Read Online Shiverton Hall by Emerald Fennell - Free Book Online Page B

the minibus, dressed in their own clothes. Arthur noticed with surprise that Penny looked rather lovely in a green jumper and jeans instead of the usual humbug-striped skirt. George looked absurd in a pair of extremely tight red trousers that he thought made him look like a rock star but that everyone else thought made him look like his mum. They piled into the bus and cheered as the ancient motor rumbled towards the town.
    Grimstone had won many awards over the years for its picturesque appearance, and on this particularly crisp, sunny autumn day it was putting on a splendid show. Arthur had only ever seen places like Grimstone in the period dramas his mother forced him to watch on television, and consequently half-expected a man in a top hat to gallop past on a stallion or a bonneted woman to swoon in the street. In reality, the quaint, meandering streets were filled with tourists wearing bumbags and taking photographs of ‘ye olde’ tea rooms.
    George wanted to try his luck in the pub, but the others managed to dissuade him. Instead, they hit Aunt Bessie’s Sweet Shop to stock up on tuck.
    Aunt Bessie wasn’t remotely like the plump, jolly lady depicted on the shop’s painted sign. Thin and wiry, with frazzled, bleached hair and a brown cigarillo permanently in her hand, Aunt Bessie loathed children and could not remotely recollect why she had opened a sweet shop in the first place. She glared at Arthur and his friends as they walked in, coughing from the acrid smoke.
    ‘No time-wasters in here!’ Aunt Bessie barked.
    She grudgingly took their orders, shaking some lemon bonbons and space dust on to her ancient set of scales, with a gimlet eye looking out for shoplifters. When Arthur asked her for some fizzy-cola bottles, she studied him with interest, the small cigar hanging off her dry lower lip.
    ‘I know you, don’t I?’ she sneered.
    ‘I . . . I don’t think so,’ Arthur replied.
    ‘I’ve seen you somewhere.’ She stubbed out the remains of her stinking cigarillo and leaned forward so that she could peer at him properly.
    Arthur shrugged her off and brushed his fringe over his face.
    ‘You was in the papers!’ she said triumphantly.
    ‘No,’ Arthur said quietly.
    ‘Yes, you was,’ she continued. ‘You was that boy in London, wasn’t you?’
    ‘I don’t want anything, actually,’ Arthur said, his mouth dry, backing out of the shop. ‘I don’t need any sweets.’
    His friends looked at him in surprise.
    ‘Let’s go,’ Arthur said firmly.
    The group didn’t move, unsure of what was happening.
    ‘I said, let’s go!’ Arthur barked, making Jake jump.
    Penny looked at Aunt Bessie and her cruel smile as she chewed open-mouthed on a pink shrimp.
    ‘OK, come on, guys,’ Penny said, sensing something brewing and leading George and Jake away from the counter.
    ‘You watch out for that one,’ Aunt Bessie sang after them, nodding at Arthur. ‘Careful how you go.’
    The bell tinkled as the door slammed behind them. Arthur was covered in a sheen of sweat.
    ‘What was all that about?’ George said. ‘How could she possibly know you?’
    ‘She’s bonkers,’ Penny said quickly. ‘She probably thinks Arthur is a celebrity or something.’
    Arthur smiled at Penny gratefully.
    ‘Let’s go get a pizza,’ George said, his mind already wandering towards the prospect of food.
    ‘Good plan,’ said Jake.
    George and Jake walked on ahead, discussing the merits of pizza versus pasta.
    ‘Do you want to talk about what just happened?’ Penny whispered to Arthur. He looked as though he hadn’t fully recovered.
    ‘She just made a mistake, that’s all,’ Arthur mumbled back.
    ‘You haven’t been in the papers, have you, Arthur?’ Penny asked.
    ‘She just mistook me for someone else,’ he snapped. ‘Like you said, she’s bonkers.’
    Penny knew better than to press the matter, but she didn’t like to see Arthur so distressed.
    ‘I might skip the pizza actually,’ she said, stopping.