Page 41 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
‘What is?’ Benji looks confused.
‘You can stay here with us at Chesterford while you write your book.’ I wave my hand at him before he can protest. ‘No, let me finish. You’ll have to earn your keep, mind – no freebies here.’
‘But how? I’m not like Tom, am I – built like an Olympic athlete with the power to lift heavy objects and the ability to wield a shovel in a muscular manner?’
Tom helpfully flexes his biceps for us in a comical way.
‘No, you’re not, but luckily your muscles aren’t what I want you for – it’s your brain.’
‘That’s a relief, then!’ Benji grins. ‘But I still don’t understand.’
‘You can stay here with us at Chesterford and write your book, but in exchange for board and lodgings, I would like you to discover all of Chesterford’s secrets – you know, the juicy stuff that visitors would be interested in hearing from our new tour guides. Not the bog-standard historical facts, we have tomes of those already, but all the gossip about the past residents, the real stories that made this place what it is today. What do you say, Benji? Would you be up for it?’
We all look eagerly at Benji.
‘Please, Benji,’ Charlie begs. ‘Please come and stay with us at Chesterford. It would be ace.’
Sixteen
‘When is he getting here?’ Charlie asks me for the umpteenth time this morning.
‘Later,’ I tell him. ‘He didn’t specify an exact time – it depends on traffic and all sorts of things.’
‘Is he bringing a big van like we did?’
‘No, just a big car, I think, with a big boot. Benji doesn’t have as much cr— er, stuff, as we did when we moved.’
Benji, to my delight, has finally agreed to move here. It had taken us the rest of the day, and a wonderful and plentiful dinner provided by Dorothy, to finally persuade him.
But eventually we established that he would come and stay here for free in exchange for research into the castle’s past, so that I could provide my new tour guides with tales of heroes and heroines, mystery and intrigue, with which to delight the many visitors I hoped would pour into the castle grounds over the summer.
‘Hopefully the traffic will behave for him,’ I tell Charlie. ‘It’s Sunday, so it shouldn’t be too bad on the A1.’
‘I’m so excited!’ Charlie says, hopping from one foot to the other.
‘I know you are,’ I tell him from my place by the window of our living room, where I’m currently sitting at my desk going through some paperwork that Arthur said wouldn’t wait until Monday. ‘Why do you like Benji so much anyway?’ I ask Charlie, turning away from the paperwork for now. ‘Obviously I like him. But I’m interested to know why you do too?’
Charlie stops hopping around for a moment and thinks. ‘He’s funny,’ he begins, ‘and he makes me laugh. He’s good at telling stories – he makes them sound really interesting – even when they’re not.’
I smile – that is indeed a talent.
‘And Chester likes him too.’
Chester is Charlie’s go-to about most things now. When he’s allowed to, the little dog follows him everywhere. I know it won’t be long before Charlie wants him to come and live here with us in the tower, and I’ve already thought of my excuse – too many floors to go down then up again when Chester wants to go pee-pee in the middle of the night.
‘Chester likes Tom as well, but you’re not so keen on him, are you?’
Charlie thinks about this in the deep way he always does with his brow furrowed.
‘No, that’s not right. I like Tom.’
‘You do?’
‘Yeah, but he’s different to Benji.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose he is,’ I reply, not really sure where Charlie is going with this.
‘Benji is like my friend, and Tom is like . . . ’ Charlie struggles to find the right word. ‘He’s sort of like what I want to be like when I grow up.’
