the beach past the old jetty – yes, there stood Sunday Harbour’s own row of beach huts. Coral could almost smell the salt air already. She tried to imagine number five in the row.
“For me?” she finally wondered out loud.
“That’s right.”
“When can I see it?”
Her mum shrugged. “Tomorrow, I guess.”
“Morning?”
“It’s your summer holiday – you can go any time you like.”
Her mum had a point. There was no school for weeks. Coral had her friends. And her very own beach hut!
“I must phone Nicks,” she squealed. She also needed to remember to breathe.
Her mum laughed. “Fine, but make it quick. It’s getting late.”
Like she was going to sleep anyway. But Coral’s mum wouldn’t want to hear that.
“Oh, yes, quick, quick,” she agreed as she scrambled out of bed and dashed into the hallway. She headed for the unpainted straight-back chair pushed up close to the wall and settled on to its hard tapestry cushion. It was not a comfortable arrangement, but her father liked it just so.
Just above her a wall-mounted phone shared space with a gold and dark wood hanging frame. But the frame didn’t hold a photograph or a pretty mounted picture. Instead, typed in simple black bold, were the words: PHONECALLS COST. KEEP IT CHEAP & CHEERFUL. Her father was a watcher of bills. He was an accountant; he couldn’t help himself. But at that moment Coral had far more important things to think about.
Reaching for the cordless handset, she punched in Nicks’s number while staring up at the ceiling. She could dial her best friend’s number without looking. It was a little game she played with herself (it was probably an only-child thing). Nicks answered on the eighth ring.
“Hello?”
“What took you so long!” Coral cried out passionately. Her news – stuck inside her for so long – had practically knotted up her intestines.
“Oh, hi, Coral,” replied Nicks evenly. “I was just getting ready for bed.”
Of course she was. But Coral was too excited to think sensibly. Her thoughts were a high-speed blur. She tried to snatch the words zooming around her head and place them into sentences, but it would have taken too long. So she simply caught them and threw them out, one by one.
“I have. Well. Actually. My Great-Aunt Coral. She gave me. Or left me. A beach hut. It’s mine!”
The phone was silent for a few moments.
“What beach hut?”
Coral was fizzing with excitement and had expected Nicks’s reaction to be just as delirious. Dumped back down to earth, she tried again.
“My great-aunt owned a beach hut,” she explained, slowing her pace. “It was her favourite place until she became very old. And now it’s mine.”
“Yours?”
“Seems so.”
“Really?”
“Definitely. It’s even called Coral Hut!”
Coral was suddenly very grateful that her parents hadn’t named her after Hildegard, her great-aunt on her mum’s side. Actually she was grateful for more than one reason.
“Wow, that is brilliant!” Nicks cried out gleefully.
“I know! And we can go and see it tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow? Double brilliant.” That was Nicks excited. She just wasn’t the squealing type. “So what does it look like?”
“Uh, I don’t really know.”
“I bet it’s ace!”
Coral closed her eyes and built a beach hut in her mind. It was cute and colourful and very girly and all their friends would think they were amazing for having it. She was so busy imagining it she forgot all about Nicks…until her father threw his deep voice like a bowling ball down the hallway. “Say good night, Coral!”
That knocked her out of her daydream.
“See you tomorrow morning very early, Nicks,” Coral whispered. “Good night.”
She didn’t know about a good night, but it would certainly be a long one. She climbed back into bed and snuggled up to the warm hairy bundle beside her. Life was good. Even Romeo’s doggy breath didn’t seem quite so bad.
“Coral, have some breakfast, please.”
“But Nicks is waiting for me!”
Coral’s mum pushed a piece of toast with honey into her hand. “Well, eat it on the way then.” She inspected her daughter’s head of crazy curls and reached for her handbag. “You haven’t even brushed your hair.”
Coral faked left and bolted right. But she wasn’t quick enough. She was suddenly in the midst of an energetic hairbrushing. Nicks’s neatly combed blonde head peered round the kitchen door.
“There’s toast made, Nicks,” advised Coral’s mum.
“I’ve already had scrambled eggs, thank you.” Nicks smiled.
Coral scowled. What did breakfast matter when the beach hut was waiting? Romeo chewed at her laces. He knew something was up and he was just as eager to find out what.
Finally – released from the brush – Coral and her two best friends made a swift dash for the beach, flying down alleys and past houses in a blur. Finally they arrived at a neat row of beach huts standing one beside the other in a straight, sea-facing queue. Of course the girls had seen the huts before, but things were different now. The beach huts were all the same, but they weren’t. One of these huts was now theirs.
The slice of toast in Coral’s fingers had gone cold and soggy. It wasn’t designed for breaking land-speed records. She ignored it and stared with eyes like two shiny coins, her mouth open and round, ready to ooh and aah as soon as she found Coral Hut. Nicks’s gaze too was fixed on the huts. Romeo, though, was more interested in the toast. He stood up on his back legs and nibbled around Coral’s fingers.
The huts all had narrow double doors with windows on either side. Every single one had a small deck with a railing and sloping roof. And yet each beach hut was different. Some were colourful. Others were plain. Some had their own fancy features like wagon-wheel deck railings and carved wooden window shutters.
“What number did you say Coral Hut was?” asked Nicks with a wrinkled-up face. The bright early-morning sunshine dazzled her.
“Number five,” Coral called out as she counted.
Nicks used one hand to shade her eyes and pointed with the other. “That must be it then.”
Coral followed her finger. But that hut was dull. It was nothing but bare, bleached wood. There was nothing special about that hut.
Coral mooched over to it. The key slipped in first time. She breathed in sharply. Now all she had to do was to open the double doors. She glanced over at Nicks nervously. Her friend shrugged and smiled: it was only a beach hut. She nodded – and pushed. Inside, the beach hut couldn’t have been more different…
It was a breathtaking, girly heaven. So there were cobwebs, but she could see through those. Coral did a quick whizzaround the small room and then started back at the beginning, sucking in each detail and swallowing it down like a sweet treat. Everywhere was light and summery, with wooden walls whitewashed in cottagey-white. Coral smiled. There was a white wroughtiron daybed pressed against one wall with a sturdy, pink-painted straight