Amber Aitken - Forever and Ever

And then she noticed two more details. The first was that both girls had shiny, heart-shaped pendants on silver chains around their necks. And secondly, there was a number five nailed to the wood directly above the beach hut’s doors. The tail of the number five–which was supposed to curve like a half-O shape–was cut short. It was missing. Well, the end bit of it was missing. Coral gasped. She’d seen that half-missing number five a trillion times before. They were looking at an ancient photograph of Coral Hut!

“What’s the matter?” asked Nicks.

Coral tapped the photograph with her finger and made strange gurgling noises. Try as she might, she couldn’t get any words out.

Nicks followed Coral’s finger and stared closely at the photograph for a few moments. “Hey, I think that’s Coral Hut!” she cried out.

“I know!” Finally Coral could talk.

Nicks peered even closer. “Wowzers–imagine that. I wonder who those two girls are?”

Coral nodded excitedly. “Me too. But just as importantly–why does your mum have an old photograph of Coral Hut?”

“It probably wasn’t called Coral Hut back then,” suggested Nicks in her usual rational sort of way.

Coral did not think that this was relevant. “This is an album of family photographs, right?” she said instead. “So could this…do you think this means that someone in your family owned Coral Hut once upon a time?”

Nicks raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Imagine that,” she cooed and tapped her chin. “In that case, maybe Coral Hut was once called Nicks’s Hut? Or Nicola Hut, even. It is a family name, you know.”

Coral swiftly shook the suggestion from her head. “I doubt it. And it doesn’t really matter anyway. It won’t help us to find Mr Perfect.” She was about to turn the album page, but Nicks wasn’t quite ready to move on just yet.

“I think we should find out. It would be really interesting. I mean–imagine if my ancestors spent their summers at our hut too.”

“We really should be focusing on Mr Perfect,” Coral said gruffly.

“I know. But we could do both. Maybe my mum will know. After all, she’s interested in family trees and stuff.”

“You can’t ask your mum!” Coral bleated. “If she suspects anything she’ll be on her guard and it will make getting her to fall in love even more difficult.”

Nicks frowned. Coral did have a point. Perhaps it was better to play things safe. “I know–we’ll ask your mum instead. After all, you must have received some sort of ownership documents when you inherited the hut from your Great-Aunt Coral.”

“I guess,” admitted Coral, who was still not madly keen on the idea of Coral Hut being known as anything other than Coral Hut. Ever. “OK–we’ll ask my mum,” she finally agreed. “But for now we should focus on finishing our investigation.”

Nicks nodded eagerly and reached for the notebook and pen on her mum’s bedside table. And then she began scribbling. She was making a list of all the leads they had for Mr Perfect. There was the aquarium…and Mr Selvaggio at Deli Antonia…and the local theatre…maybe an interior decorator…

Coral leaned over and peered at the list. And then she smiled. Finally they had some sort of plan. Now all they had to do was find Mr Perfect and get Cupid to take careful aim. And then Nicks would never leave Sunday Harbour. Now how difficult could that really be?

“So what exactly do we do when we get to Deli Antonia?” Nicks wondered out loud.

“Well, we could ask Mr Selvaggio to fill in a Cupid Company questionnaire,” suggested Coral. “But that takes time, which we don’t have, so maybe we should just ask him plenty of relevant questions instead. We urgently need to find out if he’s our Mr Perfect. After all, you can’t build a marriage on pasta alone.”

“Marriage?” squawked Nicks. “Who said anything about my mum getting married?”

“Well, isn’t that what happens when you fall in love? You get married,” explained Coral. But Nicks didn’t look very convinced. In fact, she looked like she didn’t want to think about it at all. Tightening her grip on Romeo’s lead, she quickened her step. It was a warm day and they’d already been walking for a while, so Nicks thought about a long cold drink instead.

There was the usual crowd gathering outside the Sea Life Aquarium; afternoons meant feeding time for the bigger fish and it was always worth queuing for. But today there seemed to be a different sort of commotion going on. The girls looked closer until they saw what it was that was causing all the fuss. And then they saw them–Meredith and Malcolm at the front of the crowd, handing out bits of paper and shouting about something. The girls moved closer.

“Come and see the sea star exhibition,” hollered Meredith to the crowd.

“And discover why the starfish is really a sea star,” added Malcolm with just as much enthusiasm.

Meredith noticed the girls and waved them over merrily. “Isn’t this great!” she cheered. “We’ve really drawn a crowd.”

Coral didn’t have the heart to tell her that there was usually a bunch of people waiting to see the big fish get fed. She smiled instead.

“Would you like a free pass to see the sea star exhibition?” offered Malcolm. “After all, we are neighbours.” He chuckled and Meredith chuckled like this was really quite funny.

“Erm, we’re just off…on an errand for Nicks’s mum,” white-lied Coral.

Nicks nodded, adding, “But could we have two free passes for tomorrow instead?” It was a Plan B, just in case Mr Selvaggio was not Mr Perfect after all.

“Alrighty!” agreed Meredith. “And don’t forget there’s the Sea Life Aquarium Open Day coming up soon.”

The girls nodded with interest. The Aquarium Open Day was something they looked forward to every year.

“And you be sure to join us on a beach scavenge sometime soon,” concluded Malcolm. “Dawn is such a dazzling time of day; we find such interesting marine life along the shoreline.”

Both Coral and Nicks nodded once more, even though the mention of the word ‘dawn’ made them feel very sleepy. Just then a man with a large belly covered in a stretched Hawaiian cotton shirt squeezed past Nicks. He was trailed by four small, round children carrying ice creams. They all shuffled past and joined the queue for the aquarium. They were followed by three sauntering surfer dudes who left wafts of coconut oil in their wake. And then an old man wearing holey clothes and a captain’s cap came hobbling along, carrying his stinky bait box. The day was hot, noisy and aromatic. There was nothing quite like summertime in Sunday Harbour. Nicks was more aware of this than anybody.

Finally Coral and Nicks and Meredith and Malcolm waved goodbye and went their separate ways. The marine scientists continued handing out flyers and the girls pressed on in the direction of Mr Selvaggio and Deli Antonia. Nicks had a very determined look in her eye.

The deli wasn’t very busy when they arrived and the girls peered through the large shopfront window while they secured Romeo’s lead to a post outside. Inside were two old ladies in tortoiseshell glasses seated at a small table near the wall. A man in a suit was hunched over the glass deli counter, studying the meat, cheese and pickles and making a small ‘mmm’ sound, like he was running off a generator. Behind the counter a short, dark man wearing a bright white apron stood and waited, silent and expectant. It was Mr Selvaggio. Both girls stopped and stared at him closely. He still had all his hair, which was slicked back with some type of oil. He skin was soft and a little saggy, but it was a nice nutty colour, and his moustache was very neatly trimmed. And he had warm black eyes that almost seemed to twinkle.