Hide & Seek - Alyssa Brugman [11]
If Shelby's family moved, all of that would be ruined. She could go back to the stables in eighteen months, but it wouldn't be the same. Too much day-to-day stuff would have happened. There would be too many in-jokes that she wouldn't understand.
The footy boys ran along the beach towards the steps and Shelby shuffled over so that they could pass. She didn't even look up as their legs scissored by.
'Shelby?'
She slipped the hood from her head and turned around.
The boy with the football was familiar, but she couldn't place him. He had caramel-coloured skin and dark eyes.
'It's me, Chad,' he grinned at her.
'Chad?' Then she remembered she'd run across him on his trail bike a few times in the Gully. 'I didn't recognise you without your helmet.' She smiled back.
'What are you doing here?' he asked.
'My aunty lives up that hill.' She pointed. 'What about you?'
'My brother lives down that way.' He tilted his head and tossed the football from hand to hand. 'I usually come up here and stay for a while during school holidays. I thought I'd seen you before. I mean, before the bike day. Must have been here.'
Shelby had a vivid recollection of riding pillion on Chad's bike all those months ago when she had been lost in the Gully. They stared at each other.
'Are you OK?' he asked, a frown crossing his brow for a second.
She wiped a hand across her eyes, wondering if they were all red and puffy from crying.
'Hurry up, will ya?' said one of the older boys.
'We're going up to the shops for hot chips. Do you want to come?' Chad asked.
Shelby blushed. 'Oh. Um, no, I better be getting back.'
He nodded. 'Maybe tomorrow then? We're going fishing in the morning, but we usually hang out on the beach in the afternoon.'
'Maybe.' She smiled.
'Okies, see you tomorrow then.'
Shelby watched as Chad ran to catch up with the others. All the other times she had seen him he had been wearing protective gear for trail bike riding. She hadn't noticed that he had quite broad shoulders and muscly legs. Perhaps he was a little taller than she remembered as well.
Shelby wondered if she could talk her parents into giving her some money for hot chips tomorrow without it becoming a whole family outing. She would have to be careful what she said. If she told them she was meeting a boy her dad was sure to make a big deal out of it. Maybe if she told them he was a 'friend' without specifying gender she would get away with it?
Shelby hummed as she headed back up the hill towards the house.
8 Shelby's Um Friend
Shelby smoothed down the green skirt at the front and stared at herself in the mirror of Aunty Jenny's spare room. The skirt was a bit short, but she supposed that was because her legs were longer than they had been when her mother bought it. She thought she really should iron it, but then her family would know some-thing was up because she had never ironed anything in her life.
The only shoes her mother had packed were her Pollyanna school shoes. She also had her pair of scuffed old sneakers, so she had opted for the latter. She wore a pink long-sleeved tee-shirt. It had an orange stain on the front so she'd put a singlet over it, like she had seen some other kids do at the shopping centre, except it was an under-singlet – off-white, made of the same stuff they make spencers out of, with acrylic lace around the edge. It was vee-necked and the shirt was not. She hoped that didn't matter.
Shelby had had her hair done in the morning, and now she was worried that Chad would think she'd cut it for him, so she slipped Blake's 'Bob the Builder' beanie over her head. She wasn't sure if she looked really cool, or whether she looked as though she was wearing her undies on the outside, her little brother's beanie, and possibly his skirt also.
She pulled the beanie off and then put it back on again, folding it so that you couldn't see