Page 96 of Run Away Home: Tempered

“Teva from Glasgow... I like it.”

“And you are?”

I tell her my name. She smiles back at me.

“Do your parents know you’re here scaring my chickens and waking my family?” I ask.

“No. They’re sleeping. I have my own glamping pod.”

“Glamping...” I say again with a chuckle. “Is that an English word?”

“Yes. Why, you don’t speak it?”

“We speak some. Just enough to get by and make sales. Our whole community is big on ‘preserving the culture.’ My ma is very strict about it too. We’re not allowed to speak any English in our house.”

“Wow. That’s...”

“Crazy?” I say in English. “I know that word. Everyone here is a rocket. Isn’t that why you tourists come here instead of the bigger islands? To see crazy people?”

“That is not why we came here! And I wasn’t going to say crazy. I was going to say different. I speak English and Gaelic...Spanish...a little French.”

“Wow!”

“My parents wanted me to learn as many languages as possible.”

“That’s so cool. I wish my mum wanted me to do something cool. No one here wants to do anything cool. They basically just started allowing tourists.”

“Do you know that Glasgow is only a ferry ride away?”

“What?”

“You said you wanted to see a city?”

“My mum would absolutely disown me. We aren’t even allowed to attend school. Not enough religion. All the kids get homeschooled.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to come visit you every once in a while.”

I rub the back of my head and gaze down. “You’d come all the way here just to see me? What is that? Nine hours?”

“I would.”

“Why? I hardly know you.”

“I think you’re handsome.”

I can literally feel myself blushing. Good thing it’s dark out. How embarrassing.

“Well...I think you’re beautiful.”

“How about tomorrow I meet you outside the bakery. Say...two o’clock?”

“Your parents will let you meet me?”

“Of course! My parents let me go to Japan by myself.”

“Are you serious? Can we switch parents?”

“Well, not all by myself...but without them. They’ll let me meet you, though. I can do whatever I want.”

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