Читать книгу Heart to Heart - Amber Aitken - Страница 7

Nicks and her mum were still jumping the early-morning waves the next day as Coral made her way over to the beach hut, feeling queasy from all the saltwater she’d swallowed. She climbed up the front steps and settled down on her beach towel, pressing her tummy to the deck, and resting her chin on her hands at the edge. The view was good and the warm morning sun had turned the deck toasty. She could even see the top of Romeo’s snoozing head poking out of the cool hole he’d dug in the warming sand. And then, very slowly, she started dozing off. When suddenly—

“SAY IT ISN’T SO!”

The voice was so loud. Coral hoisted one eye up.

“I don’t even know what that colour is!”

“It’s called khaki.”

“They should call it KAK-i instead.”

“Oh dear.”

“And what’s that hanging over the roof?”

“It’s camouflage netting - my uncle’s ex-army,” This particular voice sounded weary.

Coral raised the other eyelid ever so slowly. The image of four older girls came into focus. They were standing in front of Headquarters with lipglossed lips and manicured fingers pinching their trim hips. They all wore variations of the same sort of thing: bikinis, knotted sarongs, oversized sunglasses, wide-brimmed sunhats, and enormous beach bags dangling from the crooks of their bent arms. They looked like a fashion shoot. Coral guessed they must be about eighteen years old. She kept her eyes half-mast and watched them carefully.

“We could spruce the place up a bit?” suggested the weary voice with forced cheeriness. “I’m sure my aunt and uncle won’t mind if we add our own pretty touches.”

So that was Saffron - Birdie and the Captain’s niece. Coral zoned in on her - with her sequined clothes, shimmering glass-bead accessories and glittery lipgloss, she was obviously a sparkly sort of girl.

“We’d have to do a lot to pretty this place up!” muttered a girl with long, dark red hair.

“Oh, Tallulah, don’t be such a bore,” ordered a girl with wavy blonde hair. “Do you remember our last makeover? Now did we transform that girl from drab to fab?”

Tallulah gave this some thought. And then she smiled. “You’re so right, Sienna, sweetie. We can make anything look beautiful!”

Coral was still watching carefully; she was keeping a tally too. So there was sparkly Saffron. And Tallulah the redhead and Sienna with wavy blonde hair. That just left a girl with short feathery hair who seemed preoccupied with her shoes. She pulled one leg and then tried to pull the other. But her feet were stuck fast. She seemed to think about this for a moment, then she slid her feet out of the shoes. Bending low and using both hands, she yanked the shoes from the sand. She’d worn high heels to the beach!

Saffron already had the double doors of Headquarters pulled wide open. She was surveying the interior of the hut with her enormous beach bag still dangling from her arm while she tapped a fingernail against her front teeth. She seemed to be thinking out loud.

“Some glittery dangly decorations… a crystal bead curtain, perhaps… flowers… a few scented tea candles…”

The other two girls - Tallulah and Sienna - had also taken an interest in the hut. Tallulah was testing the spring of the army cot bed with her bouncing bottom (except there was not much bouncing to be done). She looked less than impressed with the hard mattress. She muttered something about “So much for comfy afternoon naps,” while Sienna turned the Captain’s brass bugle this way and that in her hands. She then put the bugle to her eye and looked through it like a telescope. She seemed less than impressed too.

Saffron meanwhile was humming a tune while she busily dressed one of the beach hut’s windows in her (unsurprisingly) sparkly sarong. After a few minor adjustments to the sarong tassels she stepped back to admire her decorating. At last somebody looked pleased.

“Time to suntan!” squealed the girl who was now sensibly carrying the high heels in her hand. She had found a spot on the sand directly in front of Headquarters, and was dropping everything - a large pink towel, a glossy magazine, various bottles (suntan oil, sunblock, cooling mist face spray, mineral water) and her mobile phone. She then finally settled down on her towel with the magazine and began to read out loud.

“How do you know if you’re loved up?” she demanded.

Coral’s ears pricked up.

“You have to answer A, B or C,” the girl finished.

The other girls stopped what they were doing and nodded thoughtfully.

“Question one,” the girl went on. “It’s your first-year anniversary and your boyfriend: a) buys you flowers and choccies or b) makes you a card or c) gives you an extra special cuddle because it’s not about gifts anyway?”

The rest of the girls were silent. Tallulah was the first to speak. “Is there a D, Chanel?”

Ah, so that was the girl’s name, thought Coral.

“I told you there’s only A, B or C,” Chanel went on.

“Are they fancy florist flowers or flowers bought from the local petrol station?” asked Saffron.

Coral could barely stifle a snigger.

“I think a handmade card is very sweet. I’d say B,” decided Sienna.

“Cuddle - I’d choose an extra special cuddle,” replied Tallulah, who had obviously given up on the non-existent D option.

Chanel sat upright and grinned happily at her friends. “Isn’t it just brilliant that we all have boyfriends!”

Coral groaned inwardly. So no matchmaking to be had here then.

“Having a boyfriend just makes the world seem brighter,” Saffron agreed. “Even if I’m having a bad day I just have to think about Max and suddenly I feel better.” She hugged herself and smiled in a warm and cosy sort of way.

Chanel nodded. “That’s the power of love. Having a love life is just the best! But it’s good that we still have time for our girlfriends too.”

The other girls all nodded and started talking at once.

“Right on, sister!”

“Of course we miss the boys.”

“But they’ll still be there when we get back from our holiday!”

“Here’s to girl power!”

“And the power of love!”

Coral stared awestruck at her shiny and sophisticated new neighbours. You really didn’t get girls like these in Sunday Harbour. These big-city girls looked and behaved like film stars. And they seemed to love ‘love’ just as much as Coral and Nicks did!

Suddenly, a cool wind sprang up and goosebumps popped up on Coral’s skin. She needed to get dressed. But she didn’t want to draw attention to herself - not in her plain old boring school swimming costume anyway. It had been at the top of the laundry pile and had made for easy grabbing. She scowled at her laziness. Of course she couldn’t wait to meet her fabulous new neighbours, but she wanted to make the best first impression too. So there was nothing else for her to do but slowly leopard crawl backwards along the deck in the direction of the door to Coral Hut. Along the way she stubbed her toe on a deckchair and scraped a knee on the bare deckboards, but it was worth it. She made it inside the hut without being noticed.

Her purple and pink heart-shaped backpack was still on the daybed and she zipped it open. All she’d brought with her was a hooded top, a pair of board shorts printed with yellow smiling starfish and her Crocs. It was hardly an outfit torn from the pages of a magazine, but it was all she had. She sighed and put on everything except for the Crocs. She was now as ready as she could be for her grand entrance.

She tiptoed back to the doorway for one more inspection. Her timing had to be perfect. She carefully put her nose round the corner. She glanced right. The girls were reading magazines, filing their nails and nattering. She glanced left. SCARY GUY WAS ON THE DECK OF THE RED HUT AND STARING DIRECTLY AT HER!

Coral screamed.

The big-city girls over at Headquarters screamed too (Coral’s scream had just given them the biggest fright).

Scary Guy quickly disappeared through the door of the glossy red hut and snapped it shut behind him again.

Nobody else moved. Coral stood still, framed in the doorway, her breathing slowing again. The girls were all staring at her. She hoisted up her eyebrows in an innocent sort of way, then gave a small whistle before tucking her hands inside her pockets. Or she tried to, anyway. As it turned out this particular pair of board shorts didn’t have any pockets, so she had to cross her arms instead.

Sienna was fanning her face with a nail file while Tallulah pressed her magazine against her chest. Finally Saffron spoke.

“Is everything all right, little girl?”

Little girl? Coral glanced around before she realised that they must be referring to her.

She coughed. “Oh yes. Oh, sure,” she replied as she stumbled out on to the deck. OK, so it wasn’t quite the grand entrance she’d planned.

“Have you hurt yourself?” asked Chanel, who was now nervously clutching her sunhat.

Coral shook her head.

“Did something scare you then?” asked Sienna with a sad face, like Coral was five years old and the bogey man had suddenly appeared from under the bed.

“Scare me?” she spluttered. “Definitely not.” She hadn’t got a plan, or time to come up with one either. But the girls were all staring and waiting expectantly. So she suddenly let out another scream. And then she grinned and shrugged. “When I’m really happy I just sometimes give a good scream.” She smiled sweetly.

The girls seemed to be thinking about this for a moment before slowly starting to move about again. Sienna resumed nail filing and Chanel put her sunhat back on.

“So happy I could scream…” said Tallulah with her head tilted left then right. “Yes, I think I’ve heard that saying before.”

Sienna nodded while she filed. “It does sound very familiar.”

“Aaaah!” screamed Chanel.

Saffron echoed her scream and then so did the other two girls. They all grinned at each other. Coral grinned at the girls. They grinned back. There was a lot of crazy grinning. Coral could see she was going to like these girls a lot.