It took two hours to drive to the village where our cottage was.
Then we spent an hour driving around in circles looking for the right cottage.
We started on what looked like the main street. Mum’s friend had given her an old, crumpled envelope with directions written on it. Mum read aloud.
‘Turn left at the shop,’ she said.
Dad sighed.
‘I know it’s not exactly Paris, but there are quite a few shops here. Which one do you think she means?’
Mum turned over the envelope,
‘Oh, there’s more writing here. “Bread, butter, brussels sprouts” … oh no, I think that must be Lucy’s shopping list. Sorry, Donal, I don’t know which shop she means.’
‘Could we phone her and ask her?’ asked Dad.
Mum shook her head.
‘Sorry. She’s gone on a meditation course for two weeks – no phones allowed.’
Dad gave an even bigger sigh.
‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ he asked. ‘That means we’ll have to try every turn, until we find the right one.’
He drove past the first shop, and turned left. Mum kept reading from the envelope.
‘Take the next right, then turn left on to the first lane you see. The house should be at the end of the lane.’
Dad did as he was told, and stopped the car when we came to the first lane on the left. It was very narrow and overgrown.
‘What do you think?’ he said.
‘Could be right,’ muttered Mum.
So Dad drove down the lane. It went on for miles and miles. Just when we were about to give up, we turned one last corner. Dad stopped the car again.
‘Wow,’ he said.
‘Wow,’ said Alice.
‘Wow,’ said Rosie.
‘No way,’ I said.
We were in front of a huge, white house. It looked like it had about a hundred rooms, and in front of it was a huge swimming pool.
Mum sighed.
‘Sorry guys,’ she said. ‘This time I have to agree with Megan. I don’t think this could be Lucy’s place.’
‘Should we go in and check?’ asked Dad hopefully.
Just then a man came out of the house, and walked towards us shouting loudly in French.
‘Er … Bon … jour …’ said Dad.
Mum opened her window.
‘Lucy?’ she said.
The man kept shouting.
‘Lucy?’ said Mum again, louder this time.
The man shouted even louder.
‘Don’t you two girls speak any French?’ he asked.
I shook my head. And even if I did speak French, I wasn’t sure I’d fancy practising it on this crazy Frenchman.
‘I know two French words,’ said Alice helpfully. ‘I can say “cake” and “castle” in French.’
‘Thanks,’ said Dad. ‘But I don’t think either of those words is what we need right now.’
‘Well, I only know about ten words of French,’ said Mum. ‘But even I can understand that this does not appear to be Lucy’s place. Turn the car around, Donal, and let’s get out of here.’
Dad did as he was told, and we drove away. I looked back to see the cross Frenchman waving his fist and still shouting.
We went back to the main street, and tried turning at another shop. This time we ended up driving right into a farm-yard. Ducks and chickens clucked around the car.
‘Oh, listen,’ said Alice. ‘The birds speak the same language as the birds at home.’
Just then, two dogs ran out of a barn.
‘Nice doggies,’ said Rosie, before they bared their teeth and started snarling like they wanted to kill us.
Dad didn’t wait to be told – he revved up the engine, and backed out of the farm-yard at top-speed.
Our third attempt led us to a tumbling-down cottage at the end of the narrowest lane we’d been on yet. There were no dogs, or shouting men, so we all got out of the car and stood in front of the house. If this was our holiday home, I so did not want to be on holidays.
‘What do you think, Sheila?’ asked Dad. ‘Is this it?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Mum. ‘I think Lucy would have mentioned it if her house didn’t actually have a roof.’
We all climbed back into the car. We were getting tired, and this really wasn’t much fun any more.
‘Right,’ said Dad. ‘This has gone beyond a joke. We’ll try one more time, and if we don’t find it, we’re checking in to the nearest hotel for the night.’
‘Yay!’ Alice and I said.
‘Over my dead body,’ Mum said.
So we drove back to the main street, turned at the baker’s shop, turned right, and then left on to a small lane. This time we ended up outside a tiny stone house. It had a sweet little red door, and there were climbing plants all around it. It was like a house from a fairy story book. And even better there wasn’t a dog, or a shouting man in sight.
‘What do you think?’ asked Dad, for what felt like the fiftieth time that morning.
‘One way to find out,’ replied Mum.
She fished in her handbag for the key Lucy had given her, and then she jumped out of the car. She went up to the front door, turned the key, and to our great delight, the door swung open.
‘Yay!’ we all shouted happily, as we tumbled out of the car.
Mum stood at the door of the house,
‘Welcome to your holidays,’ she said, as we all ran past her to explore.