Читать книгу It Takes Two - Amber Aitken - Страница 9

It was not even lunchtime, but already it felt like the end of the day. The girls had arrived at Coral Hut early that morning weighed down with buckets, soap and thick sponges. Even Romeo had carried a feather duster in his mouth. They’d certainly started off with great gusto. But cleaning the beach hut had only seemed like fun for a while. After that it was just plain old cleaning.

Coral’s mum arrived just in time. Not only did she have sandwiches, chocolate bars and a large bag of cleaned laundry, but the girls knew she’d offer to help them. One of the girls counted on it.

“Mum!” cried Coral. “Oh, thank goodness. I am pooped!” She laid her palm across her forehead and closed her eyes just to prove it. There was even a chance she might faint. Probably. Or at least maybe. She thought she’d better sit down.

“So are you done then?” wondered her mum.

Nicks stood holding a sponge with bubbles up to her elbow. “Nope.” She eyed Coral. “We still have the floor to do.”

Coral thought it was time to change the subject. “Did you bring the paint with you?”

“Your father offered to buy that,” her mum replied. “He’ll bring it over later.”

Coral frowned. Mr Keep-it-Cheap-and-Cheerful was off buying their paint? This was not necessarily good news.

“He does know we want pink paint, doesn’t he?”

Her mum nodded distractedly and opened a bag of clean laundry. She hauled out cushion and daybed covers – all clean and fresh and cobweb free. She stacked them in a tall towering pile on one of the deckchairs, and only when she was finished did she acknowledge the lump that was Coral slumped on the floor.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” she began. Coral perked up slightly. “You finish the floor and I’ll put all the clean covers back on for you.”

Coral wilted. She’d hoped that the deal would include an offer to do the floor. But finally she nodded. And, like her mum, she kept her promise. She tried her best too, although Nicks didn’t seem to see it that way. But Coral couldn’t help it if her friend was super-speedy with a sponge. She had one speed and this was it.

When Coral’s mum left, the girls were stretched out and lolling with their tired hands and feet dangling from their deckchairs. They were out of energy and simply sat and stared out at the people on the beach. Junior lifeguards raced between orange cones. A surfer rubbed wax on to his surfboard. And the same small girl they’d seen earlier – the one with the colourful glitter clips in her hair – collected more shells. Only this time she had two ponytails with a whole bunch of scrunchies in each one, making her ponytails stand out straight like tentacles.

“There’s that little girl collecting shells again,” noticed Nicks.

“We should definitely call her Shelly,” decided Coral as she sank deeper into her deckchair.

Nicks was silent for a few moments. She sat upright. “That’s enough lying about; we really should get busy! We’ve got Cupid Company posters to make and questionnaires to write.” There was no time for hanging around – not if they were going to do this properly. And Nicks only did things one way, and that was properly.

Coral still hadn’t recovered from the cleaning. She yawned. “But my dad will be here soon with the paint.” Or he could be. There was every chance that he might be. So there was no sense in starting anything else. But Nicks had already disappeared in the direction of the wicker basket. She returned with sheets of scented paper and a few coloured pens.

“Let’s start with the questionnaire,” she suggested. “And then we’ll make a few Cupid Company posters.” She armed herself with a pen and put the end in her mouth to help her think better. “Now, apart from the basics like name and age and boy or girl, what else shall we include on this questionnaire?”

Coral sat upright. She had recovered from the cleaning marathon; she was back in Cupid Company mode. Ideas were definitely her thing. “There should be a section for hobbies,” she suggested brightly. “And likes and dislikes. Mmm. Better leave a few lines for strange habits too. You know what I mean…” She smirked at her friend knowingly.

“What is that supposed to mean?” demanded Nicks.

“You practise silent kung fu when you’re concentrating.”

“Well, you put ketchup on everything.”

“You sleep with the covers over your head.”

“You hum to yourself all the time.”

The girls stared at each other, silent. And then they exploded with laughter.

“I’d better include quite a few empty lines for strange habits then,” agreed Nicks. “What about star signs? A lot of people think they count for something.”

Coral nodded. “And we’d better include a bit at the bottom, saying something like: ‘I swear this is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’. And they must sign it too.”

“This is the Cupid Company, Coral, not a courtroom,” snorted her friend.

“Trust me, Nicks; you just can’t be too careful out there.”

The girls stared thoughtfully at the questionnaire.

“Right, that’s done then,” said Nicks. “Now for the Cupid Company poster.” She took out a clean sheet of paper and handed it to Coral. “Your turn.”

Coral did like to make her mark. She knew exactly what she thought the poster should say too. First, she wrote: THE CUPID COMPANY – ALL FOR LOVE AND LOVE FOR ALL. And then she drew two hearts overlapping. Below this she wrote: We Are Your Matchmaking Specialists. Find Love and Live Happily Ever After. Our Work is Guaranteed.

Nicks waited until she was done. “But it’s not really, is it?”

“Not really what?”

“Guaranteed.”

“Oh, everyone says that. It’s just advertising talk.”

“But we’re matchmakers, not plumbers. You can’t guarantee love.”

It was just like Nicks to pooh-pooh her ideas. So Coral ignored her and drew another poster, just like the last one. Nicks picked up her own clean sheet of paper and drew a poster too, only she left out the bit about their matchmaking services being guaranteed. They were silent while they drew, and before long they had at least ten posters between them.

“If we’re going to put posters up around Sunday Harbour we may as well hand out a few questionnaires to our friends at the same time,” suggested Nicks sensibly. “So we’ll need to make a few more of those too.”

Coral frowned and stretched her aching fingers. “More questionnaires? Mmm. You get started…I won’t be long.” She slumped into her deckchair.

Coral was excitable, but it wasn’t the long-lasting kind. Nicks knew this better than anyone. “We could stop by the post office on the way. I’m sure my mum will make photocopies of the questionnaire for us,” she suggested as she gathered herself up. It was handy having a mum who ran the post office. It also meant that they always had the best Christmas postage stamps for their cards.

Coral suddenly jumped up too. “You’re brilliant, Nicks! We’ve got far more important things to see to, anyway.” She grinned at her friend, who replied with a harrumph.

“She’s only making a few photocopies,” Nicks said with a sigh. Give Coral five minutes and she’d probably talk Nicks’s mum into helping them put the posters up too. She was possibly the most persuasive girl in Sunday Harbour!

Coral nodded agreeably and stood with her hands on the deck railings as she surveyed the beach. She was considering some of the best places in Sunday Harbour for their posters. From the post office they could trot down to the lifeguards’ station. Come to think of it, Reggie who ran it usually went everywhere with his two brothers. They were always laughing, fooling about and playing pranks on each another. But it was probably time he met Mrs Reggie. It was just what you did when you got older. Coral made a mental note to hand him a questionnaire.

Further along from the lifeguard’s station stood the community notice board. Mr Gelatti’s ice-cream van was always parked alongside it. And he always drew a crowd. There had to be an empty space for their poster on the notice board. This got her thinking about Mr Gelatti. He needed someone to keep him company while he sold ice cream; life inside an ice-cream van could be a lonely one. He definitely needed a questionnaire too.

Of course they could also stop by the Seaside Store with its cotton sundresses and straw hats in the window. And what about the Treasure Chest, where they sold jewellery made out of shells. She’d seen posters in their window too. The Sundog Art Gallery also had notices and advertisements pinned to its front door. And Bicycles for Hire was only two doors down. Its manager was called Flat Tyre Francine and she was definitely the grumpiest person in Sunday Harbour. If anybody needed to find true love it was Flat Tyre Francine. Coral decided she would slip a questionnaire beneath the door of Bicycles for Hire too (they didn’t dare step inside, not even for love). The Cupid Company was ready to launch.