Free The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler

purse.”
    She handed me two dollars, and I headed up the stairs.

    I dawdled as I made my way past the video arcade. Not fair. Nothing was fair. I couldn’t even waste a quarter on the Skee-Ball. On top of everything else, I didn’t need Mandy turning up and going after me just for being there.
    I bought some cotton candy from the end of the pier and wandered down to the boardwalk, my head filled with thoughts and questions. I didn’t notice Mr. Beeston coming toward me.
    “Watch yourself,” he said as I nearly walked into him.
    “Sorry. I was miles away.”
    He smiled at me in that way that always gives me weird shivers in my neck and arms. One side of his mouth turned up, the other reached down, and his crooked teeth poked out through the dark gap in between.
    “How’s Mom?” he asked.
    That’s when I had a thought. Mr. Beeston had been around a long time. He was kind of friendly with Mom. Maybe he’d know something.
    “She’s not doing that great, actually,” I said as I took a bite, the pink fluff melting into sugar in my mouth.
    “Oh? Why not?”
    “She’s a bit sad about . . . some things.”
    “Things? What things ?” he said quickly, his smile gone.
    “Just . . .”
    “Is she ill? What’s the matter?” Mr. Beeston’s face turned hard as he narrowed his eyes at me.
    “Well, my father . . .” I pulled at my cotton candy and a long piece came away like a loose thread from a fluffy pink ball of mohair yarn. I folded it over into my mouth.
    “Your what ?” Mr. Beeston burst out. What was his problem?
    “I was asking her about my father and she got upset.”
    He lowered his voice. “What did she tell you?”
    “She didn’t tell me anything.”
    “Nothing at all?”
    “She said she couldn’t remember anything. Then she started crying.”
    “Couldn’t remember anything? That’s what she said?”
    I nodded.
    “You’re quite sure now? Nothing at all?”
    “Yes. Nothing.”
    “All right, then.” Mr. Beeston breathed out hard through his nose. It made a low whistling sound.
    “So, I wondered if you could help me,” I continued, trying to sound casual.
    “Me? How on earth can I help you?” he snapped.
    “I just wondered if she’d ever talked to you about him. With you being her friend and everything.”
    He examined my face, squeezing his eyes down to narrow slits as he stared. I wanted to run away. Of course he wouldn’t know anything. Why would she talk to him and not me? I tried to hold his eyes but he was staring at me so hard I had to look away.
    He took hold of me by my elbow and pointed up the promenade with his other hand. “I think it’s time you and I had a little chat,” he said.

    I tried to shake my elbow away as we walked, but he held it tighter and walked faster. We’d gotten all the way to the end of the boardwalk before he let go and motioned for me to sit down on a bench.
    “Now, listen to me and listen well, because I’ll tell you this once and once only.”
    I waited.
    “And I don’t want you bothering your mother with it afterward. You’ve upset her enough already.”
    “But I —”
    “Never mind, never mind.” He raised his hand to stop me. “You couldn’t have known.”
    He wiped his forehead with a hanky. “Now then,” he said, shifting his weight onto his side as he put his hanky away. His trousers had a hole just below the pocket. “Your father and I, we used to be friends. Best friends. Some folks even thought we were brothers; that’s how close we were.”
    Brothers? Surely Mr. Beeston was lots older than my father? I opened my mouth to speak.
    “He was like a kid brother to me. We did everything together.”
    “Like what?”
    “What?”
    “What things did you do? I want to know what he was like.”
    “All the things young boys get up to,” he snapped. “We went fishing together. Went out on our bikes —”
    “Motorbikes?”
    “Yes, yes, motorbikes, mountain bikes — all of that. We were best friends. Chased the girls