Page 27 of The Unhinged Christmas of a Cat Lady
SJ looks up from the table the moment I appear. “Did you find her?!”
I nod, holding Twinklesocks aloft. “Caught red-pawed, breaking into someone’s house.”
He gasps. “Whosehouse?”
“Our landlord’s.”
His eyes go huge. “She got into his house?!”
“She licked his leg.”
There’s a pause.
“She what?”
“It’s not important.”
He swings his legs under the chair, face aglow with awe. “Was he mad?”
“No.”
“Did he shout?”
“No.”
“Did you say sorry?”
“I said sorrymultipletimes. I was very British about it.”
He peers at me, frowning. “Why are your ears red?”
“Because it’s freezing out there,” I say quickly, brushing him off. “Now finish your breakfast. The driver will be here in twenty minutes.”
He groans dramatically and slumps forward, nearly face-first into his cereal bowl. “Do Ihaveto go?”
“Yes,” I say, pouring boiling water into my mug. “It’s school. Not exile.”
“It feels like exile.”
“You’re going to see your friends. You like your friends.”
“I likesomeof them.”
I pass him a stern look over the steam rising from the kettle. He picks up his spoon with the weary air of someone being gravely wronged by the national curriculum.
I remove the teabag from my mug and try to ignore the damp chill still clinging to my pyjamas and the ghostly memory of my palm making contact with a stranger’s chest muscle. Repeatedly.
Nope. Not thinking about it.
Driver in twenty minutes. Lunch in SJ’s bag. My sanity somewhere near the back fence with the traumatised shrubbery.
One thing at a time.
The bell over the café door jingles as I step inside. The girls are helping me unpack all the boxes we didn’t manage yesterday but we agreed to meet for a coffee first. Get a caffeine fix in to build up the energy.
All four are already there, of course. They claimed a table by the window. There are mugs and coats and overlapping chatter… I can’t help smiling at my friends when Bri spots me first.
“There she is!” she calls, standing to kiss both my cheeks and nearly knocking over her coffee in the process. “Our favourite Little Hadlow newcomer.”
