Free In the Summertime by Judy Astley

because Clare hadn’t known whether the relationship would last, and by the time they’d actually decided it would, and they’d married, the habit was ingrained. How ridiculous, she thought now. The man who’d raised her daughter since she’d been three and she’d denied him and Miranda that small measure of closeness. She’d never know if it had made a difference. Too late now.
    She waited till a few browsers left the gallery and then went inside. There was something she had to do. It wasn’t only Jack’s mortal remains that needed to be set free. She had twenty-three of his early Cornish paintings that needed a home. And this gallery was where she hoped they’d find one.
    Silva walked back to the harbour-front and had another look in the beachwear shop. She’d clocked the surf-crowd earlier and envied how they all knew each other and wished she were part of a group of friends like that. If Bo went off and hung with the Lola girl she’d be mostly mooching about by herself for three whole weeks, which was like for ever . Not fun. Her best friend Willow had gone to Florida for a month to stay with abunch of cousins and she kept putting up all these photos of beach party fun on Facebook and in most of them there was a boy with his arm round her. You couldn’t not be envious. Silva wasn’t the only one – every single one of their mates had been madly clicking on ‘Like’ under the pictures. She imagined Willow on a beach at sundown, out of sight of her parents, snogging the boy’s face off. He didn’t actually look all that but at least she’d have something to tell when they got back to school. What was Silva going to have? It was great. I hung with my mum, my aunt and my gran . Not that she didn’t love her family, but the summer you become fourteen you want it to have something a bit more … memorable.
    She went into the shop. A couple of the boys from before were still there, talking like experts about wetsuits – something about gauges and percentages. She listened in as she flicked through a rail of discounted T-shirts, noting the ya-ya drawls of private-school accents. Maybe they were from London as well. She wished one of them would notice her and … well, anything really. Just a smile would be something, especially from the streaky blond one with the gold ear stud, just so she felt she was worth a look. But they were a couple of years older than her, at least. She was probably invisible. Willow wouldn’t be – she’d make sure they clocked her, just flicking her hair about and maybe bumping into one of them. But then Willow was the oldest in herschool year – she’d be fifteen in September, practically adult . Silva was the baby of their group and had only got her periods just after Christmas. It was hard keeping up with a best friend whose fake ID was never (according to Willow anyway) challenged in clubs. In fact it was hard keeping up with a friend who even went to clubs.
    The boys were talking about something called sex wax now. What was that? It sounded weird. Where did you put it? Was it like … bikini waxing or something? She’d never be able to ask because she’d look like a numpty for not knowing. Whatever it was it must be gross.
    Silva hoped her gran wouldn’t be too long because although she’d said she was OK with going by herself to the Sail Loft, she actually felt a bit shy about sitting at a table alone and actually ordering something. You’d look like a loser, sitting all by your lonesome. She probably just had time to try something on, maybe a little skirt or one of the flowery dresses that she wouldn’t wear back home but which looked so cool on the girls here. Another boy (nerdy geek style this time, though with nice grey eyes) came in with a tall stringy dad and they started looking at wetsuits.
    ‘You’ll need a life jacket as well, Freddie,’ the dad was saying, pacing about and being loud. ‘And some gloves and, hey, how about this hat?’ The dad put a