Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Heart of the Matter
Chapter 2 - Home is Where the Heart is
Chapter 22 - Hearts in the Right Place
The sky above Coral curved like the inside of a giant beach ball, dipping and fading to blue before gently dissolving into the ocean’s horizon. She squinted at the edge of the world, her red-brown hair curled like a head of bedsprings, bobbing around her. The horizon definitely looked like the edge of the world. It was the edge of her world, anyway. She scanned the enormous sandpit before her. The beach that morning was full of children with their buckets and spades, making shapes out of the soft, warm sand. A boy dripping wet from head to toe raced out of the sea before flopping, belly-first, on to a patch of dry sand. He rolled left and right until every bit of him was gritty and yellow before tiptoeing up to where a woman stood waiting to catch a Frisbee. Before she could do anything to stop him he had given her a full-body hug. She yelped. He laughed gleefully. The sky above was suddenly filled with a whirring sound and an aeroplane droned across the sky with a long canvas tail that seemed to flick and ripple in the wind. Coral stared with a wrinkled nose until it was almost overhead. The canvas tail had a message: BEST OF LUCK SARA AND JEFF… LOTS OF LOVE. The aeroplane continued on its way, as if to the sun, pulling the flying message across the sky. Coral shook her head. She was suddenly annoyed. Just who had wished Sara and Jeff the best of luck? Would Sara and Jeff know? “Coral? Coral, can you hear me?’ Coral turned towards her best friend. “Mmm?” “You actually have to move the broom to make a difference.” Coral stared at the broom she held like a dance partner in her arms. There was a dent in her forehead from where she’d been resting against it. Her friend was right, she hadn’t done much sweeping. The thing was - she hated sweeping the beach hut. Unfortunately, her friend Nicks hated sweeping too. So every week they were taking it in turns. It was just that it always felt like it was her turn. “What’s the hurry, Nicks?” Coral grumbled. After all, they were on their summer holiday. Suddenly, and without warning, there was a loud thump-whack sound coming from the glossy red beach hut next door. Both girls’ heads spun in the direction of the hut. They stared, silent and blinking. “Did you hear that?” whispered Coral. “Oh yes.” Nicks’s reply sounded like a hiss. “We didn’t imagine it then?” Nicks shook her head slowly. This wasn’t the first time they’d heard strange noises coming from the neighbouring glossy red beach hut either. And yet they had never ever (ever) seen a single soul enter or leave the place. It was always locked up tight with its shutters closed like two sleeping eyes. Just then a shadow flitted across the window, and then it was gone. “Did you see that?” gasped Coral, her lips hardly moving at all. She didn’t want the watcher to know she was talking. Nicks nodded and gulped. She had definitely seen that. They both stood still and silent, staring - almost wishing for another sight or sound because that might just offer some perfectly obvious explanation as to what they’d just seen and heard. All of a sudden a dog started yapping. Both girls jumped like they’d been electrocuted. But it was only Romeo, Coral’s Jack Russell pup. “Romeo!” they both groaned aloud. Romeo took his guard dog duties very seriously. “We’re probably just being silly,” said Nicks. “I’m sure the noises aren’t anything.” Nicks had always been a sensible sort of girl. She’d never been the type to get tangled up in an overactive imagination, and she didn’t want to start now. “But I definitely heard and saw something,” insisted Coral. Nicks shrugged. “We’ve heard strange noises coming from the red hut
