Free Excess Baggage by Judy Astley Page A

inches.
    ‘
No worries!
Doesn’t take you long to pick up the local vernacular! How
was
the diving lesson?’
    ‘It was great.’ Mark answered for both of them and shuffled out of his chair and made for the stairs. ‘Order me chicken with the salad please, Tess, I’m off to the boys’ room.’
    ‘No better then?’ Theresa glared at him.
    ‘No, no better, darling, thanks so much for your concern.’
    Becky felt as if she was with a school party. It was so embarrassing, trailing round the teeming market with her dad chivvying at them all to stay together. He lacked only a games teacher’s whistle. Shirley and Perry took no notice of his attempts to keep everyone rounded up, Becky was pleased to see, wandering off together to admire the stalls as if they were in a nice Cotswold village at one of the quieter times of the year. Browsing contentedly, they picked up and inspected samples of the vast ranges of spices and vegetables and leather goods, wooden carvings, jewellery and coconut-shell etchings. Whichever direction Becky turned, steel bands were playing fast thrilling rhythms, patterns of sound that she couldn’t quite get the hang of. As she walked between the stalls, men made low, hissy noises at her as if she was a stray tiger cub. She turned in all curious innocence to look at the first few, surprised to catch sight of looks of unexpected hostility. More alarmed than she’d ever thought she would be, for after all she and her mates were well-practised at the sassy ‘piss off’ rejoinder, she hung on to Luke’s arm. He pulled a face but didn’t try to extricate himself.
    ‘It’s your own fault, you shouldn’t have worn those shorts,’ he said, eyeing her cropped T-shirt and tiny pink towelling shorts that showed curved little quarter-moons of her bottom as she walked. ‘Theresa was right, they’re just like knickers. She said little Amy and Ella wear bigger ones than that. Look at the local girls, they’re all covered up.’
    ‘Shut up, Luke, you sound just like Dad. How was I supposed to know?’
    ‘I sound like Dad? Shit.’
    ‘Yeah, well.’
    ‘AMY! Where the hell
is
she?’ Theresa’s shriek cut across the babbling market noises and her face was frantic with panic. ‘Becky, Luke, is she with you?’ Theresa was in front of them, clutching Ella’s wrist tight, her eyes scanning the crowd in terror.
    ‘She was with Marisa and Seb, I thought.’ Becky couldn’t see Marisa, but Sebastian was holding Plum’s hand and kicking at a squashed mango under a stall beside him.
    ‘She was, but Marisa lost sight of her. Stupid girl, she let go of her! You don’t
do
that!’ Theresa was close to tears.
    Mark appeared with a sulky Marisa. ‘Can’t see her around this bit of the market. I think one of us should go back to the restaurant. Amy might just remember where we were and there was that big blue plaster dolphin thing outside that she liked.’
    ‘I’m sorry. I’m not feeling so good. Is heat.’ Marisa’s face was blotchy with sunburn and she was fanning her face with her hand. There were oily beads of sweat above her eyebrows and she was breathing too fast.
    ‘And of course you don’t get much bloody sun in bloody Montreux do you?’ Theresa hissed. ‘I did
tell
you: cover up, use the sodding cream, put your hat on, but oh no you had to lie there like a roasting pig …’
    ‘Tess, this won’t help,’ Lucy cut in gently. ‘I’ll go and see if Amy’s at the restaurant, it’s only across the square. You stay here with Mum and Dad and if she’s not there, Simon and Mark and the rest of us can go round the market and look for her.’ She took a few steps and then called back, ‘Colette, stay with Becky and Luke.’ Colette glared, but Lucy had had to say it, just in case.
    She surely couldn’t have gone far. A six-year-old child frightened and all alone was surely more likely to stand still and wail and howl than to run off into even stranger territory. There were just so many