Page 12 of Lost Luggage
‘I hate Guides and I hate Mum and Dad. I’m not speaking to them.’
‘You won’t have to. Not for the moment. Come on darling… I’ve got you a present.’
Nothing. Then rustling. Dolly gave Mark a quick call, suggested he and Kaz let Dolly dry Flo off and give her a drink, that they give Flo a bit of time. He could hardly speak, such had been his relief on receiving Dolly’s text. Feet thumped on to the ground and Flo appeared, arms folded, lilac anorak grubby, ponytail half undone and soaking.
‘I think we could both do with a hot chocolate,’ said Dolly, staring at the blotchy cheeks.
Flo traipsed inside. Dolly hung up both of their anoraks and fetched two towels, one of which she draped around Flo’s small shoulders. She washed up two mugs with the last squirt of the Fairy Liquid. The cocoa was only a month out of date. Dolly smelt the milk. She’d used worse. They went into the conservatory and Dolly switched on the light. Flo sat down on one of the wicker chairs, wiped her eyes and put her elbows on the green case, resting her chin on her hands, next to her drink. Dolly passed her a half-empty tube of biscuits.
‘Are Mum and Dad mad?’
‘Mad with worry,’ said Dolly. ‘They love you to bits.’
She sat up. ‘Yeah, right, that’s why they’ve kept on and on about this stupid Guiding.’ She snapped a biscuit in half. ‘How did you know?’
‘You’ve always sneaked through that hole in the fence to sit on that branch, pretending ours was the tree fromA Monster Calls.’
Flo banged her right leg repeatedly against the leg of her chair.
‘Although why anyone would want to hide in a monsterish tree, I’ll never know. Tell me the story. Why do you love it?’
Flo put down her mug and Dolly looked fondly at the moustache of chocolate froth. Kaz and Mark wouldn’t let her see the film, Flo said, they insisted she was too young, but she’d read the book and the monster didn’t scare her at all. He helped the main character, Conor, accept his mum was dying, and forced him to admit that, really, he wanted the worst to happen, so that neither he nor his mum suffered any more. Flo liked the monsterish tree because he understood Conor’s deepest secret and wasn’t judgy. Flo wiped a trickle of hot chocolate off the side of her mug and sucked her finger. ‘I know it sounds silly but that oak tree is a friend that’s always happy to listen, even if it’s raining or frosty or snowing. Especially if I’m talking about my big secret.’
The tree sounded like Maurice.
How could an eleven-year-old be hiding something? Greta hadn’t had a single secret across her nine decades. Dolly knew that for sure because they trusted each other with the truths others might hide, like Dolly secretly fancying her boss and Greta hating hers. They knew all about each other’s medical problems, including personal ones like bouts of cystitis. Even though privacy was important, Dolly used to joke that to each other, they were open books, although Greta never found the appropriate pun as funny as she did.
‘Does the tree know why you ran away from Guides tonight?’
‘He’ll have worked it out.’ Her face puckered for a moment. ‘I’m not going next week and no one can make me.’
It took Dolly back to Flo’s first year at primary school, how she’d tearfully counted down from Christmas to it starting again, said that her teacher was really strict and in the classroom Flo missed her mum and dad.
‘How many girls were there?’
With prompting, Flo revealed that the pack had twenty-four Guides, split into four patrols. Each patrol was made up of girls between the ages of ten and fourteen. Flo would be due to take her Promise after the February half-term, the weeks before then being a trial period. She knew a few of the others from school, but not very well.
‘The pack leader, Gill, said there was a really long waiting list and I must be excited to have finally got in.’ Scarlet blotches on her cheeks grew. ‘I didn’t even know Mum and Dad put my name down. It’s as if my opinion doesn’t matter.’
‘What did you do all evening?’ asked Dolly quickly.
‘Stupid stuff.’
Dolly sipped her drink and eventually Flo loosened the towel around her shoulders and told Dolly that the leader, Gill, talked about a theme the pack was working on, and the relevant badges. Everyone had to put their phones in this basket at the beginning of the meeting. The older girls looked really grown up. Dolly wanted to say how mixed ages were part of the point – Guides would build Flo’s confidence and communication skills – but her parents might have already said that. The best thing Dolly could do was just listen.
‘Was there one particular reason you ran away, sweetheart?’ she asked, gently. ‘Did something happen?’
‘Maybe.’
Dolly took the towel, folded it up, and put it on the green case.
Flo exhaled deeply. ‘We had to find a partner for this game, at the end. No one chose me. I had to do it with Gill and felt really stupid. Everyone was looking, just like people do at school if I talk about how great worms are or offer to tidy the books in the library – like I…’
‘Go on, love.’ Dolly placed her hand on Flo’s arm.
‘Like I’m a freak. Afterwards I blushed redder and redder and…’ Her voice sounded thick. ‘I was worried I might start crying like a baby, in front of them.’
They sat in silence. There was no point in telling Flo she wasn’t a freak, that sticking out Guides might eventually make her feel more as if she fitted in; it was about how her young neighbour felt, right at this moment.
