Free Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

out with his pockets overflowing with doughnuts.
    Mrs Hackett was at the door now.
    ‘Hello there, Neil me lover,’ Polly heard her say from behind the heavy glass. She’d have to open the door for her too, she knew. Mrs Hackett had arthritis in her hands and wasn’t as strong as she’d once been. But she was a lovely old woman who’d taught at the school when it had still been open and was known by everyone in town. Meanwhile, Malcolm was juggling the packages Jayden was giving him one on top of the other.
    With a sigh, and a warning look at her puffin, Polly pushed open the door.
    ‘Hello, Mrs Hackett,’ she said. She tried to be quick, but you couldn’t hurry Mrs Hackett, who in any case was pulling her trolley over the cobblestones and also wearing a floppy hat that would get stuck if Polly didn’t open the door a bit wider.
    Neil eeped loudly and jubilantly and hopped into the shop, to a chorus of hellos from everybody there. Malcolm watched, clearly incredulous.
    ‘What’s this bird doing in here?’ he said. ‘We’ve already had a dog in, and dogs aren’t allowed in food shops, I’d have expected you to know that, Pauline.’
    ‘I do know that,’ said Polly, who didn’t want to tell him that he’d got her name wrong. ‘It was just Pen. He’s so old, it’s hard for him to stand outside.’
    ‘But BIRDS! You can’t have birds flying about a shop! What next, a bunch of seagulls coming in? It’s disgusting. Out! Shoo! Shoo!’
    There was a sharp intake of breath from one of the old ladies. Nobody ever talked to Neil like that. Polly felt awful but she didn’t say anything. It was horribly disloyal, but maybe Neil would hop back out of the shop instead of getting them shut down for health and safety and losing her her livelihood for ever.
    He regarded the newcomer with his black eyes, then – and if he hadn’t been a bird, Polly would have sworn he’d done it on purpose – he hopped up on to Polly’s shoulder and tilted his head so that he was nuzzling her ear.
    ‘Get down, Neil,’ Polly murmured, but to no avail. He was making happy little eeps. One of the old ladies gave him a piece of her bun, which he bit into happily, his beak scattering crumbs across the floor.
    Malcolm had gone absolutely puce.
    ‘This is
your
bird?’ he said. ‘You can’t have a
bird
in here! You can’t… you can’t…’
    ‘He doesn’t come to work with me,’ mumbled Polly. Malcolm did kind of have a point: she shouldn’t have Neil in the bakery, but nobody ever seemed to mind. ‘I think he was just… passing.’
    Malcolm stood back, shaking his head, as if he’d never seen anything so disgusting in his entire life.
    ‘I think
you
have to decide whether you want to run a food preparation service or a bird sanctuary,’ he said. ‘And decide soon.’
    Still balancing his parcels, he marched crossly out of the shop.
     

     
    ‘He seems nice,’ ventured one of the old ladies.
    ‘Mabel, he’s horrible,’ said Mrs Hoskings.
    ‘Really?’ said Mabel. ‘Ah, I’m wearing my peepers, not my lookers.’ She fumbled with her spectacles. ‘Still, nice to have a bit of new young blood around the place, hmm?’
    ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ said Polly, putting Neil out through the door crossly. He checked to make sure she wasn’t kidding, then waddled across the road to pester the fishermen for scraps.
    ‘And fly, you lazy bird!’ Polly shouted at him, but yelling at Neil certainly wasn’t going to make her feel any better.
    ‘Yes, well,’ said Mabel, packing away her sausage rolls in her capacious handbag. ‘Last time we had some new young blood around the place, you snaffled it up. Leave some for the rest of us this time, would you?’
    Polly gave a half-hearted grin.
    ‘You,’ she said, ‘are welcome to him.’
    Polly didn’t head back for a quick break that morning after the early rush: she was too anxious and keyed up about Malcolm’s visit.
    She tried to put a spin on the