Where Have All the Boys Gone? Read Online Free PDF Page A

her head and stared out of the window. She couldn’t believe she had travelled so far and was still in the same country – well, on the same island. Instead of small mean houses and grey buildings filling her window, there were dramatic hills soaring steeply up on either side of the track. The hills were dark colours, greens and purples and blues. It looked cold and austere, with occasional shafts of sunlight breaking through and theoccasional flash of something bouncing through the undergrowth – rabbits, probably.
    Katie shifted uncomfortably. She still couldn’t believe she’d applied for this job. It may as well be the rainforest out here. Olivia had thrown her hands in the air when she realised Katie had never even visited Scotland before.
    ‘Not even once? To take some crappy show to the Edinburgh Festival? School trip to the Burrell Collection? Horrible school holiday where it rained all the time and you lost your Pacamac, your sandwich lunch and your virginity all on the same day?’
    Katie looked at her curiously.
    ‘Not that that ever happened to me. Or anyone I know,’ continued Olivia quickly. ‘But that’s not the point. How can you have been to India and not to Scotland?’
    ‘Have you been to Northern Ireland?’
    ‘That’s not the point either. And I’m not the one who’s got an interview in a country I know nothing about. Which, by the way, you’re not taking, as I need you on the margarita toothpaste account. Where are you going to change your money? Are these interview people going to sort out your working visa?’
    Katie’s eyes widened. ‘I need a…?’
    Olivia put up her hands. ‘Oh God. This is going to go horribly, horribly wrong and we, your faithful, lonely, overworked, underpaid London spinster friends are going to have to find time in our packed schedules to pick up the pieces when it’s over. In about a month.’
    She’d been right about the money though, Katie thought, feeling for her coat pocket. She didn’t even know pound notes still existed.
    The letter had been brief.
    Dear Ms Watson,
    You are invited to an interview at Fairlish Forestry Commission at 4.30 p.m. Tuesday April 20th. You will be picked up at the railway station. Travelling expenses may be claimed.
    Yours faithfully,
    Harry Barr
    Katie had pored over this letter a hundred times, trying to read between the lines, of which there weren’t many, admittedly. Was she expected to stay overnight (given the length of the journey, she couldn’t really see any other way, barring a helicopter airlift)? Was she expected to find out lots of information on the commission by herself? She’d done as much crash-course research on national parks as she could manage, but she was very nervous that her obvious lack of experience would tumble out as soon as she opened her mouth. Then there was her Southern accent, which had made her few friends the four times she’d had to buy herself a connecting ticket on the journey so far.
    She smoothed out her wrinkled Tara Jarmon interview suit. This was probably an enormous mistake too. She should have probably worn rubber overalls and a Barbour. No, forget probably – there was no place here for anything but wellingtons. Where was she anyway? The train had already stopped at lots of stations that appeared to be in the middle of nowhere – Dundonnell, Gairloch – which seemed to be nothing more than platforms, with miles of scenery around them.
    The few people that were left on the train got off, including the woman with the sheep, until it was just Katie, her briefcase, a headful of terms like ‘judicious pruning’ and ‘sustainable development’ that she didn’t understand, and a slowly mounting sense of panic.
    The tiny train cut through a huge oversized valley and gradually slowed to a halt. There was one weather-beaten sign that said ‘Fairlish – Fhearlis’. Shocked out of her reverie, Katie jumped to her feet and stumbled about, as if the train were going to carry on