Since my arrival, all my housekeeping needs had been provided for, at first by kind strangers who took care of me; then, after I joined the college, by my employer. Almost as soon as I got on my first bus, I realised that being on my own was presenting me with a whole new dimension of challenge. Now I saw that this Paper Shop was a place where I could buy all the things that I would need to feed, clothe and even keep myself warm in this strange hiatus of my expedition.
I was inspecting something which looked like a rock but felt like a vegetable when a voice behind me said, "Can I help you?"
I jumped. I mean I should have been aware of her before she spoke. Even humans could do that.
"Do you want that potato? Let me weigh it."
Potato! So that's what the thing was. It didn't look at all like the potatoes I had eaten at school. I put it back in its basket.
"Oh. No, thank you. I was just looking." A very useful phrase that Peter Abel had taught me. "I want to rent one of the beach huts. The notice said I should come here?"
"Yes, that's right." She came out from behind a tall stand holding bright plastic buckets and even brighter sombreros. She had long straight hair, greying at the temples, and steady eyes. She was wearing a shapeless robe in some very light, very pretty material that finished just above her shins. And wellington boots.
"Well, may I take the sky blue one? It's one in from the end of the row."
She bent her head, like a queen acknowledging a petition. "Forget me not."
For a moment I wondered wildly whether I needed a password to rent one of the things. "I'm sorry?"
"That beach hut is called Forget-me-not. Like the flower."
"Oh. How—er—charming." Another useful word. It covered everything from stupid-and-ugly-but-I-know-you-like-it to simply bonkers.
She produced a hard-covered notebook and began to leaf through it. As far as I could see, each beach hut had a page of its own, carefully ruled and divided into columns.
"Why that one?"
Um—because I broke in and fell in love with its patchwork quilt? Maybe not.
"It has a lovely vibe," I said, borrowing freely from our pupils' vocabulary. And waited for those eyes to bore into my guilty conscience.
But astonishingly, she smiled. "Yes, it does, doesn't it? Do you know the owners?"
I shook my head.
"They're lovely people." She sounded sad. I almost asked about them, but she had already removed a pen from behind her ear and said briskly, "How long do you want it? Just the day?"
"A month."
She looked up from the page, clearly confused. Maybe I hadn't been sufficiently precise?
"I mean a whole lunar month, starting today."
She put the book down. Not a good sign.
"Every day for a month? For how many people?"
"Just me."
"You're staying in Little Piddling for a month on your own?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
I didn't try to dress it up. "I'm studying the moon. I have to take regular observations every night throughout this whole moon cycle."
She believed me. She thought I was mad, but she believed me. "So you want the hut twenty-four hours a day for four weeks?"
"Yes."
"You do know there's no running water? No lavatory nearer than the public conveniences in the park? No heating?"
"That's what I assumed," I said carefully.
"One or two of the other huts have bottled gas and cooking facilities." She watched me, equally carefully.
But that patchwork quilt and the beautiful carpentry were both calling me. I shook my head. "Like I said, I love the vibe."
"Very well. I'll ask the owners. It's a much longer let than usual. They might want to use it themselves. Over Easter for instance. Oh, and can you provide references?"
My heart sank. But the new Headmaster had promised to give me a decent reference for any job I applied for. I could probably finesse that into supplying one for a beach-hut landlord. "Yes."
"OK. I'll ring them now and see what they say."
And she whisked out of sight. Somewhere behind the sombreros, a door closed with great firmness.
I continued to browse, collecting food that didn't need any additional preparation and three large bottles of water. I piled it all on the counter, to await her return. At least I had plenty of money, since my job at the school, I thought. It would be more than enough to pay for my rent and food for the next four weeks. And after that… Well, after that was unknown territory in so many ways. Money or lack of it was going to be a minor issue.
When she eventually emerged her face was completely blank.
"The owners have agreed to rent you the beach hut for the next four weeks."
The rent was to be paid weekly in advance, plus a deposit against breakages. The Paper Shop, in the person of the shopkeeper whose name was Judith Beaupère, would have the right to visit to ensure that I was the sole tenant. "That means no wild beach parties," she interpreted, without a glimmer of a smile.
Parties? Wild beach parties? Me? Oh, this independent living was so interesting.
I suppose I must have looked stunned.
She misinterpreted. "Little Piddling is a quiet place. We get families on the beach. Kids from the local schools, that sort of thing. If you want sex and drugs and rock and roll you'd be better off in Brighton." She sounded distinctly wistful, I thought.
I shook my head. "Not my scene," I said borrowing from a very cool sixth former from the Astronomy Club. Who had, indeed, introduced me to the whole concept of Cool.
She sighed. "Well, I suppose if moon watching is your thing…" And returned to the practicalities.
I paid her both for the beach hut and my shopping. She gave me a receipt and made me sign for the key. It was on a pretty blue ribbon instead of a keyring. She smiled as she passed it across.
"It's a dear little place. You're right. It has seen joy. I hope you'll be very happy there, Miss—er—Brown."
"Selsis, please."
"Selsis? That's unusual."
Ouch. Should have changed that.
"Family name," I said firmly.
"That's nice," she said, closing the book. "Well, you know where the beach hut is, so why don't you go along and make yourself comfortable? I can't leave the shop until closing time. But I'll be along later to see how you're settling in."
Ah. Better get on with repairing the damage I'd done getting in, then. Number one priority.
She gave me a string bag to carry my food purchases and I hurried away to find the necessary supplies.
Hurried? I damn nearly ran.
Chapter Six
I thought I'd caught sight of a DIY suppliers down an alley on my way into town and so, indeed, it proved.
At Orwell College, I'd helped repair several small accidents engineered by enquiring minds. I loved it and the Art Master had been quite complimentary, too. He and the caretaker had taken me into the well-equipped school workshop as their very first pupil. Gifted children, apparently, didn't enjoy mending stuff. Adaptive Life Forms did.
So I knew a bit about basic carpentry. Actually, I was more comfortable in DIY places than I was buying food in a general store. I came clean with the two guys who ran it.
"I've done some damage to one of the beach huts and I need to repair it."
Cautious at first, the DIY guys soon came to the conclusion that I knew what I was talking about. By the time they found out that the first aid was for Forget-me-not, they were enthusiastic and helpful.
"Bert and Milly's place," said the older one. "If he'd been himself, Bert would have had it all shipshape and ready for the season by now." He shook his head. There was clearly some cause for sympathy there. Before I could ask, he added briskly, "But he doesn't lend his tools, you know."
"Of course not." I knew enough to be shocked at the idea.
They looked at each other and beamed.
"You could rent—" began the younger, whom I took to b
e the son.
"I was hoping you'd advise me on what I need and I could buy the tools to do the job."
But the older one dismissed such extravagance. "No need for that. Not on a little job like this. We can lend you everything you need. It won't take long. Bring the tools back tomorrow when you've finished."
His kindness silenced me. I felt tears backing up behind the body's eyes. Oh, these blasted humans, they cry so easily.
"Or I can pick them up," the younger one was saying casually. "And you'll want to match the paint. It was bluebell originally, but it's been up a while. Must have faded. What do you think, Dad?"
I blinked back the damn tears and made a private note that I was right about the family relationship. Maybe I was getting better at this human observation thing, after all. Even if I hadn't got control of the tear ducts yet.
The two of them put their heads together over several palette cards and came to the conclusion that the shade I wanted was Sea Whisper.
Very appropriate, I thought, and said so.
They put all my purchases into a box, with the borrowed tools, and the younger one offered to run me back to the beach huts if I was going back now. I decided that being a helpless female had some benefits I hadn't suspected, and thanked them with real gratitude.
It pays to be nice, Peter Abel always said. I would have liked to tell him he was right. Oh, I missed him.
So I got a lift home. And more.
Before he left, my driver, whose name was Colin, helped me wrench off the damaged wood, and replaced the distorted hinge with my new one. I thanked him and he went off whistling.
I pottered around my new domain, finding places for the food I'd bought and the few belongings I'd brought with me. I put my precious telescope in the chest and arranged the cushions on top again.
The rain had completely stopped by then. As I worked on the wood, measuring, preparing and marking it out, the grey roof of cloud disappeared. The sun came out and the sea sparkled in quite a different way.
It was hot work, especially when I had to rehang the door without Colin's help. I stripped off the last layer of my travel wear and was down to tee shirt, jeans and bare feet by the time I finished. The sand was positively warm under my toes. Good paint drying weather, then. Just as well, as I seemed to have signed up for putting on five coats of various sorts.
I took out my notebook and made a few basic entries. But Colin's dad had insisted that I apply the primer with even strokes, nice and slow. Nice and slow and hypnotic. I'd just about managed to put my brush into the jam jar (thank you, Colin) of turpentine and push it into the shade, before I opened my notebook. First it slipped, then it fell out of my hand as I slid down onto the sand. I didn't so much doze off as fall into a trance.
A trance with dreams.
I was in an art gallery. The Art Master was walking me round a group of Renaissance portraits, mostly of young men.
"Look at them," he said. "They're the cool kids of their time. Long hair, fancy jackets. Rock gods, every one."
Even in my not-quite-doze, I knew that I was tapping into recent memory; that it was not where I really was in time and space.
I was looking at one of the cool kids now. He was standing under a summer blue sky, with little puffs of white cloud. His red cap, almost like a fez, was crammed on top of waves of flowing auburn hair that touched his shoulders. The colours in it danced in the sunlight like spray above the sea. His eyes were brown? Green? The colour of a path through a wood where it gets lost under the trees, anyway. He was wearing a very smart jacket with a tight collar round his throat, and slashes of black and parchment and plum.
Something about the set of mouth and chin made me think he looked stubborn. A great beak of a nose…
A great beak…
I jack-knifed out of my stupor.
It wasn't a dream. Well, he wasn't wearing plum velvet and a fez. But, apart from that, the Renaissance rock star was standing there in the flesh. Looking down at me. Flowing auburn waves and all.
Auburn? The last time I saw him his hair had been black straggly rat-tails. I remembered it clearly. Oh, I suppose that was the rain.
Anyway, there was no gainsaying that nose. Or those steady, unreadable eyes. I knew him. And, oh horrors, I was awake.
It was the telepath. He had found me.
Chapter Seven
And then something really strange happened. I'd heard people talking about being in two minds. It always sounded like nonsense to me.
But now, suddenly, I understood. I was definitely in two minds. My immediate thought was: danger, danger, danger! But there was something else, too. It wasn't quite thought and it wasn't quite feeling. The best way I can describe it is a sort of dreamy what-the-hell curiosity.
I heard myself murmuring, "You're rather beautiful."
And he was. He certainly didn't look dangerous. Not with that long hair shimmering in the sun. Not to mention the sand on the bottom of his jeans. I knew they were sandy because, briefly shaking off the mesmeric fascination of his hair, I was staring straight at them.
"Hey, don't go back to sleep."
"Mmm?"
"Come on. Get up. It's going to rain any minute."
He was right. A great fat raindrop landed plop! on my bare arm, jumping me awake. I gave up and lurched into a sitting position, yawning.
"What do you want?" I rubbed my eyes, so I didn't have to look directly at him.
"And good afternoon to you, too." He sounded amused.
He held out his hand.
A second raindrop fell. Then, more. The sun darkened. His hair darkened with it. An unremarkable mid-brown. Ah, that was better.
I ignored his hand and tried to stand up. My left leg wobbled and I cried out in surprise. It really was just surprise. It didn't hurt.
But by then he had already caught me and was holding me up. Not at arm's length. And I had to look at him directly, after all. Right into his eyes, in fact.
Something changed. I'm not sure what. It was too quick for me to catch, though I knew it had happened. Maybe his pupils flared? Oh, I was slowing down so much in this body.
"Well, hello Selsis Brown," he said softly.
I couldn't look away.
No, he didn't look scary. And he wasn't trying to mindscan me either, as far as I could tell. Or was that me deceiving myself, because I couldn't cope if he was?
It was an effort, but I applied logic. Well, part of me did. The part I knew and was still comfortable with. He'd got my name from somewhere—the obvious source was me.
"How do you know my name?"
He withdrew a notebook from his armpit where he'd stuffed it when he caught me. My notebook, I now saw.
"Selsis Brown, Orwell College," he said.
I'd written my name inside the front cover, so it sort of made sense. But was that just a way of hiding that he'd peered into my mind?
Most natural telepaths are only in tune with people they are bonded with: a twin, someone they've survived death with, a profound love. A universal telepath, someone who could pick up a cry of anguish from a stranger, is rarer and more vulnerable. Even on a planet like this, where telepathy is rare and most people didn't believe in it anyway, a universal telepath would develop masking strategies out of sheer necessity.
All my own mind-communication was learned, the hard way. I had no natural telepathic abilities. But I'd worked with telepaths and I should be able to recognise the signs if this guy had been rummaging around in my mind. Or I would have done before this body. I slid a finger behind my ear and tapped. It was crude. But it ought to work.
Nothing. No echo.
Deliberately, I locked eyes with him. He didn't jump back, or flinch. His eyes remained steady. So he wasn't cloaking a probe.
Unless he had phenomenal control.
But could an Earth person have phenomenal control? Seriously? Without years of training and a Major Adept to mentor him?
AAAARGH.
He said, "Are you OK?"
/> "I don't know. My leg feels very odd." I tried to move it and my ankle went over, in a way that should have been painful and wasn't.
He looked down. "Pins and needles," he said. "The feeling's starting to come back. You'll just have to hang on to me for a moment."
He was right on both counts. The next minute or so was sort of alarming and sort of interesting at the same time. Not just because of the sensation in my leg. As soon as I could put weight on it, I limped—no, make that hobbled—back onto the boardwalk and into the beach hut.
He followed and stopped in the doorway. "OK, now? Are you sure?"
"Yes." But he was still searching my face for signs of…what? I swallowed and said the first thing that came into my head. "Who are you?"
How inane can you get? I mean he wasn't going to tell me he was the county druid with telepathic powers, was he?
"Name's Anton. We met earlier," he reminded me. I was almost certain he was trying not to laugh. "But for these purposes, I'm Next Door. I saw you flat out—" He gestured at the beach. "I thought you might have hurt yourself."
That puzzled me. "Why?"
He stopped being amused. "Well, you were trying to walk into the sea, earlier, weren't you? Fully clothed. I thought you might be—"
I bristled. "Off my head?"
"In some sort of trouble," he said soberly. He looked away.
"Oh."
His tone changed. "Anyway, I saw Judith at the Paper Shop and she asked me to keep a lookout for you. Forget-me-not hasn't been open since last summer. She was worried what you might find."
"Like what?"
He shrugged. "Mice? Squatters? Smuggled brandy? Your guess is as good as mine. Then, when I saw you on the ground, I didn't think. I just ran."
That embarrassed me. And that, in turn, made me realise that one part of me had already decided he wasn't telepathically spying on me. Because I wanted to believe it? Damn.
Beach Hut Surprise: Escape to Little Piddling this summer — six feel-good beach reads to make you smile, or even laugh out loud Page 8
