Читать книгу All That Glitters - Holly Smale, Холли Смейл - Страница 29

o, in case you’re wondering.

I haven’t been back here since Annabel and Dad broke up and then had their big romantic laundry reunion nearly a year ago. Initially, I thought it was because it had become their place, not mine any more. Then I thought it was because I’d just worked out how to clean my clothes for free at home, like a normal human being.

But now I’m wondering if it’s simply because I haven’t needed it the way I need it now.

When I don’t know where else to go.

I still love this place.

I love the bright lights, the soapy smells, the soft purring of the machines. I love the heat and the shininess of the glass in the tumble driers. But most of all I love the way that nothing could ever feel alone in a place where so many things are jumbled together.

I rub my eyes and pull a chair over to my favourite machine. The glass is still warm, and there are baskets filled with piles of abandoned clothes everywhere. Somebody’s even left a shoe behind: it’s peeking out from behind a particularly large heap of jumpers and underwear.

I pull a blue sock out of my bag and a memory suddenly flashes: snow, warm cheeks, a cold hand squeezing mine.

So I swallow and put it in the drier as quickly as I can.

Then I start fumbling through my satchel for the fifty pence I need to put it on a quick spin. Followed by another fifty pence.

Then another pound in shrapnel.

And a two pound-coin.

After the day I’ve had I may be here some time. I am about to own the driest sock in existence.

I’m just chipping a bit of melted chocolate off a pound so that the machine recognises it as something other than a snack when something small and shiny flies through the air and lands in my lap.

I blink at the newly arrived coin, then at the empty room.

Maybe there’s some kind of strange gravitational pull levitating the money out of the machines and throwing it at my head. I suppose I could do my science project on that instead.

Reaching into my bag, I pull out another ten pence and there it is again: money, soaring through the air.

Except this time it’s a pound, which is even better.

I look around the empty room – still nothing – and am just quickly calculating how long I’ll have to stay here before I am rich enough to buy a castle when somebody laughs.

“You actually think it’s magic flying money, don’t you?”

Then I see the shoe in the pile moving. A pointy, silver shoe that stormed down my driveway yesterday morning, attached to my best friend.

“Nat?”

A dark, curly head pokes out from behind an enormous pile of clean jumpers and trousers. She’s obviously been lying in them, like some kind of enormous cat.

“Obviously. God, you took ages. I was starting to think I might actually have to do some washing.” She stands up, puts Vogue down and picks off a pair of huge beige knickers attached by static to her jumper.

“Gross,” she adds, flinging them into the corner so they hit the wall with a fffpp. Then she turns to where I’m still sitting, frozen in surprise. “How’s it going, Manners?”