’ve left me here to die !!!’
    At this, the brake lights of the car went on, briefly, and she thought it might be slowing down, that he’d had a rethink. But after a couple of seconds they went off again, and the car continued on its way down the hill, the opposite road to the one Rosie had been about to take.
    ‘Karma is going to totally bite you,’ she screamed. She was so wet now, it didn’t really matter at all. She marched out into the middle of the road.
    ‘I hope toads eat through your electrical wiring and a badger gets in your bed. A toe-eating badger. And that your car suddenly explodes for no reason. Without you in it because I am a good person unlike you , you monster . But with