The Secret Keeper (67 page)

She scratched her head and nodded. ‘And funny. He makes her laugh, and he always makes her tea, and did you know he saved her life? That’s how they fell in love—Mummy dropped off the side of a big deep cliff, and she was frightened and alone and probably in mortal danger, until my Daddy dived in, even though there were sharks and crocodiles and certainly pirates, too, and he rescued her.’

‘Did he?’

‘He did. And they ate cockles afterwards.’

‘Well then, Laurel,’ the man, Jimmy, said, ‘I think your dad sounds like just the sort of fellow your mum deserves.’

And then he looked at his boots, in that sad-happy way of his, and waved goodbye. Laurel watched him go, but only for a little while, and then she started wondering how many cart-wheels it would take to get all the way down to the stream. And by the time her mother got home, and her sisters too—the brand new television set in a box in the boot—she’d all but for-gotten the kind man who’d come that day and helped her with the hens.

Table of Contents

THE SECRET KEEPER

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Part Two

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Part Three

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Part Four

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four