Page 23 of Heart of the Wren
“Did you not hear—?” I caught myself in time. “No, I suppose you were distracted.”
Eddie dropped down from the boat.
I glared at him. “Searched the whole thing, did you?”
“It’s not very big, Lorcan.” Eddie put his hands in his pockets. “It’s basically a dinghy.”
My ears burned. “Check behind it as well, ye eejit!”
“Don’t shout at him,” Carol said. “Who smashed the window?”
I took a deep breath. “Some birds, would you believe? The sun must have been shining on it the wrong way, or they were confused with the sudden snow. I don’t know. I’m not a… bird… scientist.”
“An ornithologist,” she said.
“Have you found it yet?”
Eddie shot up from behind a bookcase filled with tubs of assorted nails and screws. “Look, I’m sorry for what you saw, it was the first time we—”
I balled my fists on my hips and glared at him again.
“It was only the second time we… You know…”
I nodded. “Oh, I feckin’ know, alright. And so does Bullseye.”
Carol slapped my arm. “You told him already?”
“Ow, here now, I didn’t tell him anything. He told me… Well, no, he told me you were up to something but he said I should ask you about it. He was fairly ratty with me about this whole thing. I thought he’d caught you two kissing but he wouldn’t get his knickers in a twist over a kiss. I suppose I know what he caught you doing, now.”
She hugged herself and walked away.
Eddie uncovered a roll of blue tarpaulin and yanked it free. The remnants of a long-faded logo and telephone number clung to it like ancient text waiting to be deciphered. Eddie took the roll out and lay it under the long florescent bulbs to inspect it.
“It wasn’t sex,” Carol said.
I crossed my arms. “I beg your pardon?”
“That’s not why Daddy is mad. I don’t think he’d be thrilled if he thought… Anyway, it’s not why we’re fighting.”
I crouched down to inspect the tarpaulin. “What is it, then?”
She waited by Eddie’s side. “Eddie wants me to go home with him.”
I frowned. “What, tonight?”
“No, Lorcan.” She rolled her eyes. “He wants me to go with himwhen he goes back to England. In the New Year.”
“You can’t!”
“Why not?”
My mouth ran dry and the words tripped out. “Because he… You… Young! Too young!”
She blew her lips at me. “You sound like Daddy.” She pointed her finger and scrunched her nose. “You’re not going anywhere with that fella; you don’t even know him.”She tutted loudly.
“Sounds like him, alright,” I said. “Which is a red rag to a bull. I suppose now, on top of everything else, you have to figure out if you want to go because you really want to go, or because your dad told you not to.”
“He hit the feckin’ roof at the very idea of it. Who knows what he’ll do if…” She twisted the thin bracelet around her wrist. “He says I’m too young, as well.”
