Read Online The Bare Necessities (Non-Profane Edition) by John Harding - Free Book Online Page A

as far as Paige was concerned, it was a massive step in the
right direction.
    * *
* * *
    Claire crept up
the front drive of the house and swore when she saw the executive
saloon of her friend's father parked outside their front door; if
she was spotted at the house in her waitressing uniform, then she
was in trouble!
    Claire looked to
her left and right; there were impeccably manicured bushes and
plants, but she had no option and dived to her left, over the bush
and landed on something prickly.
    She could still be
seen, and showed up very well in her white uniform, so the young
lady crept behind the back of a giant plant, swearing when she
caught the spines on her hand in the twilight. The voices of Paul
and Anne carried in the night as the man of the household moaned
vociferously about the time it took his wife to get ready.
    A couple of
minutes later, the car swept out of the drive aggressively, and
Claire waited for a few moments, just to make sure that Jack's
parents did not return having forgotten something and see her
striding towards their house. They didn't return, and after a
minute of painful waiting, Claire tentatively got out of the bush
and walked towards the house.
    She could feel her
heart beating and she felt as though she was doing something
exceedingly naughty, but there was no shouting or screaming and the
girl calmly knocked stoutly on the door.
    She waited for an
answer or for Jack to appear, but there was no response until she
knocked again. “I'm comin',” a female voice shouted and Claire
swore again, and sprinted back towards the bushes and dived into
the prickly plant again. Neither Jack nor her had considered that
anyone else would be home and Claire winced as she tried to remove
two thorns from the back of her hand in the semi-darkness.
    She watched as the
dainty frame of Harriet Rees-Montague came to the door and shouted
into the night, “hello?” The girl looked around the drive before
cursing Claire under her breath and slamming the door.
    Claire had a
problem; she did not know Jack's mobile number and had no way of
getting a message to him that she was waiting in his driveway under
a bush. He told her to come to the house on Saturday evening, but
they had not agreed at what time that meant, or how to meet.
    She thought for a
moment and then sat down, squinting at the windows to spy him
moving through a room, but there was nothing. “Claire,” a voice
whispered. “Claire. I know it was you, Claire?”
    The black-haired
girl got to her feet and peered over the
bush to see her friend at the other end of the drive,
calling softly into the wind and scrambled out of the undergrowth.
“Jack,” she replied and ran softly towards him.
    “Why didn't you
just ring?”
    “Because I haven't
got your number,” she moaned, and he just grunted.
    “It's this
way.”
    “Won't we need to
go around Harriet?”
    “Nah,” he said
instantly and walked down the drive until he was alongside the
separate garage, away from the main house. A wrought iron staircase
between the perimeter of the property and the giant double garage
led to a flat above the garage, and he smiled at her. “It's well
away from Harriet!”
    “Wow!” Claire
muttered as they climbed the steps and he unlocked the front door.
“It's like a separate house.”
    “It was a granny
annexe I believe,” Jack explained. “But it never got used at all
and for my fourteenth birthday, my parents kitted it out for me as
a den, and then for my fifteenth, they put a recording studio in
the big bedroom.”
    “It's two
bedroom,” Claire muttered as he unlocked and opened the front door
and they stepped into a narrow corridor. They both coughed as they
entered the flat and he pushed open the door to his left.
    “It's been
sound-proofed,” he boasted. “And treated to stop echo, acoustics
aren't bad. We got a big computer, an interface,” he said pointing
at some dusty equipment in the corner of the room. “Filters, amps,
speakers,