The classes had been sharing the eggs out for years now. She couldn’t imagine that Rosy Winter would have changed the practice and she wouldn’t know about it. Pippa was the teaching assistant in Rosy and Lynne’s class for a start.
‘You are so naughty, Marion. You know that’s not true; you’re just trying to wind her up. I’m not telling her that.’ Sylvie had no truck with Marion’s suggestion but sent her a warm grin all the same.
‘Tut, you’re no fun. Tell her three minutes. We need her here in three minutes.’ And Marion formed a moue complete with downcast glance, as if Sylvie had stolen her favourite toy.
As Sylvie turned to leave, they heard the creaking of the door the other side of the playground and the sound of twenty four and five-year-olds spilling out into the playground with frenzied grins of anticipation and hunting for chocolate.
Marion looked up and quickly reverted to type. The walkie talkie was back in hand.
‘Time minus zero and go. I repeat, time minus zero and go. What on earth are you still doing here? Go, go, go!’ she barked at Pippa. Her words bounced around the playground, amplified by the walkie talkie welded to her lips.
‘Hop to it. Do hurry up! Idiots and incompetents, the lot of you!’
Chapter Four
It had almost been a full week since the start of the Easter holidays and Pippa hadn’t stopped to relax for a minute of it. The holidays were normally jam-packed with events where she could sell her vintage clothing, as tourists descended upon the county en masse. This one had been no different. Meaning that she raced through the front door of her parent’s house only just in time for family dinner, a weekly event where everyone was expected to attend or they’d face the wrath of their mother. Wrath that may take the shape of sad face biscuits for the next week or all the washing done without the use of any fabric conditioner, both options considered nuclear by the Parkin family’s matriarch.
The fact that neither Pippa, Polly or Pete asked their mother to wash their clothes was of no consequence. The fact that she broke into both Pippa and Pete’s houses every few days to collect their laundry was an argument they had all tried and failed, both individually and collectively, to win. Pippa was the oldest and had begged and begged her mother not to keep coming around and letting herself in. But her mother protested she always knocked first and was only being helpful.
Pete had claimed that they could move to three different parts of the world and she’d still find a way to do the washing and expect them to turn up without fail every Thursday. Polly reckoned she’d invent either a hoverboard or zappy device so she could continue to come and visit them randomly, let herself in, take the laundry, and fill the cupboards with bleach and carpet cleaner.
However much the three moaned – and they did – about how their mother had her ever-loving fingers all over their lives, they did all enjoy Thursday dinner. It was always full of laughter and what they had known forever.
‘Hey mum.’
‘Hey love.’ Her mum, Jan, uncurled herself from crouching by the oven where she was swooshing the potatoes from side to side, all fluffed up and covered with garlic and slabs of butter and smelling like heaven.
‘I’ll lay the table. Are the others here yet?’
‘Yes, Pete is in the shed with your father and Polly is upstairs in her room. Apparently, she can’t come out again until June. These exams will be the death of her and she’s sitting up there with a cling film wrapped around her hair and a bottle’s worth of ketchup squished on underneath.’
‘She’s doing what? Ketchup?’ Pippa washed her hands and then grabbed the cutlery from the draw.
‘What can I say? She’s seen it on the internet. She dyed her hair emerald green yesterday and woke up this morning hating it. Says it makes her look dead. Then the internet told her… it told her’ – Jan seemed to think the internet followed you around the house speaking to you, rather like she did – ‘that the red in the ketchup would balance out the green in her hair. A natural colour wheel it said. Have you ever heard anything so stupid? I tried to tell her. Now I’m leaving it up to her. I’ve bought some hair dye remover and left it in the bathroom cupboard, and when she decides she doesn’t like smelling like a burger van then she might use it.’
‘Oh, I’ll nip up and see her.’
‘No, she’s in a foul mood. Save yourself and stay here and lay the table. We’re starting a bit later tonight; we’ve got the Carpenters coming.’
‘Oh, okay then, table for seven then?’
Pippa grabbed some extra knives and forks and headed into the dining room. The Carpenters had been family friends since forever and they all ate together every major holiday.
‘No, eight.’ Her mother’s answer made Pippa pause.
‘Eight?’
‘Yes, eight. James is home so he’ll be coming too. It’s nice for Karen as he hasn’t been back in years. Talking of beautiful young men—’
‘I wasn’t aware that we were.’
As ever, Jan ignored that which she didn’t want to hear. ‘I was most disappointed when you wouldn’t tell us anything about that lovely young man you sent to Dad’s. Nothing at all. And he was so cute. Dad showed me on the CCTV. Lovely young man. You need to accept that time is getting on; I had had both you and Peter by the time I was your age.’
Pippa smiled: Kamhadbeen cute. Those beautifully fringed eyes, and those awful jokes. She had been attracted to him immediately –boom!– out of nowhere. She wasn’t letting her mother anywhere near him! Plus, she didn’t want children yet. What was so hard for her mother to understand? Pippa was nowhere near ready for the whole happily-ever-after that her Mum and Dad had. Surely that much was obvious. Plus, these days you were no longer considered a failure if you hadn’t popped two children out by the age of twenty-five (a milestone she had long passed). Unless, it seemed, you were a Parkin.
‘But not to worry. Like I say, the Carpenters have James visiting for the week. You remember James. You two were like two bugs in a rug when you were small. I’m sure there is more than a little romantic potential there. He’s doing very well for himself now, you know? He’s working in the City, making a fortune by all accounts…’
Pippa tuned her mother out. James Carpenter. Wow. She smiled a smile to herself, one so nostalgic and full of fondness it made her tummy feel warm. James who used to bake her bread and bring it into school for her, who put his coat over a puddle for her after they had learned about the Tudors. Fancy. Mind you, they had caught up about ten years ago, the last time he had been home, and he hadn’t been quite so gentle then!
