Amber Aitken - Heart to Heart

The crashing of the waves on the beach suddenly seemed louder than they ever had before as the girls watched their friendly neighbours head off down the path.

They stared at each other without speaking. There was no need. They’d been best friends for so long their conversations didn’t always need words.

What a time for Birdie and the Captain to leave. Just when we were getting to grips with the strangeness of the hut next door.

Coral glanced down at Romeo. Of course she’d never swap her beloved pup, but if only he was just a little big bigger… with bigger teeth… and maybe a really big scary growl…

Nicks didn’t want to think about the mysterious red hut any more. And now that Birdie and the Captain had finally disappeared down the path it was time to get on with Cupid Company business. She tapped her glitter pen against her foil butterfly clipboard. “You’re staring again,” she said to Coral.

Coral tore her eyes away from the hut next door and bit the end of her pencil, which was actually a red plastic heart on a spring that jiggled when she wrote. At that moment she had nothing to write. There really wasn’t a lot to write about. Coral stared at her blank notebook and tried to look thoughtful. And then her brain circuits lit up like a neon billboard.

“I know - we could matchmake your mum!” she called out excitedly. “She’s been single since like forever… !”

“Well, only since she divorced my dad,” Nicks said doubtfully.

But already Coral’s head was flooded with good ideas. There was Mr McLeod from Arts and Crafts World (there wasn’t enough pocket money in the world to buy all their beautiful beads, but family discounts would certainly help). And there was a very good chance that Frank who owned The Frozen Cow was unattached. Their choc-fudge-brownie frozen yoghurt was the best in Sunday Harbour.

“Look, forget it!” said Nicks before Coral even had time to fully consider the man with the moustache who worked behind the counter at the surf clothing shop. “Mum doesn’t want to be matchmade.”

But there wasn’t time for further discussion as, just then, Romeo streaked up the deck stairs like a white and caramel blur. He screeched to a halt and stood panting through his nostrils, his mouth filled with half a sandwich. A salami slice slipped out of the side in slow motion and landed on the deck with a splat. Romeo kept his chin raised but monitored the fallen salami with one eye. Doggy drool dripped from his lips, but he didn’t budge.

“You’ve got it now, so you may as well eat it!” ordered Coral crossly. She had told him so many times before not to take food from people’s beach picnics. Still, one piece of salami probably wouldn’t do any harm.

Nicks giggled. “Maybe we should find Romeo a doggy girlfriend. It might just keep him out of trouble.”

Coral made a pooh-pooh sort of face. She puckered up her lips and rubbed Romeo tenderly on his chin, which was now mucky with mayonnaise.

The girls were so busy concentrating on Romeo that they’d failed to notice that the red hut next door was slowly coming to life behind their backs.

“Ew, look at your fingers,” said Nicks.

“What’s wrong with them?” Coral loved her pup, drool, mayonnaise and all.

“They could do with a good wash,” laughed Nicks.

“Oh, I’ll just wipe them on—”

The sound of rattling keys ended Coral’s sentence. Both girls spun in the direction of the sound.

There stood a very tall man - so tall his head loomed over the door frame of the red hut. And he was as thin as he was tall - so thin that the Adam’s apple in his neck stood out like a second (and only slightly smaller) head. He looked like a long thin snake that had just eaten something quite large. The lump pulsed up and down like it was still alive.

Both girls sucked on the air so hard it sounded like they’d been winded.

“What a scary kind of guy…” wheezed Coral breathlessly.

Scary-kind-of-guy heard their gasps and twisted his heads left. His eyes were small and round and so dark that they seemed to reach out and hook on to the girls. They couldn’t have looked away if they’d tried. The black pinpoints of his eyes drilled into theirs like a locked-on laser beam. And still the lump in his neck pulsed. Up-down. Up-down. Up-down.

Forever came and went and still they all stared at each other. And then, suddenly, Scary Guy moved the long thin sticks of his fingers. The keys on the round brass ring in his left hand banged together, the sound echoing like the clang of a giant brass bell. It even seemed to surprise Scary Guy, who all of sudden dropped the brown leather bag he’d been carrying. It landed with a monumental thud. The impact of the fall sprang the lock and the two halves of the bag suddenly split apart and fell wide open. They all stared at the bag as its contents spilled out across the decking. There was a hammer, a long coil of rope and a roll of thick silver duct tape.

Suddenly, Scary Guy stooped low, and in no more than two swift movements he had scooped the lot back up into the bag and snapped it shut. He was just as quick to unlock the hut’s door and disappear inside, slamming the door shut behind him.

And then the world seemed especially quiet. A wind came up and blew the girls’ hair, but still they didn’t move. They were all big eyes and thumping chests. It was Romeo’s howl that finally broke the spell. It was almost as though he sensed that something was up.

Coral was the first to breathe again. “Wow wee…” she gasped. “What do you make of that?”

Nicks was the first to actually move again. She slithered on to a deckchair and tapped her knees thoughtfully. “He was a strange one,” she said. “Did you see the stuff in his bag?”

Coral nodded solemnly. “You do know what the most common use for duct tape is, don’t you?”

Nicks shrugged lightly. If Coral was going into crazy mode there was no point in encouraging her.

“Kidnapping… murder… that sort of thing!” Coral cried out, grabbing the air with her hands and giving it a good shake.

Now it was Nicks’s turns to snort, only she made more of a delicate pssht sort of sound. “Oh, please, where do you get that from?”

“I watch television! Where there’s dodgy business - there’s duct tape. No criminal can be without it.”

“Keep your voice down.” Nicks glanced left, then right, before whispering, “So you’re suggesting that our neighbour is a criminal?”

Coral paused and took a deep breath. “Not just a criminal. A—” She stopped herself. Actually, she wasn’t exactly sure what she was suggesting. But she was convinced that Scary Guy was up to no good. Why else did you carry duct tape, a hammer and rope around with you?

Coral did an about-turn and tiptoed inside Coral Hut. She really needed to lie down on the lovely bright white daybed for a bit. She wanted to rest and think the whole dramatic incident through.

Coral sighed as she absorbed it all. She felt better already. Almost. Sort of. With just a bit more rest…

Nicks and her mum were still jumping the early-morning waves the next day as Coral made her way over to the beach hut, feeling queasy from all the saltwater she’d swallowed. She climbed up the front steps and settled down on her beach towel, pressing her tummy to the deck, and resting her chin on her hands at the edge. The view was good and the warm morning sun had turned the deck toasty. She could even see the top of Romeo’s snoozing head poking out of the cool hole he’d dug in the warming sand. And then, very slowly, she started dozing off. When suddenly—