Page 37 - The Mermaid Call

massive gravel driveway. I knew the DeLacey house was dead posh; I could see that when I rowed on the lake, but up close, it was even bigger and grander, a palace almost.
I straightened my old blue anorak and patted down my rain-sprung hair and I chewed on my lip as I stared at the buzzer on the stone plinth beside me and. . . I bottled it. My shoulders routinely slumping; I turned away.
Whoosh.
A pair of tanned legs shot into my peripheral eyeline, stretching out long and lean and bronze against the stone-grey sky.
Vanished again.
I shifted my gaze back between the iron bars.
Alice. Soaring through the sky. Her hands clutching the rope of a tyre swing tied to a
broad oak tree. Her straight, glossy hair rising and falling like a veil of sunshine behind her. “Alice!’ I called, waving, jumping, so she’d see me behind the gates. Something with
wings was stirring. “It’s a deal. I’ll be your Watson!”