Page 41 of Kate and Clara's Curious Cornish Craft Shop
‘Such as?’
‘Such as the other night when you virtually threw me out of your house for failing to turn off your shop alarm.’
‘Ah, that.’
‘You said when we were on the beach this morning you were going to explain.’
‘I did.’
‘So?’
‘Isthatthe community centre?’ Jack asks, expertly changing the subject as we approach a long dull-looking building that is currently vibrating with loud thumping music and excited voices.
‘It is.’
‘Seems like you’re not the only parent on collection duty tonight.’
I recognise a few of the people leaning against the wall of the centre waiting for their offspring. I want to ignore them and continue talking as I get the feeling he’s quite pleased to have a reasonnotto continue our previous conversation, but one of the dads waves and I feel obliged to go over with Jack and chat to him.
Eventually a few people begin to emerge from the community centre: groups of giggling girls and gangs of boisterous boys – all much older than Molly – pass us by, and then a few youngsters I recognise peer apprehensively about for their parents as they leave the booming hall and step out into the hazy lamp-lit street.
As I wait anxiously it takes all my resolve to stop myself from storming in, grabbing my precious daughter and wrapping her up until I get her to the safety of our home.
Where was she? Why wasn’t she coming out yet?
‘She’ll be out in a minute,’ Jack says, looking up at me as I fidget next to him. ‘Stop looking so worried.’
I can’t help it though. It only seems like minutes ago since I was waiting for her to come out from her first day at school. Now she’d spent the evening with all these … well, they looked like adults to me as they spill out of the centre. Could they really only be a few years older than my Molly?
At long last she appears at the door, blinking into the night.
‘Over here, Molly!’ I call, waving.
She glances over at me, and to my dismay looks away again back into the hall.
‘Molly!’ I call again, moving towards her. ‘I’m here.’
‘Yes, Mum,’ she sort of hisses under her breath. ‘I see you. I’ll be out in a moment.Okay?’
‘Yes, of course …’ I mumble, stepping back a bit as she disappears back inside. ‘Okay.’
‘Embarrassing mum?’ Jack enquires jokily as he wheels himself up next to me.
‘Apparently,’ I reply, my face hot. ‘Was I that bad?’
‘Nope, not at all. At that age you only have to breathe and you’re a humiliation. Ben was the same. Now he’s eighteen though it’s beginning to wane a tad. I’m assured that by the time they’re twenty-one you become a normal human being to them once more.’
‘Twenty-one?’ I exclaim, staring at him. ‘I have six years of this to look forward to?’
‘Them’s the breaks, kid!’ Jack says, winking. ‘Oh, she’s back again, and she has a friend.’
I turn expecting to see Emily, Molly’s best friend, but instead I see a lanky-looking boy. He’s wearing baggy blue jeans with a low-slung belt, a red T-shirt with some sort of band emblem on it, trainers, and he has too much product in his carefully coiffured (to look unkempt) hair.
Molly whispers something to him as they emerge from the hall and he looks in my direction. Then he kisses her quickly on the cheek and whispers something into her ear, making her giggle.
Then he holds his hand up in our direction, speaks quickly to Molly again and walks over to a group of lads who then all mooch off together down the street.
Molly watches them longingly before slowly making her way over to us.
