When Minnie arrived at the salon, she had a stitch in her side and her eyes were brimming with hot, angry tears. She let herself in and was surprised to hear shuffling and muttering coming from the back hallway. A second break-in?
She crept slowly through the dark salon; the black chairs were lumpy crouching shapes in the gloom. There was a light on near the back door.
A police officer. And Mum. They stood together looking at the lock Dad had replaced. The police officer was a blonde woman with a black briefcase. She had a uniform, but it was less bulky than Jimmy’s. Minnie realised the woman was wearing an Aertex shirt, rather than the protective vest that Jimmy wore. The shirt had ‘SOCO’ printed on the back in yellow.
Finally.
Though, by the look on the woman’s face, she was too late anyway. ‘I haven’t been able to lift any usable prints,’ she was saying to Mum. ‘I’m sorry. The back door is clean and the bedroom is too.’
‘Of course it’s clean,’ Minnie muttered. ‘You’re days too late.’
‘Please ignore my daughter,’ Mum said firmly. ‘People who are frightened can often seem rude. But then people who are rude seem rude as well. It can be hard to tell the difference.’
Why was everyone out to get her? Minnie stomped away from the two of them. She’d had enough of everyone today.
But even her bedroom wasn’t safe. Gran was sitting on her bed, reading.
Grr.
Minnie kicked off her trainers and threw herself on to her bed. She twisted the duvet until it was completely covering her. All she could see was the narrow canyon of world between the dark mattress and the shadowy duvet sky.
‘Bad day?’ Gran asked mildly.
Minnie made a noise that said, ‘Leave me alone!’
‘Friends or family?’
Gran wasn’t leaving her alone. Minnie tugged down the duvet a tiny, tiny bit until she could peep out and see Gran. She hadn’t moved, but her book had dropped into her lap and she was smiling at Minnie as though she could fix whatever it was that was wrong.
‘What?’ Minnie snapped.
‘Friends or family? It’s only people we really care about who can upset us like this. Stones thrown by strangers have no effect, but stones thrown by friends sting. Don’t you think?’
‘Is that from your book?’ Minnie asked crossly.
Gran laughed. ‘No. I made it up myself. I am hoping to see it printed on a tea towel and sell millions of copies so that we will be rich.’
Minnie pulled the cover down a little further. Now her whole head was sticking out. The rest of her body felt hot and weighed down. She kicked to get some air in.
‘Why don’t you tell me what went wrong, eh?’
Minnie sighed. ‘I had a row with Piotr. Because I had a row with Sylvie.’
Gran said nothing. She waited.
‘I was a tiny bit mean, I suppose,’ Minnie said. ‘But she deserved it. And Piotr shouldn’t take her side.’
Gran still said nothing.
‘And if she were nicer, then Derek might have been nicer. So it’s her fault really.’
Gran closed her book and set it on the window sill. ‘What will you do now that you are right but on your own?’
Was she right though? Somehow, Minnie knew that she wasn’t entirely one-hundred-per-cent right. She didn’t reply.
‘Sorry goes a long way, you know,’ Gran said. ‘Even the great tricksters in stories know that. We need our friends more than we need our pride.’
Gran stood up then with a puffing heave. She walked to the door. ‘You sleep on it,’ she said. ‘I’m going to speak with your mother. We never did sort out the egg business.’