Heart of the matter

😃Hey everyone, this is my first book. I hope you like it.😍

They sky above coral curved like the insides of a giant beach ball, dipping and fading to blue before gently dissolving into the oceans horizon.

She squinted at the edge of the world, her red-brown hair curled like the head of bed springs, bobbing around her.

The horizon defiantly 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 read out the sea before flopping, belly-first, onto a patch of dry sand

He rolled left and right.

Until every bit of him was covered in gritty, yellow sand, before tiptoeing up to a woman 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 whirling 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 it way, as if to the sun.

Pulling the flying message across the sky.

Coral shock her head.

She was suddenly annoyed.

Just who had wished Sarah and Jeff they best of luck?

Would Sarah and Jeff know?

"Coral? Coral, can you hear me?"

Coral turned towards her best friend.

"Mmmm?"

"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 dent in her forehead from where she'd been resting against it.

Her friends was right, she haven't done much sweeping.

They thing was - she hated sweeping the beach hut.

Unfortunately, her friend Nicks hated sweeping too.

So every week they were taking turns.

It was just that it always felt like it was here turn.

"What's the hurry, Nicks?"

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.

Booths girls heads spun round in the direction of the hut.

They stared, silent and blinking.

"Did you hear that?"

"Oh yes." Nicks replied

Nicks shook her head slowly.

It's wasn't the first time they'd heard strange noises coming form the neighbouring glossy red beach hut either: and yet they had never 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 flittered 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 there'd just seen and heard.

All of a sudden a dog started yapping.

Both girls jumped like they had been electrocuted.

But it was only Romeo, Corals 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 have been the type to get tangled up in a over active 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 form the red hut before." insisted Coral

"It's the first time we have seen anything strange though." Replied Nicks reasonably.

"So what should we do about it? Who should we tell?" Said Coral

"Tall about what?" Sighed Nicks "We've no proof that anything strange is going on. OK, we've heard a few noises..... So what?"

That was true.

Nicks had a point: apart from the thump,-whack and a vague shadow, what else did they really have?

"So what should we do?" She asked instead

"We should finish cleaning the beach hut and then concentrate on Cupid Company business," replied Nicke sensibly.