Read Online Second Fiddle by Siobhan Parkinson - Free Book Online Page B

you beer?”
    â€œMum, it was only a sip, but that’s not the point. The point is, I’m OK.”
    â€œI suppose you are,” said my mother with a small sigh.
    Sometimes I wonder if she wants me to be not-OK, so she can rescue me.
    â€œWell then,” I said.
    She ran her fingers absentmindedly through my hair. It was a nice feeling.
    â€œI’m more likely to be run over by a drunk when I’m crossing at a pedestrian light,” I said reassuringly, “than to be lured to my death by some weirdo with an ice-cream cone in a raincoat, I mean, in a raincoat with an ice-cream cone.”
    â€œOh, Mags! Stoppit!” But she was grinning in spite of herself.
    â€œOnly teasing,” I said.
    â€œEmm,” said my mother then, twisting a strand of my hair around her finger without realizing she was doing it. “Mags?”
    â€œWhat? Leggo my hair!”
    â€œSorry. I … er, I have invited someone to lunch on Wednesday.”
    â€œWell then,” I said. I wasn’t terribly interested in this piece of information.
    â€œI’d like you to be there.”
    â€œWhy?” I asked suspiciously. “Why can’t I just have my sandwich as usual and take it to the woods? I don’t want to sit around with boring grown-ups. I’m busy next week. I’m on a manhunt.”
    â€œA man hunt? You’re only twelve.”
    â€œIt’s not that sort of manhunt. I’m just helping someone to find someone they’ve … mislaid.”
    â€œIs that what all the e-mailing is about?”
    â€œ One little e-mail is all. And I didn’t go online till after six, like you said, when it’s cheaper.”
    â€œHmm. Well, I’ll make my famous minestrone. How does that tempt you?”
    â€œYum,” I said. “When?”
    â€œOn Wednesday, I told you. For lunch.”
    â€œOh! Well, all right then. I’ll be there.”
    I may have my reservations about my mum, but I know good minestrone when I get it. I believe in being fair about things and I cannot say fairer than this: if you haven’t tasted my mother’s famous minestrone, you really haven’t tasted minestrone at all. (Except possibly in Sicily.)
    *   *   *
    Gillian’s father did not reply to my e-mail. I was furious. Surely to goodness any father worth the name would reply to a mail like that from his own daughter. Practically from his own daughter.
    I tried to imagine what my dad would have done if someone had e-mailed him like that, but I couldn’t decide how he would have reacted. I just had no idea how he would behave. That made me feel a bit panicky, as if the earth were shifting under my feet and I didn’t know which way to jump to safety.
    Sometimes, his face won’t come into my head and I can’t imagine him anymore. That makes me feel panicky too, and guilty as well. It’s as if I am losing him all over again, only this time, it’s my fault. When I feel like that, I go and look at the photos in the album we keep in the sideboard. I stare at the photographs for a while, looking at his face smiling over the top of a book or peeping out from behind a gate—the back gate of our old house, the one that led into the lane where the woodbine grew—and finally something in my memory slides and clicks into place, and the smiling photo face starts to move and talk and gradually my own remembered image of my dad’s face comes swimming back into my mind and takes over from the photograph, and it’s almost like remembering him properly. Only not really.
    Sometimes, when the panicky feelings started, I would screw up my eyes and try to squeeze a few tears out. I had an idea that a good cry would flush the feelings away. That’s what people say. But my eyes just got hot and dry and the tears wouldn’t come. I’d have to think about all the sad things about him being dead before I could manage even