Page 99 - Mobile Magic

99
Thursday morning was rainy, Saffron had wet feet by the time she got to school. Schools on rainy days are particularly disgusting places. Saffron’s teacher made the class finish off their projects during recess. Everyone had to eat their lunch inside. It was really noisy and the classroom ended up covered with orange peel, spilt chicken soup and reject sardine sandwiches. It stank so much that the teacher kept them all in to clean it.
The friends organised to meet at the shopping mall at five thirty p.m. Late night shopping on pay-day was a big-thing in their town, everyone seemed really eager to spend their wages or social security money just as soon as they got it. “The money burns holes in their pockets,” Tom always said. Saffron wanted time to go out to Green Mountain first, before she met her friends. She had been thinking about Mobo and those phonecalls he had overheard - they worried her, she hadn’t seen him yesterday and wondered whether anything new had come up.
Saffron trudged out to the paddock in her wet weather gear. At least she had her gumboots on now, her feet felt like they’d never recover from being soaked all day - they’d been all pale and wrinkly when she’d finally pulled her wet shoes and socks off, as if she’d been in the bath too long. No one else was at the paddock. She caught and fed Magic and stood under the eaves of the shed watching her.
‘Hello, hello!’ came a voice from just above her. ‘I wait here