Free The Explosionist by Jenny Davidson Page B

lady continued to harangue the helpless assistant. “Without the self-cleaning oven and the automatic timer with its on-off feature,” she complained, “I really might as well buy an ordinary model at the Co-Op!”
    “I’m very sorry, madam,” said the shop assistant, flustered. “I can promise you—”
    “Sophie?” Jean said, her voice wavering between horror and laughter.
    “Yes?”
    “I think that woman’s Miss Rawlins!”
    Sophie frowned. There had certainly been something familiar about the shopper’s face and figure. But how could their old chemistry teacher—the one Mr. Petersen had replaced in March when she left to be married—have turned into this fur-clad monstrosity?
    “She must have married a millionaire!” Jean exclaimed.
    “Let’s wait for her to come back out,” Sophie said, almost certain that Jean was mistaken. “It might just be, oh, I don’t know, her evil twin or something like that.”
    They hung around looking at the vacuum cleaners and electric hair dryers until the lady emerged from the manager’s office, still hanging on his arm but now clutching her checkbook.
    Then they edged closer to the counter, where the lady, still oblivious to their surveillance, brandished a massive gold-and-onyx reservoir pen over her checkbook. They could see the gold bangles on her wrists and a pair of diamond earrings hanging from her ears, earrings that Sophie’s great-aunt would certainly have called unsuitable.
    They saw the name on the checkbook: Miss Ailsa Rawlins.
    “It’s her,” Sophie said under her breath.
    At that moment their former teacher looked up and saw the two girls. She drew her coat more tightly around her and sniffed. “Jean Roberts and Sophie Hunter,” she said repressively.
    It wasn’t exactly a warm greeting.
    “Good afternoon, Miss Rawlins,” Jean said politely.
    “Good afternoon,” Sophie echoed, barely suppressing a fit of giggles.
    “What are the two of you doing inside on such a fine day?” Miss Rawlins asked them. “Have you already had your constitutional?”
    Jean and Sophie looked at each other, then shook their heads. Sophie dragged Jean away before they could disgrace themselves by collapsing into outright laughter. They broke into a run outside, ending up breathless in the grass below the monument to Walter Scott.
    “Our constitutional!” Sophie said, once they’d caught their breath.
    Just the word itself was enough to send them both into fits of laughter.
    “Strange, though,” Sophie added thoughtfully. “What exactly do you think she was doing in that shop?”
    “Well, obviously, buying an electric cooker! It’s natural to get everything fitted out new when you’re married, isn’t it?”
    “She left school to be married, you’re quite right. But why is she still writing checks in her maiden name?” Sophie sat up and brushed the grass off her hair. “Don’t most married women change their names and share a bank account with their husbands?”
    Jean shrugged. “Perhaps she kept the account she had before they were married,” she said, not very interested in this line of speculation. Then she perked up. “Perhaps the cooker’s a wedding present for her new husband!”
    Sophie shook her head. “I don’t think she’s married yet,” she said firmly. Something was nagging at her, but she couldn’t think what. “She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring just now. Bangles, yes, and earrings and some sort of necklace, but the ring finger was bare.”
    Jean stared at Sophie.
    “It couldn’t—”
    “She couldn’t—”
    They both spoke at once. Then Sophie succumbed to an uncontrollable fit of giggles.
    “I don’t like to say it,” she said, almost choking with laughter, “but I think Miss Rawlins may have become a kept woman!”
    “No!” said Jean, her eyes going wide with surprise. “How completely extraordinary…”
    “Yes, people do the strangest things,” Sophie said, suddenly grave.
    “It’s romantic, though, isn’t