‘Oh.’ Horrified that she might be denounced as a trespasser but unwilling to turn back in case the pugnacious Frog had followed them up from the undercliff, she crept after him across the edge of a lawn, as far away from the big cream-coloured art deco residence as possible, through some spiky bushes that smelled of soap, through a hole in a wooden fence, almost falling at the other side where the ground dropped two feet. Now they were on another drive. This time, Rufus turned away from the house and in a minute they were out on a quiet residential street.
Honor threw another glance behind them. ‘You think we’re OK?’
‘Yeah. Frog doesn’t know that way.’
Honor felt her breathing begin to steady. ‘So how come you do?’
Rufus grinned. ‘I used to do a paper round along here. I found — well, made — that place to cut through.’
Nevertheless, she kept looking behind. ‘So, that charming guy back there, why do you call him Frog?’ The setting sun wasn’t reaching over the houses and the shadowy street was lapsing into cool twilight.
‘Toby French. He’s the year above me at school. He’s a big brave man as long as he’s got his two Tadpoles with him.’
‘I know the type.’ She walked beside him in silence for a couple of streets. The lamps were coming on, now, burning orange in a sky like blue metal. ‘Looks to me like he’s giving you problems.’
Rufus shrugged and hunched his shoulders, jamming his hands in his pockets and walking faster. ‘It happens.’
She tried to keep up. ‘Happened to me a time or two but I had a badass friend and that helped a lot.’ Stef. She pictured him in high school with his tawny hair blowing, his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans. In the days when he’d been an asset and not a liability.
Rufus sniffed. ‘Yeah? Well, I haven’t got a badass friend.’
Pity. ‘Maybe we can get you a badass reputation, then.’
He laughed without humour. ‘I’ve got a reputation but not as a badass.’
Freak.Honor heard the word spewing from Frog’s nasty mouth, remembered the way that Rufus had recoiled.
He led her down an opening and across the top of Saltdean Park, away from the beach, into one street after another. He was taking her back to Eastingdean. In fact, she suddenly realised, he was taking her in the direction of The Butts. ‘Do you live at your Mom’s tearooms?’
‘Yup.’
When they reached the broad sweep of The Butts, he hurdled a trough of petunias and made for a passage up the side of the tearoom. Then he paused, shooting glances at her from the corner of his eye. ‘I don’t want you to tell my mum. About Frog.’ He concentrated on his scuffling feet.
Honor leaned against the wall, tucking her hands into her pockets. ‘Your mom makes great cakes,’ she observed, as if just remembering.
‘Yeah. Do you want to, like, come in or something?’
‘Not if it’s going to make your mom ask lots of awkward questions.’
‘She will. She’ll get—’ He revolved his hands in the air as if juggling words and being unable to find the right ones.
‘Will she charge around to Frog’s house and try and sock him on the jaw?’
He shook his head. ‘No, she’ll charge round but put a spell on him or something. It’s well embarrassing.’
Honor snorted with laughter. ‘Like a witch? You’re kidding me.’
‘No, not really. ’Cos she’s not a witch, although she once bought a book of occult symbols,’ he replied, gloomily. ‘It would be cool if she could turn his eyes yellow or make his knob drop off or something. But she can’t. She’ll just rant and tell him that he’s got bad Karma and I’m “her little Ru” and he’ll wet himself making pathetic jokes about Kanga, Roo and Winnie-the-Pooh. Then he’ll tell everyone at school that my mum’s dead weird. Again. And I’m a freak.’
Honor twisted her ponytail with her fingers. ‘I don’t suppose this is his last year at your school?’
Despondently, Ru shook his head. ‘He’s got another year at least. Anyway, he lives near.’ He nodded towards some unspecified location. Then, suddenly, ‘Here’s Mum.’
A small white van rolled up to the kerb and Honor saw Robina staring at them through the passenger window. As soon as the wheels stopped turning, she jumped out. ‘Hello?’ she said, to Honor, curiously.
The driver of the van was Sophie, the woman who worked with Robina in the Eastingdean Teapot. She climbed out of the other door.
‘Hi!’ said Honor, in her best American tourist accent. ‘How are you today? We met already, didn’t we? In your tearoom? I was just asking your son about the community centre and wondering whether to join some classes. You know, I’m new around here.’
