Scarlett - Cathy Cassidy [35]
‘Scarlett!’ Holly exclaims, her face all smiles. ‘I knew we’d find you! I was telling Ros, you spend all your time down here these days.’
‘I told you I wanted to be left alone!’ I say through gritted teeth.
Holly laughs. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘But you don’t mind now we’re here, do you? I asked Ros over specially, to surprise you!’
Surprise me? That’s not the word that springs to mind. Ros has the grace to blush, but she can’t get a word in edgeways.
‘We’ve brought a picnic,’ Holly blunders on. ‘And we’re just dying to meet your friend Kian…’
Before I can stop her, she steps out of the trees on to the grass beside the lough, scanning around her. ‘Oh. You’re on your own. I thought…’
Ros and I step into the clearing too. My mouth falls open and a prickle runs down my spine. There is no sign of Kian, no sign of Midnight, even though they were here, right here, just a minute ago.
They may as well have vanished into thin air.
‘I thought you said you were meeting him by the lough?’ Holly sulks.
‘Yup, I said that,’ I admit through gritted teeth. ‘I also asked you to stay away, didn’t I?’
Holly rolls her eyes. ‘Aw, you just wanted to keep Kian to yourself. But he stood you up, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?’
‘He did not!’ I blaze. ‘He was here, OK? And he’d still be here if you two losers hadn’t barged in on things, so thanks a bunch!’
‘Stressy!’ Holly laughs, but Ros looks embarrassed.
‘I didn’t realize,’ she tells me, tugging at Holly’s sleeve as though she can’t wait to get out of here. ‘Really. I’m sorry.’
‘You should be,’ I huff. ‘We talked about this, Holly – you promised you’d stay away from the lough!’
‘Well, I didn’t promise exactly…’ Holly says with a wicked grin.
I remember what Clare said about taking a deep breath and counting to ten. It’s a little late for that now, but I try it anyway.
By the time I reach ten, Ros and Holly are turning back towards the woods. ‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ Holly says over her shoulder. She looks a little hurt, and that makes me feel bad. I try to remember that she’s only nine. I got things wrong when I was nine, sometimes. And when I was ten, eleven and twelve, come to think of it. I may be getting things wrong right now.
Kian’s long gone, anyhow. I take another deep breath and decide on patch-up tactics. ‘Wait up,’ I call after them. ‘I’m sorry I lost my temper. It’s not the end of the world, is it? Why don’t you stay, now that you’re here?’
‘Really?’ Holly’s face lights up, but Ros looks uncertain.
‘Really,’ I promise. ‘It’s OK.’
‘See?’ Holly grins at Ros. ‘I told you it’d be fine!’
She starts unpacking the picnic basket. Ros shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other, biting her lip. If she didn’t think I was deranged that day at the school, she’s bound to now. She looks like she’d rather be anywhere than here. Well, that makes two of us.
‘So,’ I say as cheerily as I can manage. ‘School’s finished now?’
‘That’s right,’ she replies. ‘The last few weeks really flew past. Matty and I are moving up to secondary school after the holidays – it’ll be so big after Kilimoor.’
‘Just a bit,’ I agree. ‘Kilimoor’s tiny, not like any school I’ve ever known. It kind of freaked me out. You all knew each other so well, like a family or something – and I was the outsider.’
Ros looks anxious. ‘We didn’t mean to make you feel like that,’ she says. ‘We wanted you to feel welcome, but – well, it was like you didn’t want to be there.’
‘I didn’t,’ I admit. ‘I might have been a bit prickly.’
‘Maybe a bit.’ Ros grins.
‘Maybe a lot!’ Holly pipes up, and the three of us laugh and the awkwardness ebbs away. Holly stands a bottle of Clare’s home-made lemonade in the lough, wedged between a couple of rocks, and we flop down on to the grass. There’s a Tupperware box of leafy green salad with feta cheese and cherry tomatoes, along with granary bread, boiled eggs, apples and flapjacks. We fall on the feast like we haven’t eaten for a week.
Three swans glide soundlessly down from the hillside, long necks