Second Fiddle by Siobhan Parkinson Page A

that the jam people had the pips made specially out of wood to put in the jam, so people would think it was really made of raspberries, but I didn’t believe that. It was obviously made of raspberries, because it tasted of raspberries. Besides, there was a picture of raspberries on the front of the jar. That clinched it, in my view.
    The door creaked open. I wasn’t surprised. My grandfather always opens doors by pushing at them with his stick. I knew he’d shuffle in after the door in a moment, and he did.
    â€œThat Brendan Regan you were asking about,” he said.
    â€œHmm?” I said, not looking at him, pretending not to be all that interested. I carefully lined up the top slice over the bottom slice and reached for a bread knife.
    â€œHe’s living over in Ballymore, on the main street, in a flat over the dry cleaner’s.”
    â€œIs he?”
    â€œHe is. Why do you want to know?”
    â€œOh, it’s just that … Hey! There’s a wasp! They love jam, don’t they? Bit early, though, for wasps, isn’t it?”
    There was no wasp. I just didn’t want to have to answer my grandfather’s awkward questions, so I went hunting around the kitchen with a rolled-up newspaper and whooshed the imaginary wasp out the window.

Gillian
    â€œOver the dry cleaner’s!” I said. My nose curled up when Mags told me what she’d found out. “It must be smelly!”
    â€œYes,” she said. “But that’s not important. The point is, we know where to find him. Will we pay him a little visit?”
    I didn’t answer. Mags looked up from the hole she’d been digging with a dessert spoon by the side of the “table” rock. She was hollowing out a shallow depression in its shade. It would be a good place to keep her lunch, she’d said, in the cool of the rock’s shadow, and with the bottom of the lunch box nestled into the damp earth. Not that she owned a lunch box, but I suppose she could acquire one, now that she was going to have a woodland larder to keep it in. Quite the little Maid Marian, she is.
    â€œWe could go tomorrow,” she said after a few moments.
    Tomorrow! Well, there was no point in postponing it indefinitely, I suppose, and I did still need the money.
    â€œI suppose so,” I said.
    â€œI thought you’d be pleased!” she said, and gave another ferocious dig with her spoon. “Do you not want to see him?”
    â€œI do, yeah,” I said, though I didn’t exactly want to see him. I wanted to get the money so I could go to the audition. Mags didn’t seem to get that. I think she thought this was all about bringing father and daughter together. Some hope of that!
    â€œOK,” she said. “Meet you here tomorrow, ten o’clock?”
    â€œNo, I told you,” I said, though actually I don’t think I had, “I practice in the mornings.”
    â€œAll right, at lunchtime so.” She’s a persistent little pest.
    I didn’t answer.
    â€œWell then,” Mags said, “after lunch. Say three o’clock? I think the afternoon bus is at three-thirty. I’ll check.”
    I nodded.
    â€œDurn newsince,” I heard her muttering under her breath in that stupid voice she puts on sometimes. I hope I wasn’t the nuisance. Cheeky monkey!

Mags
    Gillian didn’t turn up the next day. I waited fairly patiently till ten past, then a quarter past three. I started to get jumpy after that. If Gillian didn’t come soon, we’d miss the bus. I’d give her five more minutes.
    I sighed and rested my elbows on the table rock. It hadn’t rained for ages and the stream was low. It trickled over its stony bed and chattered quietly to itself. You’d never think it was the same stream that usually whisked busily down from the hills, rabbiting on to itself at nineteen to the dozen, no time to stop and chat. I felt a bit like the lazy stream