North of Nowhere Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t have a best friend. That was really sad. Maybe
I
could be her best friend, at least for the week. I didn’t have
any
friends here!
    I turned to the final entry. It had today’s date on it.
    So here I am, sitting in the boat in Porthaven harbor, waiting for Father again. He always takes SO long. He told me to be back promptly, so I abandoned my friends and came to meet him. Now I’m thinking I could have had another half an hour with them, as I’ve been sitting on my own waiting all that time. I’ll give him a few more minutes and then I’m going to look for him. He said he’d be back right after the auction, but I know what he’s like. He’s probably in the pub with his friends.
    The pub! D’s dad was one of the men from Gran and Grandad’s pub. Maybe we knew him. Maybe I’d even seen her!
    I read on.
    I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Father has promised I can help him at the auction. Not that that kind of thing usually excites me, but the auction at the Sunday market is always a bit different, and my friends will be there with their families too. With any luck, we can all give our parents the slip and have some fun while they do their boring business!
    OK. He should definitely be here by now. I’m going to go and look for him.
    See you later, diary,
    D
    I closed the diary and placed it back in the locker. Suddenly, I was torn between feeling guilty for reading someone else’s private diary and being excited at the thought that I might actually have found someone in this town who I could be friends with.
    “What do you think, Flake? Shall we try to find the mysterious ‘D’? Hey, that’s almost a name! I’m going to call her ‘Dee’ from now on!”
    Flake looked up at me and wagged his tail. I laughed and reached down to give him a hug.
    Whatever I decided to do, I had to go back to the pub first. It was starting to get dark. I must have been out for at least an hour, and Mom and Gran would be wondering where we were.
    Flake and I jumped off the boat and walked back up to the beach. Flake chased seagulls and barked at seaweed while I hurried back toward town, wondering if my new friend might even be waiting for us in the pub.
    “There you are! Get Flake in the back and dry him off, and then you can help us collect some glasses,” Gran said as she offered me a grateful nod and a tight smile.
    I decided that Gran’s welcome was really her way of saying, “Oh, you darling girl, you’ve been gone ages. We really missed you, as we love your company more than anything and hate it when you’re not here,” and I went in the back to do as she said.
    I dried Flake with an old towel that hung on the back door. I was more than happy to help collect glasses, as it gave me a chance to check out everyone in the pub and see if I could find Dee’s dad — and maybe even Dee herself.
    Only, there was no one within about fifty years of my age, and I was pretty sure that none of the men were Dee’s dad, either. For one thing, they all looked too old, and for another — well, they just didn’t look how I imagined her dad to look.
    I spent the next half hour helping to clear tables and wash glasses, and trying not to think too much about how slowly time passed in Porthaven.
    I was just starting to feel in desperate need of an escape when Gran gave me one.
    “Amelia, dear, would you empty the trash, please?” she said. “Put it in the big green garbage can at the end of the path.”
    Normally, taking a bag of trash out would have been fairly near the bottom of any list of things I would be likely to get excited about, beaten only by chewing off my own toes and eating them for dinner. But on this occasion I didn’t mind.
    I pulled on my coat, grabbed the smelly trash bag, and took it outside to the green waste bin.
    Then I glanced down the road toward the harbor.
    Maybe the boat was still there. Perhaps I’d just missed Dee and her dad leaving the pub.
    I could be there and back in less than ten