Changing Prudence (EDITING - ON HOLD)

Chapter 4

The next morning, she woke feeling great after having an amazing night sleep, until she saw her microscope out on her desk and remembered what she had seen last night. Did she really see that happen or was it a dream? She wasn’t quite sure. She had a relatively good birthday yesterday and looking back, she was quite surprised she had gone out in that dress without boxers underneath. She would have never done that a couple of months ago.

She had a problem now though. She had to figure out if she should tell someone what happened last night. But they would probably think she was crazy. Or mad. Or they might say it was just a dream, it was quite late last night. It may well have been her mind playing tricks. But if it was, how could the leaf tissue under the microscope be explained?

She decided she was crazy. There was no other explanation for it.

She walked down stairs to find a plate full of toast and her family sitting at the table tucking into their breakfast.

‘Morning!’ Cole shouted in a rather high pitched voice.

‘Mornin’.’ She grunted in reply. It was highly unlike her, she was if anything a morning person.

Her parents picked up on this and turned round to look at her questioningly. ‘You alright, did we overdo the meal yesterday? Was it really as bad as you thought it was going to be?’ Her mum sounded worried as she fretted about whether she had made her daughter’s birthday miserable.

‘No, of course not mum, it was actually surprisingly good. And look at how many presents I got.’ She tried to lighten up by faking a laugh to stop her mum from worrying. She really did have a good day, so she wouldn’t have her mum thinking otherwise. Unfortunately though, this didn’t work.

‘Is it something your granddad said when we dropped him off? We saw you two talking and it didn’t look particularly cheerful...’ she thought back to yesterday and knew that was the reason she was so miserable this morning. ‘And then you wouldn’t talk in the car afterwards, that’s definitely why isn’t it!’ she was getting excited as she knew she had the right answer.

‘No, I’m fine nothing’s wrong... I... I just had a bad dream that’s all.’ She hated lying to her parents so she avoided their eye contact and didn’t speak for the rest of breakfast.

- - - - - - - -

Harriet was having none of that, as soon as Rue had left the table, she picked up the phone and dialled Ben’s number. He picked up on the second ring as if he was anticipating a call. He sounded on edge when he answered, ‘Hello?’

‘Hi Dad, what were you and Prudence talking about after the meal yesterday? She didn’t say a word on the way home, she went straight to her room when we got back, and now she’s in a right grumpy mood! You better not have said something to upset her!’ she said all of that in one breathe because she was so confused with Prudence’s mood.

‘What makes you think that was all down to me?’ There was a short silence and he knew he had been rumbled. ‘Okay what’s wrong, anything unusual?’