The Arrival of Missives (15 page)

'It's all somebody else's business until you make it your own,' he says, and it is very hard to argue with that.

He is looking handsome in the early morning light, his hair unkempt, shivering in his shirt sleeves, and it is intriguing to see him astride a bicycle. I did not know he could ride one. This one has two seats; the one behind him is free.

'It's a tandem,' he says, helpfully.

'I can see that.'

'It cost all my money. I bought it for us, when – back when—' He takes a gasp of air, and then says, in a rush, 'I am so sorry that I told my father, but I could not make sense of it, and some things are difficult to hide.'

'I know. I know that now. I should not have asked it of you. Nobody should keep secrets for another, I suspect. It does the world no good at all.'

'I'm to take you to your grandparents until after the funeral and the police catch…' His words peter out. Heaven knows how the murder has affected him, although whether he chooses to make it the centre of his life is entirely up to him, of course. How hard-hearted I have become in my thinking. I even surprise myself with how much I have changed from that foolish girl who fancied herself in love.

'I'm not going that way. I'm going to Taunton.'

He squints up at the sky. 'This sounds like an old daydream come back to life.'

'It is far from that.'

'Well, let me get you there. And further, if you want.'

I shake my head. 'You have no inkling of what you're getting yourself into.'

'You could explain it to me as we ride. It's a long way to Taunton.'

'I could try, I suppose, as long as you pay attention.'

'Well,' he says, as I struggle with my skirts so that I can climb on to the second saddle, 'just as long as you don't write it down. It seems to me all the troubles come when people start writing things down.'

He is filled with good sense today, and we push off together with the right foot, and only wobble a little on the first mile. Cycling comes naturally to me.

I split my attention between the morning sun over the hills and the contours of Daniel's beautiful back. His presence gives me an optimism I have not felt in months. I will find the other rocks, and I will smash them all. I will wage war against those that deem me, and others like me, unimportant.

I will fight to make this world a better one.

Acknowledgements

First up, thanks to my personal rocks: Nick, Elsa and Harley.

I'm glad to get an opportunity to thank everyone who worked on this book and did such a brilliant job. That goes for Jana Heidersdorf, Rob Clark, Martin Cox, Gary Budden, Henry Dillon and George Sandison.

This being a book about teachers, I'd also like to say thank you to some great teachers I know and admire. They include Peter and Eileen Whiteley, Helen Whiteley, Rebecca Denton, and David Ian Rabey.

For those people who teach me and have taught me how to be a good friend, writer, or person through example – thank you: Jim Ovey, Neil Ayres, Tim Stretton and all the MNWers, George Sandison again, John Griffiths, Anna Wanigasekara, Rob Kemp, and the one-woman Crafty Revolution and hostess extraordinaire who was Francesca Kemp. I miss you Fran.

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L. Frank Baum,
The Marvelous Land Of Oz

Just not right now.

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Table of Contents

Also available from Unsung Stories

The Arrival of Missives

Acknowledgements

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