As soon as Robert Clarke opened the front door Nana Spence jumped up from her armchair.
‘What took you so long?’ She barked.
Ignoring his grandmother, Rob handed out the polystyrene containers and bags of chips. The table had already been set so everyone tucked straight into their dinner.
‘Do we have any ketchup, dear?’ Uncle Jeff asked his wife.
Everyone who knew Uncle Jeff knew that he ate tomato ketchup with everything. He would have corn beef hash with ketchup, scrambled eggs with ketchup, crackers with ketchup and worst of all ice cream with ketchup.
Robert was thankful that Uncle Jeff was just having it with his fish and chips tonight.
Aunt Jane looked in one of the kitchen cupboards and passed Uncle Jeff a bottle of tomato sauce.
‘Love you,’ they sang to each other and sealed their words with a kiss.
‘Ugh!’ Rob, Bertie and Nana Spence all shuddered.
Nana Spence was unsurprisingly the first to finish dinner. Rob fended off his grandmother’s greedy fingers as she tried to take some of his chips.
‘You’ve eaten yours!’ Rob snapped, ‘Now let me eat mine!’
‘But I’m still hungry,’ Nana Spence whined.
‘Well I did buy you chocolate,’ Rob nodded towards his coat. ‘It’s in the inside pocket,’ he added.
Nana Spence got up from her seat and took the bar of chocolate out of her grandson’s coat.
‘Oh yes that reminds me, any change dear?’ Nana Spence chimed.
‘It’s in the inside pocket,’ Rob replied.
‘Ah good, good.’
Nana Spence scooped the money out of her grandson’s coat pocket and sat back at the kitchen table, throwing squares of chocolate into her mouth.
Rob finished his dinner and helped tidy the kitchen table. He melted the chocolate he had bought from the local shop and poured it on top of the Rice Krispie Cake. He put the dish back in the fridge and sat back at the table.
Aunt Jane placed the profiteroles she had made onto the table and delicately poured chocolate sauce over them and Bertie put the chocolate tart he had made next to the profiteroles.
‘Oh that looks delicious!’ Uncle Jeff and Aunt Jane sang in unison.
‘Who would like a slice?’ Bertie asked.
‘Oh I wouldn’t mind just a small slither,’ Nana Spence piped-up.
‘Rob? Do you want some?’
‘Yes please,’ Rob smiled.
Robert ate dessert, eating both the chocolate tart and the profiteroles and then went upstairs to bed. He had eaten well and his room was warm; sleep came quickly.
As Robert Clarke slept, three men not standing near one another or knowing of each other’s presence watched the house to see if the boy would venture to the beach this evening.
‘I don’t think he’s going tonight,’ the man with the beard softly spoke to the miniature dachshund sitting by his feet. ‘But still, I will wait until morning.’
One of the other men, in fact it was the man who usually smoked a pipe, sighed impatiently and checked the sharpness of the knife he kept in his long coat.
The third man, the man with the red eye, was the furthest from the house and watched patiently, waiting to be proven correct about what he had predicted and all the while Robert Clarke was sound asleep, dreaming about whatever twelve year old boys dream about...
YOU ARE READING
The Bearded Man and The Ghost Girl
Teen Fiction'Robert first saw the ghost girl standing in the churchyard. Her hair was long, her skin was pale and her body glowed, bathing the nearby graves in a cool white light. She was unlike any girl Robert had seen. Her face was unconventionally beautiful...
