“I’ve had a strange day, Frank,” I told her. “On one hand, I think more people said hello to me today than the entire rest of the time I’ve been here. Granted, it was only about a dozen of them, but after being frozen out for so long, that felt like a lot. So I should be a lot happier about it, right?”
Frank mreeped.
“Except I also dumped Natty,” I said. “Can you dump someone when you’re not actually going out with them? Anyway, whatever we had going on there, it’s done and dusted now. And it just shits me to tears, because the people in this stupid fucking place are just starting to open up to me now—wow! Great! Fantastic!—except obviously it’s never going to be enough that they’d accept I could date one of them.” I let out a long breath as another thought hit me, and this one was even more depressing. “Or maybe Natty just doesn’t like me as much as he says he does. Who the fuck knows?”
Frank mreeped again.
“Am I likeable, Frank?”
Frank stared.
“You were supposed to make some noise that I would take as sympathetic and encouraging.”
Frank continued to stare.
“Thanks for your support, Frank.” I pulled my socks off and paddled my bare feet against the floor. “Dinner time?”
Frank was downstairs like a shot.
I followed at a more sedate pace, enjoying the way the late afternoon sunlight was so very, very gold, turning the dust motes floating in the air into sparkles. It made the house look magical. Sidenote: I needed to remember to dust. Sooner or later the bosses on the mainland would remember I was here, and I didn’t want a surprise inspection showing up my terrible housekeeping skills.
Things were winding down on Dauntless Island as the afternoon shifted slowly into evening—as I fed Frank, I could hear the horns of the boats on the harbour, signalling they were coming home. There was a timeless sort of rhythm to the way the island operated, day in day out, unchanged for almost two centuries. When you read the news, the rest of the world seemed like more and more of a clusterfuck every day. There was no news on Dauntless Island—apart from whose goats were eating whose chives—and there was something very comforting about that.
A knock at the front door startled me, and when I went into the station foyer and opened the door I was surprised to see Red Joe Nesmith standing there.
“Hi!” Eddie leaned around from behind him.
“Hi.”
“It’s Saturday night,” Red Joe said. He tilted his head in the direction of the old church next door. “Everyone meets up on Saturday night.”
“I noticed,” I said.
He looked me up and down. “Hurry up and get changed then. You can’t come wearing that.”
Eddie elbowed him off the doorstep and into the garden bed. He beamed. “What Joe is trying to say is, ‘Please come to the church with us tonight and meet everyone properly, Dominic. It’ll be fun.’”
Fun? That seemed like it would be pushing my luck. But it wasn’t like I could refuse by admitting that my only plans for tonight were going on an imaginary talk show hosted by my cat. “Okay,” I said, my stomach doing a panicked somersault inside me. “I’ll go and get changed.”
“It’ll be fun!” Eddie called out once more as I headed up the stairs to change.
I wondered which one of us he was trying to convince by telling me twice.
Chapter 16
NATTY
Saturday nights on Dauntless meant everyone met up in the old church at nightfall and stayed until the food and drinks ran out. It was a tradition as old as the settlement of the island; it was older than the church. The church had been built by the British back when they’d tried civilising us a couple of generations after the mutiny. The attempt hadn’t lasted too long, and at least we’d got a bunch of free buildings out of it. Ever since we’d chased off the last priest, we’d been using the church as a community hall, which meant that every Saturday night it was full to bursting with Dauntless Islanders, all the food we could carry, and rum and beer and cider from everyone’s backyard stills.
There was no electricity in the church, but Buzzy Pete had rigged some lights up and brought a small generator in every week. It didn’t take long for everyone to start eating and drinking, and then for the music to begin. Big Johnny could play the fiddle like nobody’s business, and he wasn’t the only one. Fiddles, drums, pipes, whistles, harmonicas, guitars—there probably wasn’t a person on Dauntless who didn’t know to make a tune. Even the littlest kids were given spoons to bash on the backs of bowls to make some noise.
Button John met me and Mum and Nipper Will at the front door of the church. He was clutching a cup of something that smelled like Sarah Hooper’s spiced rum and already wearing his wobbly boots. “Natty! Guess what? The copper’s—oh, heeeey, Will.”
Worst fake casual tone ever.
“The copper’s what?” Nipper Will asked, scowling.
Button John’s eyes were wide as saucers. “He’s here.”
