The girls watched her and sucked on their lips in concern.
“Maybe you’re misjudging the city a little?” suggested Nicks when Birdie added a tray of camouflage face paint to the bag.
Birdie glanced from the bag to the girls and back again. She stood upright and gave a small chuckle. “Perhaps you’re right.”
Both girls sighed with relief. That was more like the old Birdie.
“Attention, please!”
The girls spun round and found their noses touching an olive-green shirt with the word ARMY spelled in black across its front. It was Birdie’s husband.
“Morning, Captain!” They saluted half-heartedly (they still felt a little silly doing the salute thing).
The Captain smiled and tapped their heads affectionately. He moved over to the rucksack, limping slightly as he moved. If it weren’t for his bad knee he’d still be leopard-crawling through the bush with the rest of his beloved army comrades.
“Do we have everything?” he asked.
Birdie nodded. “It should be safe to leave the rest, I think.”
The Captain made a noise like a light aircraft coming in to land, as if he was considering things. “Well, I hope so,” he finally replied. “And I hope we can trust those four girls to be careful with Headquarters.”
“What four girls?” asked Coral, looking around Birdie and the Captain’s beach hut.
Suddenly, Romeo barked. A bold seagull had landed on the deck railing behind Birdie.
“Oh, I’m sorry, girls!” said Birdie, as if Romeo had been barking directly at her. “I should have told you that my niece Saffron is going to be staying in our house while we’re away. It’s the least we can do - after all, she’s given up her bedroom in the city for us.” Just the mention of the word ‘city’ seemed to turn Birdie nervous again. But then she coughed hard and squared her shoulders.
“Anyway, dears, Saffron and her friends will be making use of our home and our lovely beach hut while we’re away, which of course we’re delighted about. We trust her completely.”
The Captain made that light aircraft sort of a noise again. “Out of sight, out of mind, I say,” he replied. “We can’t take any chances with my specialised army gear.” He glanced lovingly at the rucksack they were taking away with them.
Birdie rolled her eyes and bent to zip up the bag. It was clearly time for them to leave. She kissed both girls on the forehead while the Captain closed and locked the doors to Headquarters. They waved goodbye. And then they were gone…
The crashing of the waves on the beach suddenly seemed louder than they ever had before as the girls watched their friendly neighbours head off down the path.
They stared at each other without speaking. There was no need. They’d been best friends for so long their conversations didn’t always need words.
What a time for Birdie and the Captain to leave. Just when we were getting to grips with the strangeness of the hut next door.
Coral glanced down at Romeo. Of course she’d never swap her beloved pup, but if only he was just a little big bigger… with bigger teeth… and maybe a really big scary growl…
Nicks didn’t want to think about the mysterious red hut any more. And now that Birdie and the Captain had finally disappeared down the path it was time to get on with Cupid Company business. She tapped her glitter pen against her foil butterfly clipboard. “You’re staring again,” she said to Coral.
Coral tore her eyes away from the hut next door and bit the end of her pencil, which was actually a red plastic heart on a spring that jiggled when she wrote. At that moment she had nothing to write. There really wasn’t a lot to write about. Coral stared at her blank notebook and tried to look thoughtful. And then her brain circuits lit up like a neon billboard.
“I know - we could matchmake your mum!” she called out excitedly. “She’s been single since like forever…!”
“Well, only since she divorced my dad,” Nicks said doubtfully.
But already Coral’s head was flooded with good ideas. There was Mr McLeod from Arts and Crafts World (there wasn’t enough pocket money in the world to buy all their beautiful beads, but family discounts would certainly help). And there was a very good chance that Frank who owned The Frozen Cow was unattached. Their choc-fudge-brownie frozen yoghurt was the best in Sunday Harbour.
“Look, forget it!” said Nicks before Coral even had time to fully consider the man with the moustache who worked behind the counter at the surf clothing shop. “Mum doesn’t want to be matchmade.”
But there wasn’t time for further discussion as, just then, Romeo streaked up the deck stairs like a white and caramel blur. He screeched to a halt and stood panting through his nostrils, his mouth filled with half a sandwich. A salami slice slipped out of the side in slow motion and landed on the deck with a splat. Romeo kept his chin raised but monitored the fallen salami with one eye. Doggy drool dripped from his lips, but he didn’t budge.
“You’ve got it now, so you may as well eat it!” ordered Coral crossly. She had told him so many times before not to take food from people’s beach picnics. Still, one piece of salami probably wouldn’t do any harm.
Nicks giggled. “Maybe we should find Romeo a doggy girlfriend. It might just keep him out of trouble.”
Coral made a pooh-pooh sort of face. She puckered up her lips and rubbed Romeo tenderly on his chin, which was now mucky with mayonnaise.
The girls were so busy concentrating on Romeo that they’d failed to notice that the red hut next door was slowly coming to life behind their backs.
“Ew, look at your fingers,” said Nicks.
“What’s wrong with them?” Coral loved her pup, drool, mayonnaise and all.
“They could do with a good wash,” laughed Nicks.
“Oh, I’ll just wipe them on—”
The sound of rattling keys ended Coral’s sentence. Both girls spun in the direction of the sound.
There stood a very tall man - so tall his head loomed over the door frame of the red hut. And he was as thin as he was tall - so thin that the Adam’s apple in his neck stood out like a second (and only slightly smaller) head. He looked like a long thin snake that had just eaten something quite large. The lump pulsed up and down like it was still alive.
Both girls sucked on the air so hard it sounded like they’d been winded.
“What a scary kind of guy…” wheezed Coral breathlessly.
Scary-kind-of-guy heard their gasps and twisted his heads left. His eyes were small and round and so dark that they seemed to reach out and hook on to the girls. They couldn’t have looked away if they’d tried. The black pinpoints of his eyes drilled into theirs like a locked-on laser beam. And still the lump in his neck pulsed. Up-down. Up-down. Up-down.
Forever came and went and still they all stared at each other. And then, suddenly, Scary Guy moved the long thin sticks of his fingers. The keys on the round brass ring in his left hand banged together, the sound echoing like the clang of a giant brass