by T H Paul
The Penn Friends Series Books 5-8
Penn Friends Boxset
T H Paul
Copyright © 2018 by T H Paul
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
The Rage of Penny
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Author Notes
The Joy of Penny
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Author Notes
The Darkness In Penny
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Author Notes
The Penny Black
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Titles in Season One
Author Notes
The Novels by Tim Heath
The Rage of Penny
Book 5––Penn Friends series
Is doing the right thing always a victimless action?
1
Everyone needs to go a little crazy once, don’t they? Maybe I never really stopped.
This account was bound to come out sooner or later, so you might as well know about it now––I’m not especially proud of it, though if you asked me do I regret it, I don’t. Not most of it, anyway, and probably not for the reasons you might imagine.
It happened over the course of one weekend. I was seventeen. My mother had literally just vanished, leaving me parentless, yet full of rage that I had no idea was there. I’d suppressed it all for so long. It was that weekend that it decided to come flooding out. And once I started, I wasn’t sure I could stop.
I suddenly had a brand new car, and I needed to test it out. I learnt a lot about myself those forty-eight barmy hours I took that road trip.
Penny Black sat on her bed in the corner of her room. Her house was silent. Too silent. There was no longer the sound of her mother scampering around, trying to remain unheard as she once again topped up whatever beverage was the flavour of the month. Brandy, beer, wine––it all seemed the same to Penny’s drunk of a mother. Now, there was only silence. Her mother was gone.
Penny had a book of stamps resting on her knees as she sat there, pondering, though her thoughts weren’t helping her much. She’d moved the stamps into her room the day her father had left a couple of years before. She didn’t know why. It had been the only thing she had kept that had belonged to him. Everything else had been thrown out by Penny’s mother. The stamps had to stay.
Her mum had never asked about them. Maybe she assumed he’d taken them with him. They were by far the most valuable item they owned. Penny had stored them under her bed. If her mother had come into her room, it would have been easy enough to hide the collection––it wasn’t ever particularly or especially hidden. Her mother just never ventured into her daughter’s bedroom. Too far from the alcohol, no doubt.
Penny didn’t care about any of that. She wondered at that moment, on that quiet morning, the house very definitely to herself, why she’d kept this particular item. It was most probably valuable, that was for sure, though Penny had no idea of how much it might be worth. She’d not been a philatelist herself, could never see the point. Stamps were commonplace. You buy them from any post office or shop. They mostly go unnoticed on the top of a postcard or letter, not that she ever received physical mail anymore. Who sends post by snail mail anymore, she thought.
Yet these stamps looked nothing like the ones she had in mind. They were all much older. Much rarer, her father had always gloated. Glancing through the pages, she could see a certain appeal, though wasn’t going to admit that to even herself. They were often more substantial than usual stamps, some apparently much older than even her parents.
The back pages contained the most valuable of all. These included the stamp that gave Penny her name––a Penny Black. It wasn’t one of the most valuable examples of that iconic stamp, its value in the thousands instead of tens of thousands, but it was her father’s pride and joy. She knew that much about it. She often felt inferior to the stamp––she shared the name, but the collection stole her father’s love from her.
Now she had it. He’d taken some of the collection with him––either that or her mother had seen to its disposal––but had left this one final book. The highlight of his collection. Was it because it contained that original stamp and his most valuable of all? Was it because it might only remind him of his real Penny Black and what he’d walked out on? She didn’t know. At that moment, she couldn’t care less. She had it now. She could sell it without the slightest hesitation. But she had never considered that. It was the sole link to her father and getting rid of it had never crossed her mind. She wouldn’t, however, dwell on that thought.
Penny closed the book. She slid it back under her bed and got up to stretch. Out of her window, she could see her new car. Just laying her eyes on the shiny metal glistening in the sunshine was enough to put butterflies in her stomach. It was hers. She would have to take the car on a proper journey. She needed a couple of days away; that chance and the weekend was approaching.
She checked the clock. It was gone eight in the morning, and school started in less than forty minutes. Penny scrambled for the shower––thankfully, it was just her now, which meant there was no queue, no mother fighting to get ready. That said, her mother had long since stopped rising at that hour. She was jobless, the drink meaning no employer had touched her for too many months already.
Less than fifteen minutes later Penny was out through the front door, locking it behind her as she walked almost at a jogging pace and headed to school. She would still get there a few minutes before the first bell and would work through her seven subjects that Fridays required, all the while looking forward to that coming evening. She was going away, and no one was going to stop her.
Had such a trip occurred a few years before, there might have been some girls with whom Penny would have shared the exciting news. Maybe one or two would have been going with her. Penny didn’t now have that option, though wasn’t for one moment upset about that fact. She felt freer than she had ever felt, able to come and go as she pleased, with unrestricted access to a car and no one could stop her now.
As the final bell went for that week’s lessons, Penny was one of the first girls out of the classroom. She barely glanced around as the door closed, already on her way home. Her car awaited on the drive, and Penny needed to get ready for the weekend ahead. She’d always walked to school, and though she now had a car, she’d not changed that h
abit. It might lead to too many questions––they weren’t the wealthiest of families, and that would lead to rumours. Penny didn’t want that kind of attention. Plus, there was no parking at the school. It was more comfortable to walk.
Penny dropped a few items into a bag. There needed to be enough for two nights, she knew that much but was yet to work out where she was going to head. That was part of the thrill. It was to be all as unexpected as possible. To go with the flow, to drive and see what happens. To make the most of the opportunity. To be lost in the crowds for at least one weekend.
By six that evening, she’d munched down a few slices of toast that would constitute her dinner, and was sitting in the lounge with a road atlas on her knees as she sipped some coffee. She planned to leave by about half six––in thirty minutes––and didn’t really want to still be driving at ten. That limited the full extent of her options, though she could move on come Saturday.
She would head north, she had decided. She’d settled on Blackpool as a fun place to hit the following day. It was too far to reach that night, so she’d have to mark out a route and stop somewhere. But she’d head to the seaside town and its amusement arcades the following morning.
She downed the rest of the coffee, used the bathroom and dropped her bag into the boot. It felt strange to be leaving home, with no one there to say goodbye. No one would know she was gone. That was both a sad thought and an equally exciting one. She could be anyone she wanted, go anywhere she wanted, at least for two days, anyway. The weekend was an unwritten chapter, and she was about to create what she hoped would be a masterpiece.
She knew she needed this trip. Just shutting that front door had taken effort. The home was full of too many memories––most were painful and still thorny. She was hurting. She had never let it all out. She’d bottled it deep inside like she had always done. Like she’d done when Abbey walked out of her life. Her former best friend now too busy to spend time with her anymore. Penny had never talked about it, never opened up her heart to someone enough so that she could deal with it.
For one weekend, Penny would leave all that on the doorstep. She was going away to be free, and even if she had to pick it up again on her return, it wasn’t coming with her. She needed this. This was therapy.
She jumped into the front seat. She still wasn’t used to the feeling of being behind the wheel of her own car. With the whole weekend ahead of her––she’d taken time off work––nothing was blocking her now. Nothing to do, no people to please. Penny pulled the car out from the drive, her little cul-de-sac quiet, few neighbours visible and no one paying any attention as the seventeen-year-old drove from that part of the city. She navigated the small side streets that would take her to the main roads. Here the traffic started. It was Friday evening, after all. She hadn’t quite factored that into her thinking. Sitting at the traffic lights, it took three sequences before she was through. She nearly didn’t make the third time, either, as one driver aggressively cut in front of the patiently waiting line of cars, pushing in front of her and everyone else.
Her blood boiled.
2
Whether you’ve been a driver for a long time or like me at that moment, just a few weeks, you soon learn that some road users feel they own the road. That they have some divine right to drive however they want, to cut in on other drivers, to jump the queues. As if they are more important than everyone else.
And I’m not going to generalise here, but they all usually drive the same sort of cars. Expensive, high powered vehicles. Their driving very much in keeping with their apparent wealthy lifestyles.
Well, that Friday, as I was setting out on what was to be an adventurous weekend, or so I hoped, I was rudely interrupted by that idiot in his silver car with the letters TWB on his licence plates. He’d pushed in, and I was going to follow him. I had nowhere else I needed to be, and I was curious to see where this imbecile was in such a rush that he deemed it necessary to jump ahead of everyone else legally and patiently queuing. I mean, if he had a sick child in the car, or a family member in A&E, I might understand. I needed to know. Where was this guy going? What made him drive like he did?
Because if he were just doing it because he could, he’d just cut up the wrong girl. I could do something about it. I could stand up for all drivers and tell him enough was enough. I could make him suffer. And I would.
Penny slammed her horn as the Audi swerved violently in front of her. She’d been sitting in traffic for ten minutes. All around her own vehicle cars were crammed, making journeys, most of which Penny presumed were drivers heading home after a long week. She was going the other way. She’d been sitting in a long line of cars waiting to turn right. Dozens and dozens of cars bunched together, creeping forward a little as four or five cars made the turn through each sequence of lights. The left two lanes were fast flowing, the junction ahead somewhat clearer. It was from there that the Audi with the TWB plates snuck ahead of them all at the last possible second.
His response to her remonstrations should have told her enough––she watched him raise one finger to her as he pulled in front. She cursed him, instantly incensed and shaking her head as she sat there, the lights turning and the driver in front racing away as if it were the start of a Grand Prix. It was stupid. Just fifty metres down the road the traffic sat, queuing again. There was no cutting ahead this time. Penny pulled behind him seconds later, and for the next five minutes, they crawled down the road as they approached the next junction. The registration plates became fixed in Penny’s mind as she did her best not to focus on it, but failed miserably. He once again opted for the shorter of the three queues, as if heading straight on this time and not taking the junction to the left, which was where most of the traffic was queuing. Then he cut across the chevrons, sitting beside the two cars at the front of the traffic, now awaiting their turn. The lights changed to green as Penny saw him make a move, and something in her snapped. She copied his move, receiving angry horns herself as she sped after him.
He’d raced away at the change of lights, cutting across both lanes so that he was soon on the furthest one left, and Penny had to speed excessively to even keep him in sight.
She tailed him for ten minutes, his driving in keeping with everything she’d seen up to that point. If there were a chance to get ahead, to undertake or cut in, he would take it, and Penny would do her best to follow while trying to keep her rage from totally boiling over. Her stomach was at that point performing loops, her gift ready and posed. She just needed to know there wasn’t a valid reason for such driving, no noble cause this man was pursuing. That thought would be firmly settled just moments later as the Audi swung in dangerously to a curb and double parked, blocking another vehicle, the door opening as the man got out, as if completely oblivious to the potential inconvenience he had just caused. He jogged into a bookmaker.
Penny pulled into a free space outside a newsagent's a few shops down––she’d missed her chance to park nearer him following his erratic stop––and waited, wondering what she was going to do. She’d got a brief glimpse of the man as he’d left his car, though not enough to necessarily identify him in a crowd. Besides, the way he had abandoned his vehicle, Penny knew he wasn’t planning on being long. She could currently only identify him by his car––it was not enough to be able to use her gift on him quite yet.
Less than three minutes later, he ran back out from the bookmakers and without any delay, jumped behind the wheel. He pulled out at speed in front of a bus, which had to slow dramatically, Penny actually seeing one of the passengers on the bus nearly thrown to the floor. The bus driver hooted his horn. Mr Road Rage just waved it away.
Penny continued her pursuit. She was sure Mr Road Rage––as she was referring to him by that point––had no idea he was being followed. Calling him Mr Road Rage worked for her as Penny had no other reference for him besides the registration plates, which Penny wasn’t going to imagine were the initials of his name. She wouldn’t put it past TWB, however, but re
fused to dwell on it. Penny also had little idea where she was––London all looked the same to her––but she could work that out a little later. Right now she just needed to follow and thankfully given the time of day and the busy streets, even someone driving as oblivious to the road laws as this man was, she was able to keep him in sight. She copied every turn, mirrored every move he made, only once having to perform an illegal manoeuvre as he again skipped a queue he didn’t consider himself lowly enough to have to join. Penny didn’t now care much about the abuse her own driving was receiving. She had him firmly in her sights. She wasn’t going to let him get away with this.
He finally pulled up outside a pub, this time parking in an actual space––though crossing the line between the two previously free bays so that another car couldn’t now fit beside––and he walked slowing in through the main doors. So, no hospital then, or dying family member. This was just how he drove. She kind of knew that already. It was far from the first driver like him she’d come across. They seemed to form their own club.