Oh dear. I’m not exactly taking her advice. But what harm can I possibly come to?
I look nervously over the rail, down at the frothy, churning firth. I could lose my balance and topple in. Somebody could deliberately push me and I’d plunge down into the dark, foaming water and perhaps be sucked under the hull of the ferry. These are scary thoughts.
I turn my head towards the green hills of Cumbrae. It’s going to be ok. We’re nearly there already. The slipway is ahead and I can see the familiar blue bus waiting at the stop. It will be weird being in Millport without Jenna, but I am determined to enjoy myself. There are no alternative holidays on offer, so I need to make the absolute best of this one. And I can get away with not going in the sea. Swimming in it isn’t that enjoyable anyway, as it’s so piercingly cold. I cross my fingers and hope that I have left the ghost behind in Largs.
“Wishing yourself luck, are you?” says a voice at my ear. I jump in the air, startled. There’s a girl standing next to me. Not a ghostly girl, a real live one, with short jet-black hair and eyes as soft and brown as chocolate buttons.
“Wow, that’s an overactive startle response,” says the girl, frowning mock-seriously. “I diagnose some kind of terrible trauma requiring a long period of rest and recuperation. How long are you staying for? I would recommend a month for a full cure.”
“Oh, just a week,” I reply, a bit warily. “I come every year with my gran. What about you?”
“I live here,” says the girl. “All year round. I’m a prisoner on this island. The guards let me out on occasional accompanied visits to the mainland, if I’ve been well behaved and kept my cell clean.”
I giggle. She is funny, this girl, and I’m always impressed by people who can make me laugh. I also love her bright, eccentric clothes. She wears a loose apple-green cotton top and fuschia-pink velvet shorts with rainbow-striped socks and lace-up walking boots.
“My name’s Lily,” I tell her. “I’m from Largs. My mum believes I need to see the world so she has sent me on this eight-minute voyage to a faraway land. I’m only to come back if I succeed in making my fortune.”
“There aren’t many ways of getting rich in Millport,” grins the girl. “You might be here for a while, after all. Where are you staying?”
“My gran has booked a caravan, out towards Fintry Bay,” I reply, suddenly wondering how Gran and I are going to make it there with our luggage.
“Maybe I’ll see you around. The guards allow me a short period of daily exercise,” she says, grinning widely at me. “I live on Stuart Street, next to the Wedge. Britain’s skinniest house! I’m Aisha, by the way.”
She turns away and clumps down the metal ferry steps, two at a time. The doors are being lowered. They clang onto the slipway, and I follow Aisha down the steps, back to Gran.
As I lug the cases up the slipway and on to the bus, followed by a puffing, red-in-the-face Gran, I hear a shout and turn to see Aisha waving from the open back window of a silver Audi.
“Good luck with seeking your fortune!” she yells. “Let’s meet up tomorrow. About eleven o’clock, by the pier!”
I wave back, and can feel myself grinning widely. Maybe I won’t be lonely on this holiday after all.
Gran shoos a boy off his seat so she can sit down near the front of the bus.
“Move your lazy carcass,” she demands. “You shouldn’t be sitting down when there’s a poor frail old lady having to stand.”
The boy’s mother glares and mutters, but doesn’t argue with my gran. Few people are brave enough to do that. The bus rumbles along the narrow, winding road and I cling to a metal post to prevent myself being tossed to the floor. The driver seems determined to break our necks and as the bus swings round every bend, I imagine us swerving off the road onto the rocky shore. Gran clutches the bar in front of her seat and criticises the driver’s skills loudly enough for everyone, including him, to hear.
“Lily, don’t let go of that bar. The man’s a maniac!” she yells, and I blush with mortification.
I gaze out at the rocky foreshore, hoping for a glimpse of a grey seal, but the only wildlife I can see are the hordes of gulls and a small group of pretty sandpipers, their heads bobbing as they search for insects on the rocks. As the bus drives past an enormous lump of volcanic rock shaped like a squatting lion, I squirm with excitement in my seat. We’re nearly there!
“Gran, look, there’s the Lion Rock!” I can’t resist saying, even though she can hardly miss seeing it.
An elderly man looks up at me from his seat and smiles. “It was meant to be a bridge to the mainland, but when the elves realised they couldn’t finish it, they kicked big holes in it,” he told me, his eyes twinkling. “That’s why there are no elves on this side of the island. But there are plenty left in Fintry Bay.”
“Bill McInnes, don’t you be telling my granddaughter daft fairy tales,” retorts my gran. And then, delighted to find someone she knows, she starts relaying all of her ailments to him.
“I’ve had a terrible year, Bill,” she begins, with grim satisfaction. “My arthritis has been playing up something terrible. You would not like to see how swollen my joints are on a bad day…”
I bet the poor man wishes he hadn’t opened his mouth to speak to me.
Finally, the bus arrives in Millport town and I stare out of the grimy window at familiar landmarks: Crocodile Rock, the garishly painted boulder which only vaguely resembles a reptile; the ancient crazy golf course; the smartly renovated Garrison library and museum; Mapes’ bike hire and toy shop; the Ritz café and, at last, the old pier, so crumbly that it is due to be demolished.
“Gran, we need to get off the bus,” I say urgently, because she is so busy discussing her aches and pains with old Bill that the bus could turn and head back to the jetty before she’d notice.
“Oh, you’re right enough, Lil,” agrees Gran amiably. She is being unusually pleasant to me and I wonder if she is trying to impress Bill. Maybe she fancies him. What a gruesome thought.
We stagger off the bus when it stops at the pier and begin the difficult trek to the caravan site, me lugging both bags and Gran wheezing along behind me, complaining with every step. Then, to my huge relief, a car slows down beside us and the driver shouts for us to get in.
It’s one of the local ladies Gran has got to know over the years and the woman kindly gives us a lift out to the site. I can’t thank her enough, as I think I would have ended up carrying Gran as well as the bags if we’d had to walk.
“How’s your Bert doing, Gladys?” asks Gran, when she has squeezed herself into the front seat of the tiny Fiat. I’m crushed in the backseat with all the bags and Flora, an enormously fat, foul-breathed spaniel, who keeps trying to use me as a comfy cushion.
“Oh, it’s been terrible, Morag. He has had three minor attacks since Christmas. He’s not a well man. He sits there in his armchair looking out the window all day long. And I say to him, Bert, you’ll have a proper heart attack if you don’t get out that chair and take a bit of exercise now and then.”
I can imagine the contentment stealing across Gran’s face. Nothing seems to make her happier than talking about illness.
“Oh, that’s terrible, Gladys. I have a dicky heart myself. I thought that walk with those heavy cases might be the death of me.”
It might have been, if you’d actually been carrying them, I think grumpily, glancing down at the red marks on my hands.
“It’s lovely to see your wee granddaughter again. Milly, is it? She’s grown like a weed since last summer! How are you getting on at school, dear?”
“Lily’s top of her class in English,” says Gran, answering for me with a big fat fib. “She starts high school in August.”
“She’ll be at university soon, I expect. Won’t you, Milly?”
I sigh with relief when I realise we’ve arrived at the caravan site. I push Flora off my knee, drag the bags out of the back seat, thank Gladys and help Gran to heave herself out of the car.
/> We’re here!
I have a feeling Gran won’t want to travel far from the caravan this week and I hope I’m not going to be stuck in the campsite the whole time, keeping her company.
We’ve stayed at this site before and Gran knows the owners. As she heads in to collect the keys she stops for a chat and I sigh and sit on the case, waiting for her to finish yapping. A warm breeze is blowing through the long grass and I can hear bees buzzing. It’s very quiet and peaceful, but I worry that it might be really, really boring out here.
It feels like a lifetime before we finally reach our big green caravan. Propped outside is a smart shiny blue bike.
“That’s for you to use while we’re here,” says Gran. “I organised it through the site owners so that you can get out and about. I want you to have a great holiday. You’re a good girl, Lily.”
I wrap my arms round my gran’s plump middle and give her an enormous squeeze.
“Thanks so much, Gran! It’s fantastic. I thought I would just be hiring a bike by the hour now and then. I never thought I would have one all to myself for the whole week!”
We explore the large, comfortable caravan, which takes all of five minutes.
“Can I have this room, Gran?” I ask, pointing to the middle-sized bedroom.
It has bunk beds with green floral duvets and sunshine-yellow curtains. I throw my fake Gucci holdall on the bottom bunk and then undo my water lily charm and attach it to one of the belt loops on my jeans.
I look around, feeling pretty pleased with myself. It is going to be bliss having a room of my own for a week and a bike to cycle into Millport when the caravan site is too quiet.
Gran calls me to come outside and admire the view. It’s glorious. Sunlight is sparkling on the firth. High in the sky a buzzard is circling. Gran squeezes her ample bottom into a folding chair and closes her eyes.
“I’m just going to have a wee nap, Lily. That was a tiring journey.”
I think how much worse it could have been if that kind woman hadn’t given us a lift.
“Would you like me to head back into town and get us some supplies?” I ask, desperate to be out exploring on my bike.
Gran agrees, hands me some money out of her huge handbag, and goes back to snoozing happily in the sunshine, head curled like a giant dormouse.
***
I cycle out into open countryside, sea on one side of me and grassy hills on the other. White-sailed yachts skim through the water, trails of spray left in their wake. It’s so quiet that all I can hear is the mewing call of the buzzard and the slap of waves breaking against the rocks.
This is going to be so much fun, especially if the weather stays sunny. But I know that if I wish for a week of sunshine I’m tempting fate. This is Scotland, after all.
When I come to a small beachy inlet, I steer the bike on to the grass and jump down to the sand. Shoes pulled off, I dip one foot in the sea and withdraw it immediately. Perhaps not. The water is freezing – absolutely Baltic.
“Lily McLean!” shouts a cross voice behind me. I whirl round, and find myself almost nose to nose with the ghost. She can swim after all. Or maybe she took the ferry and the bus, like a normal person.
“Will you stop creeping up on me!” I yell, recovering from my fright. “You keep telling me something bad is going to happen, and then you scare me half to death! If I have a heart attack, it will totally be your fault.”
“I ask you not to go near water, but you don’t listen!” she says, sounding angry and desperate. “Why won’t you listen? I’m trying to keep you alive!”
“It’s only my big toe, for goodness’ sake,” I retort. “I don’t breathe through my toes. The rest of me is still up here in the fresh air. Stop stressing! You’re dead already, you might as well chill. It’s all over.”
“I’m not dead,” she says, in a shocked voice. “What are you on about?”
I can see her a little more clearly than last time. Today she is wearing jeans and a t-shirt. How often do ghosts change their clothes? Her eyes are dark and glistening with tears. Suddenly I feel guilty about being so grumpy with her. She seems so slight and vulnerable. And I shouldn’t have said that about it being all over for her. She clearly doesn’t realise she’s a ghost.
“Look, if you will stop haunting me, I promise that I will stay away from the water all week,” I say, more gently. “It’s a total pain, because this is my summer holiday, and I am on a little island surrounded by the sea on all sides, but if it keeps you happy and out of my hair, I will promise.”
She smiles as I say these words. She has a really lovely smile, which lights up her face. It has an actual glow, or perhaps that’s just the sun shining through her. She’s still almost transparent.
“Thank you, Lily,” she whispers. “Thank you so much. You have no idea how much that means to me.”
I suddenly feel desperately sorry for her. Poor little thing. Maybe she died in an epidemic of plague or an outbreak of cholera or typhus or something. Kids were always catching stuff like that in the olden days. They didn’t wear t-shirts and jeans though.
She slowly fades and leaves me standing, alone and barefoot on the deserted beach. I back away from the gently lapping waves. I have made her a promise, and I intend to keep it. Besides, the sea is absolutely freezing anyway. And if it means she will leave me alone, I can avoid the water this holiday. I slip my shoes back on, get on my bike and head into Millport to buy teabags, butter, bread and a pint of milk for Gran and me. I might even treat myself to a marshmallow ice cream from the Ritz café.
Chapter 10
Reasons why this is a mixed-up kind of day:
People keep getting my name wrong.
Aisha seems to enjoy almost getting herself killed.
She tells me some secrets… but I can’t tell her mine.
The next day the weather is overcast and dull, but at least it’s not raining – yet. After a big breakfast of toast, square sausages and scrambled eggs, I hang about the caravan with Gran, playing snap and gin rummy, but I can see she is impatient to get rid of me. Yesterday evening, after dinner, Gran went on a wee wander round the campsite and bumped into an elderly woman who is staying in a nearby caravan. The poor old dear has been talked into inviting Gran over for a cup of tea and a chat. By chat, my gran really means that she will talk and the other lady will listen: no interruptions, thank you.
I put on my new shorts, a t-shirt and Jenna’s pink cardigan. I clip my water lily charm onto the zip of my backpack.
“I’m going to pop into Millport, Gran. Do you want anything?” I ask.
“Just get me a Sunday Mail and some bacon,” says Gran. “I’ll get the other essentials at the campsite shop tomorrow.”
I head off to meet Aisha at the pier.
She isn’t there when I arrive and I swing out on my bike to cycle along Stuart Street. The town is Sunday-morning quiet, though I know it will get busier soon when the buses arrive from the ferry. Some of the shops are already open and I go into the newsagents to buy my gran’s newspaper. Gladys is standing at the counter, with her big smelly spaniel in tow, chatting to the owner about the weather.
“Oh hello, dear!” she says cheerily. “Agnes, this is Morag’s wee granddaughter, Milly. Hasn’t she grown since last year?”
Agnes clearly doesn’t remember me at all, but agrees that I have indeed grown. I am hardly likely to have shrunk, am I?
I smile, stuff Gran’s paper into my backpack and hurry out of the shop.
There’s a strong breeze and foamy waves slap against the sea wall. I pass the Wedge – it’s so skinny, there’s barely room for the front door, though I guess it must widen out towards the back like a slice of pie. I remember Aisha saying that she lives next to the Wedge, but there’s no sign of her.
I whizz past the crazy golf and the old fashioned swings, all the way to the Crocodile Rock. I turn there and zoom back along the sea front, loving the feeling of the wind in my hair.
Then I see Aisha, in her
butterfly colours, speeding up the pavement on a battered red bicycle towards me.
She does a wheelie as she approaches, and then leaps off the bike. Aisha seems to do everything at a hundred miles an hour.
“Hi, Lily! Good to see you again. I’ve permission to be absent from the prison for an extended leave, because it’s the weekend.” She beams at me, catching her breath. “How best to spend this precious time? Do you want to cycle right round the island, go rock-pooling round the Crocodile Rock or head out on my brother’s rowing boat?”
I think for a moment. Normally, I’d jump at the chance of going out in a boat. We could have rowed over to Little Cumbrae. It would be really exciting. But…
I’m not a crazy person, but if somebody warns you not to do something and you get the feeling you might die if you do it, the sensible thing is to listen to that warning. Even if they are a ghost, or a figment of your imagination. My ghost has warned me to stay away from water, and I’m keeping my promise.
“Let’s go for a cycle,” I say. “I’m really keen to try out this bike.”
I think Aisha looks a tiny bit disappointed, but she agrees that a bike ride will be great and we set off.
She cycles faster than anyone I have ever met, possibly faster than proper cyclists like the ones in the Olympics. We are lucky the roads are quiet, because Aisha has clearly not passed her Bikeability training at school. She rides in the middle of the road and swerves out in front of traffic. She’s a bit crazy, to be honest. I’m beginning to think that the rowing boat would have been a safer option.
“Hey, did you see that lunatic of a van driver!” she yells from up ahead. “He shook his fist at me!”
“That’s because you were lurching over on to his side of the road and he thought you were going to come crashing through his windscreen, Aisha!” I shout. “Be careful or you’ll end up on the beach!”
Aisha veers off the grass and bounces back on to the gravel verge, her tyres skidding dangerously.
“Why don’t we stop and have an ice cream at Fintry Bay?” I suggest.
The Mixed-Up Summer of Lily McLean Page 8