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“NOT YOU AS WELL?” WAS Hector’s greeting as I entered the bookshop.
“Good morning to you too,” I said, hanging my coat on its usual peg.
In the absence of customers, he came out from behind the trade counter to give me a toothpastey kiss. Taking the bag of wool from my hand, he held it up to the light from the shop window, as if examining a goldfish I’d won at a funfair.
“Tell me, Sophie, what’s going on? Half the mums I’ve seen walking up to school this morning, and at least one of the dads, have been clutching bags like this. Is it some sort of coded symbol? Have you all joined a secret society, and this is your badge of office?”
“No, but apparently there is some sort of covert plan afoot. I’ve yet to find out what.”
I took the yarn back from him and set it down on the tearoom counter. As soon as I’d put the milk in the fridge, I delved inside the bag in search of Carol’s secret message.
I squeezed the balls of yarn until one of them crackled, indicating a piece of paper rolled up and tucked inside like a message in a fortune cookie. Unfolding it, I read aloud the single word written on it in capital letters:
“Yarnbombing.”
I glanced up at Hector, who seemed as puzzled as I was.
“You’re going to bomb Wendlebury with yarn? Hardly a weapon of mass destruction.”
I shrugged. “I suppose a big enough ball might crush a person. Not these, though.”
I lobbed the forget-me-not blue at his head. It bounced noiselessly off his right ear.
“Imagine, death by a thousand balls of fluff,” I said.
Hector picked it up and threw it back. It landed neatly in a sugar bowl.
“So what is yarnbombing exactly?” he asked as I dusted it off over the sink.
“Don’t ask me, I’m not entirely sure. Why don’t you Google it while I make our morning coffee?”
I filled the water reservoir of the coffee machine as he interrogated his laptop’s search engine.
“Oh, I like the sound of this,” he said after a moment. “Listen to these alternative names for yarnbombing: guerrilla knitting, graffiti knitting, kniffiti. Sophie, you vandal! Better not let Bob catch you in the act.”
Bob is the policeman who lives in the village a few doors down from Hector’s House.
“The thing is, I can’t actually knit yet. First I need to learn.”
He pursed his lips. “I’d refer you to one of our craft books, but while you were dropping deliveries into the village school yesterday, I sold the last teach-yourself-to-knit book to Tommy’s mum. She had one of those bags of wool too.”
Tommy is a local teenager who spends a lot of time in the bookshop, for the company rather than the love of reading. His mum doesn’t usually go out much in the village. I hoped this project might encourage her to emerge from her post-divorce reclusiveness.
“I don’t think anyone’s allowed to leave the village shop without one at the moment.”
“So there’s a higher purpose behind it than genteel vandalism?”
I dropped a coffee capsule into the machine and pressed the button to fill Hector’s favourite mug.
“It’s for charity. We’re to knit scarves for the homeless, to keep them warm in winter.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Aren’t you a bit young to be knitting? I thought it was the preserve of the elderly.”
I took him his coffee and lingered behind him, draping my arms round his shoulders as I leaned over to look at his laptop screen.
“Sorry if you think I’m being staid. Would you like me to ask Carol to set up a charity pole-dancing event instead?”
He was silent for a moment while he contemplated that prospect. Then he patted my hands affectionately.
“Your aunt didn’t knit.”
“So? Auntie May might be my role model, but I don’t copy her blindly. And if I did, I’d be sleeping with Joshua instead of you.”
Joshua was my elderly neighbour and my late aunt’s former sweetheart.
Hector grinned sheepishly. Not that I’ve ever seen a sheep grin.
“Touché.”
I prodded him between the ribs, where I know he’s ticklish, and he tensed, trying to resist.
“Anyway, if this knitting craze is sweeping the village, you stand to sell a lot more knitting craft books. You’d better stock up. And put my name at the top of the waiting list.”
I knew that would bring him onside.
