Alarm Girl Read Online Free Page A

him if he wrapped them up he said he wasn’t very good at that kind of thing so I asked him who did but instead of telling me he said it was elves.
    He got his big load of keys and showed us behind the house where the garden was and where there was a little round cottage for guests who come on holiday. It’s got a thatched roof that looks like a pointy hat and inside the ceiling is a dome. It’s the exact same shape as a beehive so now I know what a bee feels like. Next to the cottage there was a giant hole for a swimming pool. Robin jumped in, even though there was no water because the swimming pool wasn’t made yet. Dad was laughing because he was doing front crawl up and down with no water and showing him his butterfly and backstroke.The earth inside the hole wasn’t brown like in Grandad’s flowerbeds. If you were drawing it you would have to add red to the brown to get the right colour. Next time we come the hole will be a swimming pool and we can swim in it, and there are going to be some seats under the shade of a big tree, but for now there’s a tyre swing. Dad made it specially for us so we had a go. I got black stuff all over my hands from the tyre but it was insane. Dad pushed us really high and it was my best moment so far.
    Night-time came with no warning. We were on the tyre for ages and it was sunny and hot then suddenly it was dark and even a little bit cold. I didn’t know Africa could be cold. Dad said it’s because there are no clouds to keep the air warm. This was the time of day the mozzies get busy so we had to go indoors and put long sleeves on.
    There was a black man in the kitchen. He had a knife. I hid behind Dad and that made him laugh – No need to be shy, Indy, he said, this is Silumko, our wonderful chef. Silumko was chopping vegetables. He didn’t say anything, he just smiled. Dad said we were having shepherd’s pie for dinner. He knows shepherd’s pie is Robin’s favourite. He lit some candles that smelled of lemons and he said if we listened carefully we might hear lions. Some were nearby and we could go out to see them. He didn’t mean straight away, he meant the next day. I was glad we didn’t have to go on safari right then. There was a giant bowl of crisps on the table. I wantedone but no one else was eating any, not even Robin and he loves crisps. When I took one it tasted of soap. I spat it out and I was quickly going to hide it but Dad saw me. He laughed and said to Silumko that I was so hungry I was eating pot-pourri.
    After dinner, instead of just leaving us to go to bed by ourselves like Nan does, Dad came in to our rooms to say goodnight. He saw my malaria pills on the little table and he got annoyed with Nan because there’s no malaria at his house and those pills were too strong, he said. They can make you crazy. He asked where Nan got them and when I said she ordered them online because she was scared of us getting malaria he was angry because he already told Nan the last time we Skyped that we didn’t need them. I was going to ask if we could Skype Nan and Grandad to say we had arrived like Dad said we could and to say night-night but because he was in a bad mood I didn’t.
    Dogs were barking in the distance but not our one. Dad said he would only bark if there was an intruder. I put my Alarm Girl under my pillow and Dad said the guard that stands outside the gate would let us know if there was anyone trying to get in. Plus the tangled-up barbed wire, plus the burglar alarm that automatically contacts the police who come straight away.
    I couldn’t get to sleep. The TV was on but Dad wasn’t watching it. He was talking on the phone to someone. I heard him telling whoever it was about my malaria medicine but it wasn’t Nan he was speaking to because Iknow he doesn’t speak in that kind of voice to her. When he saw me in the doorway he told whoever it was that he would ring them back. Can’t sleep, treasure, he said, and I said I thought it was a shame the