Free Phosphorescence by Raffaella Barker Page B

tugs my arm.
    â€˜Come on, Lola, we need to play fairies to practise for when I get a loose tooth.’
    And I pick her up and twirl her around, hiding my face in her neck. My feelings for her are so uncomplicated compared to everything else. When I put her down again, Josh has left the room, and the next minute he crosses the yard past the kitchen window, his skateboard under his arm. Caroline leads me to the table, chatting.
    â€˜We’ve all missed you, Lola. How are you getting on at your new school? Is London fun? It must seem very quiet to be back here again.’
    I laugh, looking round the kitchen. A radio is perched on the window sill, mumbling away to itself, and Neoprene whistles fruitily when I catch his eye.
    â€˜Coffee and cake. Coffee and cake,’ he suggests, twisting his head to one side and selecting a peanut from his bowl with one delicate claw.
    Sadie has found a skipping rope and is trying to swing it in the small space between the cooker andthe table while chanting, ‘Two-four-six-eight, who do we appreciate?’
    On the cooker, a pan of potatoes is boiling, the lid clanging, steam rising and clinging to the glass panes of the window.
    â€˜No, it’s not quiet here. In London I’m on my own in the flat a lot because Mum is working, but that’s OK. And school isn’t so bad now that I’ve got some friends, but it’s nice to be back here again.’
    I nod stupidly and push my hands deep into the back pockets of my jeans.
    â€˜I’m sure. And how is your mother finding it back in town? I expect she’s meeting old friends again.’
    Caroline’s smile is gentle. I wish she would stop talking to me and looking at me in that very kind way she has. I just want to be with Sadie for a bit with no one paying me any attention.
    â€˜Lets play fairies outside,’ I suggest. We walk down to the quay. Sadie chats for a bit then falls silent. I look down and find her staring gravely behind me.
    â€˜What are you looking at?’
    â€˜Your bum. It’s waving about all over the place.’
    Great. And I haven’t got any other jeans with me.
    When Dad comes to fetch me, I run to the car and hurl myself into the passenger seat to hug Cactus, and it is the warmest feeling I have had since I left Staitheley. He licks my face and sits on my knee, singing a long sigh. Dad doesn’t talk much, but then he never did, even when I was here all the time. Helikes his own company, or that’s what Mum always says about him, and I suppose it must be true.
    â€˜I hope your visit over there was everything you expected,’ he says as we drive the short distance to Grandma’s house.
    He didn’t come to the Christies’ door but revved his engine and hooted his horn outside the entrance to the boatyard. Dad still looks a bit doleful, and I sat through a couple of his long silences on my way from the station, so I realize that it’s best to be busy, and occupy myself by changing the settings on my phone. It suddenly shrieks (a really good sound I got for it off www.freakfone.com) and see a message from Jessie in London replying to one I sent her worrying about my bum. She is on the case.
    â€˜
4get crazy infant nonsense. Yr bum is top.
’
    Mind you, she would say that because she was with me when I bought these jeans in the market. A message from a new schoolfriend who knows nothing of my life in Norfolk is weird, but I like it. As for my rear view, I’m only seeing Grandma and Jack, and Dad, so it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit wobbly.
    The first thing I think when Grandma opens the door is that she’s shrunk. The second is that the smell of her house is the best and most familiar smell in the world and I wish I could put some in a bottle and take it with me to smell when I come in from school to the flat and no one is there. It smells of clean laundry and flapjacks, pale tea and the flowery trace of the scent Grandma