feels weird, not knowing what’s going on.
LATER
Mrs Hooper just dropped by.
She said that Christophe phoned and asked her to make sure I was feeling OK, what with the fire and everything. Just as my heart leaped and I started to feel all good about that, she said,
‘I think he and Sammy-boy think of you as their new sister.’
Which thrilled her, but didn’t make me feel good. In fact it destroys any hope I might have had that he might one day like me enough to talk to me. But now I know for a fact that he doesn’t even see me as friend potential, let alone girlfriend potential, just as an inconvenient little sister. More proof that he and Mindy will be perfect together.
When Mum, Dad and Adam got back we found out that the inside of the town hall is completely gutted and most of the brickwork on the outside is burnt too, but only the student security guard guy was inside.
Dad said all the locals are really angry and sad, mostly because the old archives were kept there, all the papers that said about who got married, and who died, and who owned what, and who owed what money to who in the olden days, and all the history of the town, old photos, and all that stuff.
I would have thought they would have put it all on computer years ago, but except for the birth, marriage and death stuff, they didn’t get around to many of the papers and photos from before the 1970s.
Mrs Hooper went home and we all just sat around really quiet all evening, except for Mum who was on the phone being lawyer-y, helping local people to understand that even if the papers were missing, they were still married and born and all that.
DAY THIRTY-FIVE
Dad drove me into town after breakfast (back to toast now that Mum is too frantic to make muffins), and Em-J and Beau were standing outside the burnt town hall, behind the yellow, plastic tape that the police had put up to keep people back. There were about twenty people there, all staring, one or two crying, and more than that saying stupid things like, ‘It’s the way they let young people do what they like,’ and ‘If the voluntary fire brigade was paid, they would have saved it.’
We plonked ourselves down in the café and Em-J explained that Beau’s cousin, Barry Finch, was the student who got hurt. If he gets out of intensive care soon then there’s hope.
Beau is massively proud of his cousin for running back inside a burning building to make sure no one was trapped inside, but he’s really worried too. You can tell by the way he is sitting up so straight when he’s usually slumped over. Beau says that Barry doesn’t have any burns, but that he breathed in so much smoke that he was unconscious by the time the fire brigade found him.
Now I understand why Mum and Dad don’t want me and Mindy to do things around the farm, they don’t want to have us in hospital or worse.
I feel like I want to help make things better again, but don’t know what to do.
Em-J says that they haven’t the heart to do the band any more and I sort of know how she feels. I’m a bit relieved too that I don’t have to put the effort into avoiding Christophe.
Beau went off to be with his aunty and uncle and I hung around town with Em-J for the morning until Dad was going back home. From the café window we watched the police stop random people along the main street, asking questions and taking notes.
Dad was a bit stressy and kept banging the palm of his hand on the steering wheel, and told me that some of the documents needed to sort out the problem with the big, stone barn were probably in the town hall, so things are even messier on that front. After this month they’re going to stop using that barn altogether.
With the fire, and the barn problems, Christophe being weird with me, and the stuff going missing from our farm, everything feels a bit headachy at the moment. Just when things were getting good.
DAY THIRTY-SIX
The police were around at the farm this morning and were asking Mum, Dad
LATER
Mrs Hooper just dropped by.
She said that Christophe phoned and asked her to make sure I was feeling OK, what with the fire and everything. Just as my heart leaped and I started to feel all good about that, she said,
‘I think he and Sammy-boy think of you as their new sister.’
Which thrilled her, but didn’t make me feel good. In fact it destroys any hope I might have had that he might one day like me enough to talk to me. But now I know for a fact that he doesn’t even see me as friend potential, let alone girlfriend potential, just as an inconvenient little sister. More proof that he and Mindy will be perfect together.
When Mum, Dad and Adam got back we found out that the inside of the town hall is completely gutted and most of the brickwork on the outside is burnt too, but only the student security guard guy was inside.
Dad said all the locals are really angry and sad, mostly because the old archives were kept there, all the papers that said about who got married, and who died, and who owned what, and who owed what money to who in the olden days, and all the history of the town, old photos, and all that stuff.
I would have thought they would have put it all on computer years ago, but except for the birth, marriage and death stuff, they didn’t get around to many of the papers and photos from before the 1970s.
Mrs Hooper went home and we all just sat around really quiet all evening, except for Mum who was on the phone being lawyer-y, helping local people to understand that even if the papers were missing, they were still married and born and all that.
DAY THIRTY-FIVE
Dad drove me into town after breakfast (back to toast now that Mum is too frantic to make muffins), and Em-J and Beau were standing outside the burnt town hall, behind the yellow, plastic tape that the police had put up to keep people back. There were about twenty people there, all staring, one or two crying, and more than that saying stupid things like, ‘It’s the way they let young people do what they like,’ and ‘If the voluntary fire brigade was paid, they would have saved it.’
We plonked ourselves down in the café and Em-J explained that Beau’s cousin, Barry Finch, was the student who got hurt. If he gets out of intensive care soon then there’s hope.
Beau is massively proud of his cousin for running back inside a burning building to make sure no one was trapped inside, but he’s really worried too. You can tell by the way he is sitting up so straight when he’s usually slumped over. Beau says that Barry doesn’t have any burns, but that he breathed in so much smoke that he was unconscious by the time the fire brigade found him.
Now I understand why Mum and Dad don’t want me and Mindy to do things around the farm, they don’t want to have us in hospital or worse.
I feel like I want to help make things better again, but don’t know what to do.
Em-J says that they haven’t the heart to do the band any more and I sort of know how she feels. I’m a bit relieved too that I don’t have to put the effort into avoiding Christophe.
Beau went off to be with his aunty and uncle and I hung around town with Em-J for the morning until Dad was going back home. From the café window we watched the police stop random people along the main street, asking questions and taking notes.
Dad was a bit stressy and kept banging the palm of his hand on the steering wheel, and told me that some of the documents needed to sort out the problem with the big, stone barn were probably in the town hall, so things are even messier on that front. After this month they’re going to stop using that barn altogether.
With the fire, and the barn problems, Christophe being weird with me, and the stuff going missing from our farm, everything feels a bit headachy at the moment. Just when things were getting good.
DAY THIRTY-SIX
The police were around at the farm this morning and were asking Mum, Dad
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