Summer Help - Excerpt

Georgia had lain awake for much of the night staring at the ceiling. Petrarch hadn’t called her, and she had been so sure, when she had given him the number, that he had meant he would call later that day. Her eyes felt gritty, as though she had been staring at the tiny circle of light seen down a long tunnel and it had suddenly winked out.

She went to the computer without bothering with breakfast. There was nothing in her email box, and in the chat room a couple of younger kids were talking about the first book. Her throat constricted. Of course, it had all been too good to be true. No doubt Petrarch was sitting somewhere laughing at how easy it had been to make her hang on his words like a puppy dog waiting for his master’s command.

She went to the kitchen and ate a large bowl of chocolate cereal, followed by a sugared doughnut. Then she tried to rinse the sticky coating from her mouth with a glass of orange juice, but the liquid was so tart in comparison that she shuddered. She tipped the rest of it down the sink and walked back down the hall.

She hadn’t intended to go back to the computer, but as she passed the office door she felt it pull at her like a siren’s song. I’ll just check email and the website one more time, she thought.

Still no email, but when she entered the chat room she immediately saw that there were now four names flashing in the user list, and Petrarch’s was one of them.

“Hello Petrarch,” she typed; her fingers shook so much that she had to delete errors twice before she could hit “Send.”

“Hi Georgia,” came back.

“I thought you were going to call me.” Her fingers had typed the words almost before her brain had formed them. Stupid, she thought. You sound desperate.

“I did,” he responded smoothly. “I got someone with an English accent. I wasn’t sure if I had the right number.”

“What’s this got to do with Warrior Poet?” typed one of the other users.

“Beat it, squirt,” typed Petrarch.

That’s not very nice, thought Georgia. But then it occurred to her that he was just trying to get them the chat room to themselves again, and she forgave him.

Sure enough, the other two users took their leave.

“That was our au pair,” typed Georgia.

“Okay, I will phone you Monday. I have to go out now.”

“Bye,” typed Georgia, baffled. Didn’t he want to talk to her today? Still, at least he was still her friend. She smiled to herself. She couldn’t wait to find out what his voice sounded like.

Amanda’s voice behind her made her jump.

“What are you doing, Georgie?”

“Nothing,” she said, closing down the chat room screen as she tried to shield the monitor from her sister’s narrowed eyes.

“That was a chat thingie, wasn’t it? Who were you talking to?”

“No-one,” said Georgia.

“I bet it was some stupid loser about that stupid Warrior Poet book. You are such a geek, Georgie,” said Amanda.

That stung Georgia, and before she could stop herself she blurted out, “he’s not a loser; he’s nice.”

“Ooh, Georgie’s got a boyfriend to go with her new bra,” said Amanda, and then walked out of the office repeating the same thing in a sing-song voice.

Georgia sat at the computer staring at the blank screen and thought about how much she hated her sister. Amanda always spoiled everything. Look at how she’d behaved in the department store, just because she was bored and sick that Georgia was getting some attention for a change. She felt her shoulder and touched the strap of her new bra through the material of her tee shirt like it was some kind of talisman. Anyway, Emma liked her, and so did Petrarch. She’d show that stupid little baby sister of hers.

“So this is the Warrior-Poet wench who freed the slaves of Behrkohr!” The voice of Petrarch, self-proclaimed King of Cah-Vem, boomed across the throne-room.

Shaara threw her shoulders back, which sent her mane of raven hair rippling down her back. The two guards flanking her stepped back respectfully.

“I am she, sire.”

“Approach!”

Shaara crossed the throne-room with graceful, unhurried steps, until she could look the usurper in the eye.

“Why do you not kneel before me?”

“I will kneel, sire, to the crowned King of Cah-Vem.”

Petrarch laughed. “The girl has spirit,” he said. He caught Shaara’s fine-boned jaw in the vice-like grip of his right hand.

Forced to meet his gaze, Shaara kept her blue eyes unblinking and unafraid. Normally Shaara would have admired a man of his physique, clearly warrior-trained, but there was something repulsive, even reptilian, about his sculpted cheekbones and green eyes, colder than pools of ice.

“Shaara will be our guest in the castle tonight,” said Petrarch. “Post a guard of honor at her door to ensure she rests before the feast.”

Shaara shivered. It was going to take every ounce of her wit and cunning to make it through the feast and leave the castle with her head still attached to her shoulders.

Emma woke up in a sunny mood and bounded downstairs. It was nine o’clock, so she was surprised to find only Daniel standing up in the kitchen, eating toast with one hand and leafing through the Sunday paper with the other.

“Where is everyone?” she asked.

Daniel gave a little snort of amusement. “My wife, the party animal, is sleeping off a tiny bit of a hangover, I suspect. Georgie’s on the computer, and I haven’t seen Amanda yet, but then, she’s not really an early riser.”

A hangover! That didn’t sound like Jeannie. At the dinner party on Friday she’d hardly tasted her wine. Emma could certainly sympathize with her employer, but what about Emma’s day off?

“Um, I don’t suppose she mentioned me having the day off and borrowing the car, did she?”

“She didn’t say much when she got home last night,” said Daniel. “Rula had to wake her up to get her out of the car.”

He closed the paper and cleared his breakfast plate to the countertop above the dishwasher.

“I’m afraid I’m going to need mine a little later to run into the office, and you’d better check with Jeannie before borrowing the van. Sorry!” With an apologetic smile, Daniel was gone, no doubt headed for the den.

Emma slumped into one of the dinette chairs as her good mood evaporated. So much for the day off. She decided breakfast would cheer her up and poured herself a bowl of cereal. One of the great things about America was the amazing variety of cereals the supermarkets offered, not just plain old cornflakes and coco pops, but incredible mixtures of different grains baked into all sorts of colored, sugary shapes. This one even had marshmallows in.

She was tucking into a second bowl as Amanda appeared in the kitchen doorway, yawning. “Hey, that’s my cereal!” the girl said, with a pout.

“Sorry,” said Emma. “I didn’t realize the cereal belonged to anyone in particular.”

“Mom eats this one,” said Amanda, going to the pantry cupboard and pulling out an unappetizing looking box of something called “Lean & Lively.”

“Yeuch,” said Emma, reading the ingredients. “Your Mum may like eating sawdust, but I don’t.”

There was a cough behind her and she turned round to see Jeannie, looking as un-put-together as Emma had yet seen her, in a shapeless robe and with her hair unbrushed.

“Morning Amanda, Emma,” said Jeannie in a tired sounding voice. If she’d heard what Emma had just said, she obviously wasn’t going to react.

She saw the box of “Lean & Lively” on the island table and made a face. “I think I’ll just have coffee,” she said, walking over to the percolator.

Emma wondered if now would be a good time to mention the day off. “Erm, Jeannie, you did say I could have the day off today, and borrow the van?”

“Did I?” said Jeannie, “You can, of course. But, we usually try to have Sunday lunch together, as a family. It would be nice if you could join us, then you can go and enjoy yourself. The mall doesn’t open until twelve on a Sunday, anyway.”

Emma stopped herself from pointing out that this would make it a half day off, and decided to be grateful for what she had.

“Is it OK if I ring my Mum this morning then?” she asked.

“Ring your…oh, you mean call your mom! Sure, sure – don’t be too long, though, hon!”

Emma took the cordless phone into the dining room so she could have a bit of privacy.

Her mum’s voice chirped down the phone line as though she were thirty miles away rather than three thousand.

Emma fought off a wave of homesickness as she pictured her mother standing in the hallway of her semi-detached house in Surbiton. Her parents had to be the only people in the universe who still owned only one phone, and it was the old-fashioned kind with the handset attached to the cradle by a curly extendable cord. The vision appeared so real to Emma she could even pick out the faded roses on the hall wallpaper. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

“Mum, it’s me,” said Emma, and then spent five minutes reassuring her mother that she was fine, the Wrights were very nice people, the girls were very sweet, she had her own room, and she was eating properly.

After that she knew she had to broach the unpleasant subject.

“Mum, I need to know. Has Paul been in touch with you?”

When her mother didn’t reply straight away, Emma felt her stomach plummet. Clearly he had.

“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Stafford. “He was very polite, said he wanted to speak to you about some legal issue, but I didn’t give him your number, or anything.”

At least he hadn’t managed to con her mum this time, thought Emma. Mrs. Stafford had been one of Paul’s biggest fans in the beginning, but then, hadn’t they all been fooled?

Emma walked out of the main university library carrying a bunch of Biology textbooks she needed for her Final Year project. Each one was over an inch thick and the pile reached almost to her chin. She wished she’d thought ahead and brought a carrier bag.

She caught the toe of her shoe on the bottom step and fell forward slightly. She was able to steady herself but the books toppled and scattered themselves all over the paving slabs. With no consideration for the damage fines the library would impose, the grey skies chose that moment to carry out their threat of rain.

Emma scrabbled for the books, but just then a handsome pair of Levi-clad legs came into her view. The owner of the legs crouched down and began scooping up the books with a large and capable hand.

“You shouldn’t have to carry all these,” said the boy, who was clearly a fellow student. “Where are you going? I’ll help you.”

It turned out his name was Paul and he had transferred from Durham to complete his final year in Computing. He wasn’t Emma’s idea of a computing student really – most of them were skinny, spotty boys who wore denim jackets with heavy metal tee-shirts. Paul was tall and muscular, with deep brown eyes which he couldn’t seem to take off Emma.

She thought herself very fortunate to have met him.

It was an opinion which lasted right up until their honeymoon.

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