Page 7 of The Little Flower Shop By the Sea
‘It’s OK, she won’t find anything in my mop to eat!’ Jake jokes, pulling a nut from his pocket. He passes it to Miley and she greedily leaps up on to an empty dresser to begin removing the shell. ‘She’s just doing what comes naturally.’
I watch Miley suspiciously from behind the desk.
‘So you agreed to look after a monkey, just like that?’ I ask doubtfully. Monkeys were something you saw in a zoo or on television. I wasn’t used to someone keeping one as a pet.
‘Yep,’ Jake says tersely, to my surprise. ‘Just like that. Why, do you have a problem?’
‘Noo…’ I hold up my hands. ‘What you do with your monkey is no business of mine!’
Jake’s expression changes and his lips twitch.
Realising what I’ve said, my cheeks redden. I look at the monkey; she’s now finished her nut, and is eyeing me warily again.
‘Does she eat fruit?’ I ask hurriedly. ‘I have an apple in my bag.’
Jake nods. ‘Yep, Miley loves apples.’
I scrabble about in my leather rucksack and produce a slightly battered green apple. I hold it out.
‘Er…’ Jake begins to say.
‘Oh, doesn’t she like Golden Delicious?’
Jake smiles. ‘She’s picky about food, but not that picky. It’s a little too big for her to handle.’
‘Oh! Oh right, of course.’ I hurriedly look around me for something to cut the apple with. ‘Wait right there,’ I say, heading out to the back room where my grandmother used to arrange her flowers into the exquisite and often exotic bouquets that would bring a huge smile to the lucky recipient’s face.
It’s as if I’ve stepped back in time: the room has hardly changed. If anything, it’s tidier – probably thanks to the local Women’s Guild or whoever’s been looking after the shop.
On a shelf I find a pot with an assortment of florist’s tools, and the very thing I’m looking for – a knife. My grandmother kept it for slicing the ends of flowers off at a sharp angle, so they could take up their water faster. It’s funny what you remember, I think, picking up the knife and a wooden board and heading back into the shop.
‘You don’t need to go to all this trouble,’ Jake says. ‘She’s had a nut, she’ll be happy for a while.’
‘It’s fine, really. I’ve offered her the apple now, so it wouldn’t be fair to go back on a promise. I never do that.’
Jake watches me while I chop the apple into small pieces. ‘There, what should I do now?’
‘Just hold it out to her. If she wants it, she’ll come to you. But I warn you, Miley doesn’t usually like strange— oh…’
Miley is already sitting on the desk in front of me taking a slice of apple in her tiny paws.
‘… but she obviously likesyou,’ Jake finishes.
We watch in silence for a few moments as Miley nibbles delicately on her apple.
‘Why did my mother call you?’ I blurt out at the same time Jake asks, ‘So what are you going to do with the shop?’
‘Ladies first,’ Jake says. ‘She called me because I supply the shop with flowers, and she wanted to let me know you’d be in charge from now on. I don’t know if you realised, but some ladies from the town have been looking after the place since your grandmother went into hospital. They do their best, but their ideas on flowers aren’t quite what St Felix is used to.’
A flower is a flower, isn’t it?I think of Woody. Why did the people here seem to think otherwise?
‘It’s good of them to do it though.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Jake agrees. ‘Your grandmother was well loved around here. A few people went up to London for her funeral.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘So you need to answer my question now,’ he prompts. ‘By the way, don’t let Miley have all that apple, will you. She gets terrible gas and bloating if she eats too much.’
