‘It’s so long since I’ve spent any time on the mainland, I forget what it’s like to be somewhere full of strange rules without the unwritten rulebook.’
‘You also make me feel very welcome, and as relaxed as it’s possible for me to be, given this is the first time I’ve stayed in a different bed since I was fifteen.’
She sat back, surprised. ‘And you managed to sleep?’
‘Better than I do most nights at home.’
A satisfied grin spread across her features. ‘I’m sorry. This is a soul-baring moment, but you just made my B&B dream come true.’
‘Mammy, are we going yet?’ Jack asked, tumbling through the door into the garden. ‘I’m so-o-o-o hungry and Grammie said she’s making pot sausage. Emmie, do you like pot sausage?’
‘I have no idea,’ I said.
‘But once Jack has put on his shirt, you’re coming to try it, aren’t you?’ Lily asked gently, nudging my foot under the table. ‘Because if I turn up without Pip’s friend, I’ll get sent straight back to fetch you. And I’m not making my brother sad on his second night home.’
‘I’ll go and get ready.’
‘Ugh.’ Jack slumped onto the floor. ‘I might be so starving I’ve died by then.’
It turned out we were cycling to the farmhouse, Beanie on a seat behind Lily and Jack in one of those tag-a-long bikes attached to his dad’s.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for me to end up trailing behind. After turning off a dusty path onto the side of a large field, Flora dropped back to cycle alongside me.
‘Everyone’s going to want to talk to you, but if you’re nervous, you can hang out with me, if you like,’ she said, glancing over to where I was starting to sweat.
‘That’s really kind of you, thank you,’ I managed between huffs.
‘It’s not, actually. I love my family but I’ve been hanging out with the same people every single day my whole life. How is that preparation for my future? I need information about the real world from a real person, not just dumb books from the mobile library.’
‘Flora, the island is a valid part of the real world. Way too many mainlander kids spend most of their time stuck in the fake world of social media or online gaming, anyway.’
‘Ugh. Don’t get me started on that. Can you imagine what living on an island with virtually no Wi-Fi is like? I have to wait until boarding school until I’m allowed a smartphone. Sharing the family PC is not the same.’
‘When do you start boarding school?’
‘Thirteen. Which means by the time I get there, I’ll already be just another island freak who doesn’t know anything about anything that actually matters to people my age. I’ll be stuckbeing friends with the same old equally clueless kids. So I’ll keep knowing nothing and being no one in a never-ending circle until my only option is to crawl back here and live on Hawkins Farm until I die.’
‘I know it might be hard to imagine, but I do understand. If anything, I’m jealous you get to go to boarding school. I got my first phone for my eighteenth birthday, and I might as well have lived on an island for all the places I never went to and things I didn’t know.’
‘It’s not hard to imagine at all. It’s why I’m talking to you, because it’s obvious you have the same problem.’
With that statement lingering between us, we bumped along the hedge in silence for another minute or two. At this rate, I was going to leave this island best friends with a twelve-year-old.
‘What are you hoping for, in your future?’ I asked, keen to think about something other than my social inadequacy.
‘If I could choose, then I’d be an intelligence officer to start with.’
‘Wow.’
‘Then, I’m thinking politics. Or a pathologist. Wouldn’t it be cool to figure out how people died?’
‘You’re not interested in working on the farm?’
She scoffed. ‘I might have to get interested. My aunties and uncle aren’t producing another heir any time soon.’
‘Are they all single?’
‘Auntie Iris is engaged to Hugh. He’s a vet. They wanted to get married in August, but Ma was supposed to be organising all the food and then the oops baby happened, so with having to get the B&B ready as well, they’ve postponed it.’