Beach Hut Surprise: Escape to Little Piddling this summer — six feel-good beach reads to make you smile, or even laugh out loud

by Libertà Books

  "Many of the crowd agree with you about the sanitation. Apparently, the protests have been growing for years and, once it was made clear to the Mayor that if you were dismissed from your post you would be seen as a martyr to the cause, and he would be the villain of the piece, he was all for your being allowed to keep your post."

  "But this is marvellous!" cried Rudolph, jumping up. "But, if I cannot work, what am I to do? How long must I stay at home?"

  "Oh, four months at least." Millicent stretched out her hand and he pulled her to her feet. "We must have time to let tempers cool."

  "Four months. What on earth am I going to do with myself for four months?"

  Millicent traced a pattern on the sandy floor with the tip of her parasol.

  "I thought perhaps you might like to go abroad. Take a cycling holiday."

  "Yes, by Jove, I suppose I might," said Rudolph, brightening.

  "And…" she looked intently at her artistic creation "…I w-wondered if you might like a companion."

  "I suppose that would be a good idea." He mulled over the idea for a few moments, then sighed and shook his head. "No, it won't do. All the cyclists I know have a job of work to do; they would never be able to take the time off."

  "Not all of them are employed, Rudolph."

  "Oh yes, they are. I― By Jove," he said again. "You d-don't mean you would consider coming with me?

  "I would very much like to, if you think I wouldn't get in the way?"

  "In the way? No indeed, I should very much like it, only, I thought you preferred Albert Kettlesing?"

  "Albert? Oh no, he is a very sweet boy, of course, but far too frivolous. Too immature to be my sweetheart."

  His face lit up. "Do you mean that? Oh Millicent, it would make me the happiest man in the world if—" He broke off as another objection occurred to him. "No, it won't do. Your mother and father would never allow you to come with me, unless…"

  "Unless what, Rudolph?"

  "Unless we were married."

  "And we are not."

  "No." He sighed, his shoulders drooping. "No way around that one."

  "You could try asking me, Rudolph."

  He stared at her. "Do you mean, if I did ask you, you would say yes?"

  "Yes, I do, you silly man. It would take at least four weeks to arrange everything for our trip, so there is time for the banns to be read and for our mothers to organise a wedding."

  "But weddings take months to plan."

  "Not necessarily." She clasped his hands. "Oh, what do you say, Rudolph, shall we do it? The bicycling trip can be our honeymoon."

  Rudolph felt as if the world was tilting on its axis, but he also felt his battered spirits reviving more with every minute. He said cautiously, "Very well. If you are sure about all this."

  "Surer than I have ever been about anything."

  "Even though I have made such a mess of everything today?"

  "You displayed great skill and cunning, Rudolph, and in the end you also showed that you are a very honourable gentleman because you would not allow another to take the blame." Millicent stepped closer and slipped her arms about his neck. "In fact, Rudolph Spendlove, I very much think you are my hero."

  And with that, Rudolph relinquished all aspirations to be Rupert of Hentzau and gave himself up to the pleasure of kissing Millicent, his very own heroine.

  THE END

  About Sarah Mallory

  Sarah Mallory is an award-winning author who has published more than 30 historical romances with Mills & Boon. She loves history, especially the Georgian and Regency periods, and when she is not writing, she spends her time exploring the remote Scottish Highlands where she has made her home.

  Sarah also writes romantic historical adventures as Melinda Hammond.

  You can learn more at www.sarahmallory.com and follow her @SarahMRomance. Sarah is also part of the Libertà hive: libertabooks.com/sarah

  GOING HOME?

  by Sophie Weston

  Chapter One

  Until the Visit, I was doing fairly well at Orwell College for Gifted Children. I was teaching chemistry at all levels. It was March 1973 and I'd been in post for seven months. I'd started extracurricular classes in astrophysics for half a dozen Sixth Formers. My Astronomy Club was so popular, I'd had to divide it into Juniors and Seniors, or nobody got enough time at the telescope. No takers yet for my classes in computer science. But Headmaster Abel said that would come in time.

  "Your enthusiasm is too infectious, Selsis," he said kindly. "Lo, the unbelievers shall see the light." It was a private joke to make me feel better. And it did.

  I watched Star Trek with the Orwell College addicts, staff and pupils alike, and managed not to correct the errors.

  The food was strange but I'd got used to it, though alcohol was an issue. After an evening tasting Real Ale, hosted by the Headmaster, I said firmly that I was sticking to water. And I'd nearly mastered the knife and fork.

  OK, Peter Abel wouldn't let me meet the parents yet. But that was partly because I was new and partly—well, parents were a new concept for me. There was always a risk that I'd say the wrong thing to them. Words, like the use of knife and fork, were still a work in progress for me. But I was getting there.

  Or I thought I was. Until the Visit.

  The first I heard of it was in the Staff Room. Everyone was in a fever of anxiety.

  I couldn't understand. What scared them about a visit from a secretary in education? I knew the school secretary. Secretaries did top chaps' typing and organised meetings. They didn't have any power. I said so.

  "You don't know Maggie," said the Art Master with feeling. "She's a control freak." He was a bit of a male chauvinist.

  "A strong-minded woman," corrected the Head of Mathematics, who wasn't.

  "You wait," said the Art Master. He was also a conspiracy theorist and brooded a lot.

  Even Peter Abel was cautious. At least, he made sure the Art Master and the Senior Tutor in French—a Byronic character, still mourning the collapse of the French Revolution—were out of the way when she came. They went off with a school party to an exhibition of Impressionists that day. All day.

  And he sent me out with a map and packed lunch to prepare a discovery walk for the Upper Fourth. So I knew he wanted me out of the way, too. And I would have been, only a landfall had blocked the bridle path and I nipped back for a different map. There were a good couple of hours before the terrifying secretary was due to arrive.

  I was halfway across the kitchen yard, heading for the hills again, when a big limousine swept round the corner, swerved and jammed on its brakes.

  Just in time, actually. I fell back against the wall, heart racing. I'd have a friction burn on my left hip, unless I was much mistaken. The car came to a halt just shy of the dustbins.

  A man in a dark overcoat jumped out. He looked worried, poor chap.

  I straightened and said soothingly, "I'm fine. Don't worry."

  He looked blank. Clearly not worried about me, then.

  Instead, he said, "Where are we?"

  I was so startled, I reverted to default mode. "Earth."

  Yes, I know it was a stupid thing to say. But it was the literal truth, from my perspective. And I hadn't prepared myself to encounter new people.

  But he didn't complain that I was taking the piss, which he might well have done. Instead, he seemed panic-stricken and looked back at the car as if he expected it to burst into flames.

  The driver put his head out of the window. "Can you help us, love? We've been going round in circles," he said nicely. "The Minister is looking for Orwell College."

  Oh Heavens, I thought. And the dreaded secretary is due in an hour or so. Peter Abel will tear his hair out

  So I was cautious. "Well, that's us. But everyone's in lessons now."

  The first guy bridled and came round the car to put himself between me and the friendly chauffeur. "So which way to the main entrance?" he demanded.

  I weighed up the situation.
A surprise Minister from some unspecified religion! On about the worst day they could have chosen. Well, at least I could buy Peter Abel some time. The buildings were fairly complicated. I could send them round in a circle while I dashed inside and got Cook to alert the Headmaster's office.

  So I did. Black overcoat got back in the front passenger seat and they drove off. Nobody said thank you.

  As soon as they were out of sight, I pelted into the kitchen and scribbled a message on one of Cook's kitchen ordering pads. She sent the youngest and fittest of the kitchen staff galloping away with it.

  I went back to the kitchen yard and set off for my nature-walk-plotting expedition again. I was quite proud of myself.

  Only then the limousine nosed round the corner again. It didn't pin me to the wall this time. Instead it stopped in front of me, effectively cutting off my exit, like Smersh operatives out of a James Bond movie. And the back window rolled down.

  A gloved hand beckoned. "Young woman, come here."

  The chauffeur looked woodenly ahead of him, but the passenger beside him was clearly apprehensive. Neither of them said anything.

  So I shrugged and went to talk to the window.

  It was a woman. She seemed to have golden hair. Not like a princess, though. Maybe a queen, from her imperious manner. Not the British queen, I hoped. "I am here to see the school. Fetch the Headmaster." From her tone, she might as well have been saying, "Take me to your leader."

  I was genuinely apologetic. It was really bad luck that she had chosen such a rotten day to descend on us.

  "I'm afraid I don't know where he is. He's very busy today. But if you'd like to see something of the school, I could take you to the Art Studio while I track down his secretary. She'll know where he is. The children there are always so absorbed you wouldn't disturb them." And the Junior Art Master, Goons fan and demon bowler, could cope with just about anything, in my experience.

  The magic word "secretary" must have swung it.

  She debated for no more than a moment. "Very well. That is what we will do. It's always best to arrive unannounced. Godwin…?"

  The man in the overcoat got out of the car at once and opened her door for her, like a footman out of a fairy tale. She got out. Regally.

  I knew that Ministers often dressed in ordinary clothes when they weren't actually running religious ceremonies, but I boggled a bit at hers. She was wearing a fairly short navy blue skirt and jacket, with the most scrumptious silk blouse in a heavenly shade of violet, with a big floppy bow at the collar. Bishops, I remembered, wore purple. Was she a bishop, then? Yet that bow would have looked better on one of the Staff Room boxes of chocolates. She had no hat but her hair was set in sculpted waves like a warrior's helmet. Not a hair moved in the brisk March wind. A mitre? Was that what it was called?

  It was too puzzling. I gave up.

  "Would you come this way, Your Eminence?" Wasn't that what you called bishops? Or was that the Pope?

  From the sharp look she gave me, I suspected I'd got it wrong.

  Oh well, at least I'd shown respect. That had to count for something. Right?

  I took them round the dustbins and in through the old Pantryman's Door.

  "This is the oldest part of the building. Tudor we believe. We can take the back stairs. The Art Studio is on this side of the building."

  Chatty and welcoming didn't come easily to me, but I did my best. I gave the Junior Art Master a good puff. At least, it was meant to be.

  The Minister wasn't having any of it. "What do you mean, free expression? Education isn't about free expression. It's about training people to do something useful."

  Here, at least, I was on solid ground. I had studied the education systems of several civilisations, after all. I said helpfully, "Only in very primitive societies. The real aim of education is to explore possibilities. To add 'why' and 'what if' to 'when, where and how', if you will."

  She waved a hand, like a queen ending a debate. "Education is training."

  But this was not a matter of debate, for me. This was my life's research. I couldn't let a fallacy like that go unchallenged. "Education is discovery," I corrected. Kindly, I hoped.

  She swung round on me, her eyes snapping. I think she might have argued further, which could have been very useful to both of us, in my opinion. But her assistant had an explosive coughing fit just then and I had to divert to the upstairs pantry to find him a glass of water.

  And the Junior Art Master came out of the Studio, stopped dead as if he'd been poleaxed and fled. I stared after him, astounded.

  Then Peter Abel arrived, academic gown billowing behind him in his haste, as he rushed towards her, saying, "Secretary of State, you are very welcome."

  And the whole ghastly business unravelled like a ball of wool tumbling down a mountainside. I had, in effect, kidnapped the honoured visitor, made her walk up two flights of rickety old stairs, laddering her stockings in the process and, above all, committed the cardinal sin of not recognising her.

  According to Peter Abel, she was so shaken she behaved quite mildly for the rest of the visit. But she made it clear that I had to go. I was incorrigibly frivolous.

  He put it more kindly than that. But he needn't have bothered. I'd overheard quite a lot of her remarks. Especially when the Junior Art Master gave me a plate of the ceremonial shortbread and a gentle push towards the honoured visitor, hissing, "Go and offer it to Mrs Thatcher."

  I didn't. It seemed a waste.

  She had a carrying voice. "Of course, she may be simple, poor thing. I understand that some geniuses often are. But is one happy to trust one's children to them?"

  Subtext: give her the sack. Or I will close you down.

  I don't think she actually said that. But it's certainly what the posse of governors heard. The new Chairman of the Board of Governors was an aspiring politician, according to the Staff Room. He heard it all right.

  Peter Abel was gone within the week, by order of the Board.

  I left the next day.

  Chapter Two

  Oddly enough, it was Peter Abel, who had told me what to do when I was thrown out. He'd been a bit drunk at the time, I suspect. And he'd been talking about himself and his beloved northern mountains. But I'd committed it to memory. Just as well, really.

  So I packed a small knapsack, attached my state-of-the-art telescope to it, and got on a bus, any bus. And I kept getting off and joining the next bus until there were no more buses and nowhere else to go.

  The buses got smaller and smaller and so did the towns. I ran out of road in a place called Little Piddling. At least that was what the sign at the side of the road said. Welcome to Little Piddling. It gleamed. It looked as if it got washed a lot.

  The beach was beautiful, though.

  It was one of those thunderous days when the sky seems like a low, dark roof with a hole in the top. Golden sunlight came streaming through and broke into about seven separate beams. Where they hit the sea, the water turned into a turbulence of diamonds. I knew I ought to imprint the image, for future reference if nothing else. At the Institute I could have done it in an instant. But my human eyes weren't good enough.

  So I stopped trying.

  That's what Peter Abel advised me to do when I walked into a wall of my own ignorance. "Stop trying so hard, Selsis. It's a waste of energy."

  He was worrying a lot about conserving energy, by then. He was another Adaptive Life Form, like me, and he had a theory that the more we adapted, the more energy we used up that we couldn't replace. At the Institute we replenished it naturally, all the time.

  Maybe he was afraid his energy was running out. I didn't know him very long. Just those last seven earth months before he, well, went home. Or not.

  Home was not a concept either of us had encountered before Earth. Like parents, it presupposed too many new ideas. The Institute was—well, the nearest translation, I suppose, would be our "accustomed place". We worked there. We ate there. We slept there. But… well, Earth home wa
s quite a bit more than that.

  We both knew it. But I don't think Peter Abel understood it any more than I did, though he tried to get the Sixth Form to explain it a couple of times. Well, of course, what he did was to get the Sixth Form to discuss it in one of their philosophical debates. He didn't tell them they were teaching us.

  Now I walked along the promenade looking out to sea and watching that cascade of particles falling and rebounding from the surface of the water. Instead of focusing and analysing and constructing a usable hypothesis, I just thought: maybe Peter was right. Maybe I've Adapted too much, too fast. Used too much life force energy.

  If I'm already losing my powers, can I survive?

  It felt oddly peaceful, like floating in a warm bath. I even closed my eyes and opened my palms to the sensation, rocking gently.

  I'll say this for the human body, whatever I was losing in deductive and recording abilities, not to mention ability to take action, I was gaining in sensory awareness. They feel everything, these humans. Though mostly they seem not to know it.

  I opened my eyes. There were steps off the promenade that took people over the sea wall and down onto the golden sand. I edged down them with care. Staring into those shimmering droplets had dazzled me. I didn't want to tumble. It would bring people running to help and Peter Abel had warned me that it was essential not to be noticed. I focused my energy and sent out a low-grade deflection signal. Partly to see whether I still could, if I'm honest.

  Nothing to see here. Just shifting shadows in the strange light.

  It seemed to work. There were probably a dozen people on the beach: a couple of runners; a group of women who had been for a swim, laughing; a man with binoculars staring out to sea; a woman with two feathery-tailed dogs. She looked in my direction once or twice. But I kept broadcasting shadows, just shadows, and she walked on, looking faintly puzzled.

  The sun was glorious but it had no chance to warm the air. The wind took care of that. It kept whipping round me, making my all-weather jacket puff out and then cling like wet flannel. It felt as if it was trying to blow me back to where I'd come from.