The Trouble Series

Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

From: Alivia Howard

Sent: Sat 21 Dec, 11:25 am

To: Sarah Henley

Adam Anderson

Subject: The robots won’t find us here

Squeeeeeeee! I’m gonna be home tomorrow night! I’ve missed you guys so much (and Logan too, but he’s a gigantic butthead for ignoring all of us since we left school, so I’ve finally given up on trying to make contact with him). ANYWAY, you are hereby officially invited to my house on Tuesday. 10 am ish. Please respond with one of the following:

1) Yes

2) Yes!!

3) Oh, HELL YEAH, I’ll be there.

As you can see, ‘no’ is not an option. I’ll text you the code on Monday morning. See you on the other side!

xx Livi

P.S. Be ready for an overload of junk food. My hosts have insisted on feeding me rabbit food for the entire year.

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From: Sarah Henley

Sent: Sun 22 Dec, 7:08 am

To: Alivia Howard

Adam Anderson

Subject: Re: The robots won’t find us here

My response: 1, 2 and 3! Can’t wait to see you both!

P.S. I’ll bring the zoo biscuits.

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From: Adam Anderson

Sent: Sun 22 Dec, 7:43 am

To: Alivia Howard

Sarah Henley

Subject: The robots will always find you

4) I’d rather have every hair on my body plucked out individually.

5) Kidding :) Obviously 1, 2 and 3.

P.S. I brought home a backpack stuffed full of American choc / candy / biscuits / other life-threatening junk food. You’re welcome, Livi.

P.P.S. I thought that most recent photo of you on f*******: looked suspiciously like a lettuce leaf …

_________________________________________

From: Facebook

Sent: Sun 22 Dec, 7:48 am

To: Sarah Henley

Subject: Aiden Harrison has accepted your friend request

_________________________________________

I’m lying on my tummy on my slow-leak mattress typing a reply to Adam about how individual plucking of his hair can most certainly be arranged when the f*******: email about Aiden accepting my friend request pops up. Feeling a zing of anticipation shoot through me, I tap my way to my f*******: app and log in for the first time since I logged out on Friday morning. Now that we’re officially f*******: friends, I can check out everything Aiden’s posted on his wall. And that does not make me a stalker. Everyone does this. It’s just one of the ways people get to know each other in the modern age.

Wait. Hang on. That probably means Aiden’s checking out my profile. Eeek! I quickly go to my own page and scroll through it to see if there’s anything overly embarrassing there. Aside from some less-than-attractive photos of Jules and me posing at various tourist destinations in London, my page seems fairly tame.

I navigate back to Aiden’s page and start looking through his recent activity. He doesn’t seem to be on f*******: too often, not like those people who post and comment and share and like hundreds of things every day. The most recent item on his wall is a digital artwork of a ship on a choppy sea with a woman standing at the bow looking out, her hair blowing back from her face. A dramatic sky is filled with orange, red, and dashes of purple, the colours reflected in the water. It’s originally from a page called The Luminaire Artist, and Aiden’s shared it along with one word: ‘Awesome.’ I have to admit, I agree. Sophie would definitely appreciate this.

I open a private message to her—no way am I sharing the image directly from Aiden’s page, otherwise he’ll know I came straight online to snoop around his profile—and type, ‘Found this cool artist’s page on sss. The Luminaire Artist. Kinda reminds me of some of your stuff. Check it out.’

I’ve just pushed ‘Send’ and gone back to Aiden’s page when a shout from downstairs—“Breakfast is ready in ten minutes!”—reminds me that Nan said she was cooking a fry-up for everyone this morning. I drop my phone onto my pillow and jump off the mattress. I am so not sitting at the breakfast table with creased pyjamas and hair that looks like several mice crawled through it during the night.

I grab my shower stuff from my suitcase as Elize rolls over and mumbles, “Mmwawasthat?”

“Breakfast in ten minutes,” I say, then run down the passage.

By the time I get back to the bedroom, she and Simone are gone. I hurry downstairs to the dining room and find the enormous table already crowded with people. Matt waves me over, and I slip into the seat he saved for me before everyone looks up to see who walked in late. The table is laden with plates of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, sausages, tomatoes, baked beans, and toast. Despite having already consumed a ton of food this weekend, my stomach grumbles in anticipation.

Matt squeezes my knee and says, “I’m glad to see your face doesn’t look anything like Rudolph’s.”

I frown at him. “Rudolph?”

He gestures across the table. I look up, and when my eyes fall on Aiden, I start laughing. “Oh no! How did you get so burnt?”

Aiden touches his red cheeks and his even redder nose. “I thought I put sunscreen on, but I must have imagined that part.”

“I guess your English skin just wasn’t ready for our sun,” Matt says. There’s a tightness to his voice that matches his grip on my knee. He smiles at Aiden, but I know him well enough to know it isn’t a genuine smile. “So,” he says, turning back to me, “everyone seems keen to hang out by the lake today. Shall we take one of the rowboats out?”

“Uh, yeah, that sounds nice.”

“Cool.” Matt reaches for the nearest serving spoon and starts dishing food onto my plate. “I guess you’ll have to keep out of the sun today, Aiden” he says. “Wouldn’t want that burn to get any worse.”

Matt stays close to my side for the remainder of the weekend. He says it’s because he wants to spend time with me after our weeks apart, but it kinda feels like he’s watching me. By the time he and I leave mid Monday morning, I’m feeling rather smothered. Saying goodbye to everyone I know in the farmhouse takes a bit of time—and is hardly private—so I don’t get to say much more to Aiden than ‘Goodbye,’ ‘Nice to meet you,’ and ‘Maybe I’ll see you again before you leave.’ I half expect Matt to start interrogating me about my last words to Aiden the moment we’re in the car, but he doesn’t mention it.

“You know,” I say once we’re driving down the dirt road away from the farmhouse, “I could have driven myself here. Now you have to drive all the way back after dropping me off at home.”

“It’s fine,” he says, his eyes on the road. “I like driving you around. Besides, I’m seeing an old school friend this evening. Wiggins. You remember him, right? So I’m only driving back here tomorrow.”

“Christmas eve,” I murmur, wondering how it snuck up so fast.

“Yip.” Matt turns onto the tar road. “Big family Christmas at the farm.” He turns the radio up as a news broadcast comes on. I watch the mountains growing smaller and wonder if this is what the rest of my life will be like: Matt in the driver’s seat and me doing little more to influence the direction of our journey than a passenger.