On the TV news, they say wind.
There’s a blurry video of the deckchairs near the toddlers with shouting and juddering camera angles. The newscaster is talking over the top of the pictures: ‘… shocking holidaymakers and surprising Albert Fogg, longshoreman …’ There’s a shot of Albert Fogg looking hot and bothered. ‘… and how did it end? This is from eyewitness reports. It seems that the deckchairs blew into a handily placed beach barbecue because they, and I quote, “appeared to vanish in a cloud of sparks”.’
Grandma raises her eyebrow and continues to knit. She’s making what appears to be a church cosy for the model village – made of recycled plastic string from the beach. ‘Anything to do with you, Tom?’
I shake my head. I could tell her, but then I’d have to say I shrank the deckchairs in full view of hundreds of holidaymakers and that wouldn’t go down at all well.
Next, after a brief history of the town, the camera settles on the mayor. He’s also looking hot and bothered. The interviewer sticks a microphone under his nose. ‘What do you make of today’s events?’
The mayor beams into the camera lens. ‘It’s just a storm in a teacup so to speak.’ He smiles again. ‘Nothing to alarm anyone, no harm done, nothing more than a freak wind at the wrong time of year and, for those who do decide to holiday in Bywater-by-Sea, there’s free ice cream – yum yum.’
‘So the free ice cream doesn’t have anything to do with your forthcoming mayoral election?’
‘No,’ says the mayor. ‘Not at all.’
‘It does,’ says a familiar voice off camera. ‘It has everything to do with it. Admit it – you’re buying them.’
Oh no. Mum.
The camera swings to Mum’s face. She’s holding Tilly’s hand very tightly as it happens.
‘And you are …?’ asks the interviewer.
Mum kicks Tilly and a snarling Tilly holds up one of Mum’s posters, showing it for a nanosecond before the camera judders off to one side. ‘Yes – I’m Sarah Perks, running on a ticket of transparency …’
The interviewer makes embarrassed throat-scraping sounds. So does the mayor and the camera swings round to the beach again, which looks peaceful and empty.
‘Gosh,’ says Grandma, switching over to the wrestling.
‘Tom,’ says Dad, appearing beside me. ‘Bored?’
‘Not really,’ I say. ‘I’ve got one or two things – pieces of homework – in my bedroom,’ I lie.
‘Oh, they won’t take you long. I thought you might like to make a potato clock with me,’ says Dad.
‘Seriously?’ I ask.
But Dad trundles off into the kitchen anyway. ‘Can we try a potato and a grapefruit?’ he shouts to no one in particular. ‘I just want to see if it works before I show it to the littlies.’