One at a time, we walk over the mound and head for the conker tree. Years one, two, and three are on the playground, so it’s easy for us to get there without anyone seeing, but we don’t stop until the branches hide us.
I’m concentrating so hard that I don’t even look for Hendricks.
Annabel runs to the trunk and bends down, wiping away all the leaves in the way. “Here’s the hole.”
Handing over the pouch, I let her push it inside.
“Now what?” asks Mary.
“Now we have to lay clues.”
“Where are we leaving the first one?”
I’m thinking about it when the bell rings, which signals the end of break time, and has us all groaning in annoyance. Although it also gives me time to think about the clues we need to make.
The three of us stand.
“Let’s go back before we get in trouble,” says Mary, the goody-goody once more.
Annabel passes me the map, and I fold it carefully and slide it into my pocket.
I kind of want to keep playing with our treasure map, but I also don’t mind going back to our classrooms because it means I’ll see Hendricks again.
CHAPTER 5
Story
It’s eerily quiet when I take my coffee out onto the patio. The air is damp from the storm last night, and it’s still dark, though the navy sky is lightening in the distance.
Fog rolls down the hills, gradually turning a deep burnt orange when it hits the horizon.
In lieu of switching on the patio heaters, I grab another couple of blankets from inside, plus all the outdoor cushions, and get cozy.
Oxford, our family golden retriever, plods outside, and I lift him onto the bench to join me. Plumping the cushions around us, I wrap us both in more blankets, and his head rests on my thigh.
It takes me back to when he was a tiny puppy and used to curl up in my lap while I revised for my GCSEs. His tail never stopped wagging, even when I was lamenting quadratic equations and struggling with my Latin verbs—neither of which I have ever used since.
Ten years later and his wag is still there, though not quite as energetic. His enthusiasm, however, sparkles in his eyes.
My one worry every time I returned home was thathe wouldn’t remember me, but the second I walked through the front door, he bounced over and covered me in kisses. It was the same greeting whether I returned from the shops or was coming home from university for the weekend.
Oxford was the one I found it hardest to leave when I went to Australia. His fur mopped up my tears the day I decided to go. Tears from leaving Hendricks by the fountain. Tears from leaving a life I thought I would have.
He lets out a loud, contented groan as I stroke through his silky fur and sip my coffee. It’s followed by a deep sigh I feel in my bones.
“I know, Oxie. I know,” I groan back.
He sighs again, his own way of communication.
“Exactly. What am I doing here? What am I doing, full stop?”
A lump forms in my throat, but I swallow it down with another long sip of my coffee, then take a breath that finishes in a wide yawn.
“I really need to sort my life out.”
I can’t even blame it on the jet lag because that disappeared a couple of weeks ago. This tiredness is purely self-inflicted. It’s more than five days of sleepless nights that I thought would get better as the week went on, but it hasn’t.
This tiredness is evidence of a losing battle with myself to get over the boy I met when I was six. It’s one I’d pushed so deep down that I almost convinced myself it didn’t exist. But my mind has been playing tricks on me.
