Artists Town-a FREE TO READ coming of age tale (SAMPLE ONLY)

Are you the cool girl around here?

AUTHOR'S NOTE - this book is set in 1990/91, which means it contains language and attitudes common in those times, especially in small, rural places.

The A75, August 1990

"When I'm eighteen and a proper, proper grown-up, the world will be at my feet; I won't need to go anywhere I don't want to. I'll do what I wish all the time."

The thought must have flitted across her mind a hundred or so times in the last few hours. It began urgently, belligerently and then segued into what the eighteen-year-old Daisy would do with her freedom.

She would not, no way in the whole wide world, sit in the back of a car heading for Nowheresville. This, she promised herself. The would not's were easier to think up than the woulds. Her imagination found the alternatives trickier to flesh out.

Maybe she and a mystery friend closed the front door behind them and darted off, parent-free, to seek out adventures. Perhaps they were parties. There might even be...boys.

"Years ago, a lot of artists lived in this town."

Oh, God. Incoming, incoming dull info alert. Her father used his special voice, the 'family, listen carefully; I'm going to tell you something interesting' tone.

Daisy wondered how her mother put up with it. Daisy had only endured it for the last ten years if you didn't count ages 0—5 when presumably she hadn't taken account of such things. Her mum, on the other hand, must have listened to him drone on for the last seventeen years.

Urgh.

She glanced out of the car window. The scenery hadn't improved. Trees, fields, grass, water. Times twenty. It had looked exactly the same for the last two hours.

Then they turned off the main road, the fields giving way to houses that gradually got closer together. A sign welcomed them to the town, her father informing them that the man pictured there was a saint, Cuthbert, and he carried the decapitated head of an olden-days king.

Matthew, luckily for him, had fallen asleep at Carlisle. His head lolled, sometimes to the side, sometimes falling onto her shoulder. When it did, she shrugged it off as quickly as possible.

Her mum turned in her seat now, her expression anxious and probing. Daisy hated that.

"Daisy, do you want to do a blood test, love? We haven't done one since this morning."

We? What's this 'we' thing? I don't see you stabbing your finger to make it bleed.

"I'm all right." She did her best to make her voice sound neutral. Too aggressive, and her mum would insist she does the test, convinced she knew better than her daughter. Too flat, the same thing.

You couldn't bloody win when it came to sodding blood tests.

The car had stopped outside a terraced house, its exterior displaying a sign: 'Vacancies. Enquire within'.

"Inquire."

"What's that, love?"

They all exited the car, Matthew shook grumpily awake. The four of them stood in the street, looking up at the sign, Braemar Quality B&B.

Vacancies. Enquire within.

Quality was an optimistic description, Daisy reckoned. The place was tiny—the windows really small and draped with dirty-looking lace curtains. One curtain twitched, and the front door (red paint flaking) swung open.

"Aye?"

The woman crossed her arms.

"Mrs Burnett?" Her dad embarrassed her all the time. Now he was doing it again. He said Mrs Burnett like, Ooh, Missis Burrrnettt. The woman looked at him scornfully throughout.