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- Herausgeber: Little Tiger Press
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
When Lillie spends the summer in Wales with her family, she can't help but feel like the baby of the group. Her big sister Frankie would rather spend time with their older cousin Lana than play with her, and no one else seems to notice how lonely she is. Then during a boat trip Lillie spots a young dolphin swimming alongside them, and for a short while all her worries melt away. Later, when Frankie and Lana are particularly mean to her, Lillie decides to set off on her own in hopes of seeing the dolphin calf again… A heartwarming story about family from best-selling author Holly Webb.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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iiFor the amazing campaigners working to protect dolphins around the world.
HW
In memoriam Alan Dean 1946-2023
DD
Contents
v
Chapter One
“But which is my bed?” Lillie asked, looking around the tiny room. It was just – only just – big enough for two single beds, with a narrow strip of floor between them. Her sister Frankie had raced up the stairs before her, and flung her bag on one of the beds, and the other was already covered in a scatter of her cousin Lara’s things.
“There isn’t one,” Lara said, smirking. “You can’t sleep in here with us, you’re too little.”
“But Gran said we were all together…” Lillie poked at the sliding doors in the wall, 2in case they magically turned into a space for another bed, but they only hid what was obviously a wardrobe.
“You can sleep in the cupboard if you like,” Lara giggled.
“Don’t be mean, Lara.” Lara’s mum, Lillie and Frankie’s auntie Sasha, appeared in the doorway. “I’m sorry, Lillie, you’ve got the short straw. There aren’t enough bedrooms for all of us, when the whole family’s here, so you’re sharing with Frankie and Lara, but one of you has to have a sleeping bag and a blow-up mattress down the middle there.”
Lillie stared at the strip of floor between the beds. She knew exactly what would happen. Lara and Frankie would spend the whole fortnight of their holiday accidentally on purpose stomping on her as they got in and out 3of bed. And somehow it would always be her fault for getting in their way.
Why hadn’t she beaten Frankie to the top of the stairs?
“Can’t we take it in turns to have the sleeping bag?” she asked, and Auntie Sasha nodded.
“That’s a really good idea.”
Lillie could tell from the icy burn on the back of her neck that both her big sister and her cousin were giving her a glare. She had a feeling that her chances of getting them to swap their comfy beds for the sleeping bag and blow-up mattress that Auntie Sasha was pulling out of the cupboard were slim.
She sighed and followed Auntie Sasha back downstairs to fetch her bag. She’d been looking forward to this holiday for ages – the last two weeks of the summer break before they went 4back to school. Her gran and grandpa had just retired and moved house from Swansea to the Gower – a rocky finger of land pointing out into the sea. Lillie and Frankie and her mum and dad had been on holiday to the Gower before, but always camping, or in a hired cottage. Now Lillie’s family – and two sets of aunts and uncles and cousins – were staying in their grandparents’ new house, all at the same time.
Mum said she thought Gran and Grandpa were “gluttons for punishment, but if that’s the way they want to do it…” Then she’d trailed off into a meaningful silence.
“They’ve only just finished redecorating and putting the new bathrooms in,” Dad pointed out. “The house wasn’t ready earlier, that’s why they’re having everyone now.”
“Rather them than me,” Mum muttered, 5but even she was excited about the holiday. The weather forecast was looking good and Lillie couldn’t wait to go from a big city to the seaside. Gran had sent them the most amazing photos of the new house, and the beach it was close to. There were loads of walks and cliffs and climbs to explore too, she’d promised.
“It’s going to be a full house,” she’d told Lillie on the phone, only the day before. “I’m really looking forward to having you all to stay – I’m hoping we can do it every summer! You’ll help me with the food, won’t you, Lillie? I know how much you like cooking, and this house has a beautiful big kitchen.”
“Yes!” Lillie had beamed into the phone. Gran always let her cook much more exciting things than Mum and Dad did, and Lillie had worried that the new house and all the family staying would change that somehow. Gran’s little kitchen, with the tiny square table heaped up with cake tins and the overflowing box of 6biscuit cutters and cake decorations, had been one of Lillie’s favourite ever places. There was still an aching space in her middle when she thought of it belonging to someone else. Maybe even someone who didn’t like to cook.
“All my cooking stuff’s come with us, Lillie,” Gran had reminded her gently. “There’s just a bit more room for it all now. Your grandpa says I’m not allowed to buy anything else to fill up the space…”
“But we could buy them for you!” Lillie pointed out. “Christmas presents!”
“That’s true, we could get around him that way! I’ve always wanted a pasta machine, so maybe I’ll put it on my Christmas list.”
Right now Lillie didn’t feel much like Gran’s special kitchen helper. She felt like an afterthought who’d been squashed in between the two older girls.
“Did you find where you’re sleeping?” Gran said, coming to give her a hug. “I didn’t catch you before you raced upstairs!” she added, squeezing Lillie tight. “I’m sorry the three of you are in that little attic room. You, 7Frankie and Lara were meant to have the bigger room down here, but Leon’s managed to twist his ankle! He can’t go up and down the stairs easily, so we had to swap everyone around, so he and Charlie were on the ground floor. It wasn’t planned that way.”
8“Oh…” Lillie nodded. That wasn’t so bad then. Gran and Grandpa hadn’t meant for them all to be squished. “It’s fine,” she said, perking up. “I’ll fit, Gran, don’t worry.”
“I’ve saved whipping up the cream for the pavlovas for you,” Gran told her. “I know you love using the mixer.”
“Did you get pineapple?” Lillie asked, eyeing her suspiciously.
“Of course I got pineapple!” Gran swooped in to hug her again. “Oh, I have missed you. Mind you, how any grandchild of mine thinks pineapple should go on a pavlova, I don’t know…”
Spending time with Gran was one of the things that Lillie had been really looking 9forward to about this holiday. But she hadn’t thought she would be left with Gran or her parents all the time. Usually she and Frankie got on really well, and they hardly ever argued – or not really, anyway. Just moaning about who had eaten the last of the good cereal, or who got to go in the front seat of the car, that kind of thing. On this holiday everything had shifted. Suddenly Frankie and Lara were the big, grown-up cousins, and Lillie was the little one. The one who got left out all the time because the older girls had their own plans.
It seemed to happen without Lillie having any say at all. It had started with the bedroom – with Frankie and Lara making it up the stairs before her, and somehow turning themselves into a gang of two that had no room for anyone else. When everyone – even Leon, hopping impressively fast on his crutches – headed down to the beach with a picnic that Gran must have spent all morning putting together, Lara and 10Frankie sped on ahead down the path. They set up camp next to a couple of big rocks, and it looked like it was just for them. Lillie didn’t think she was allowed to go and sit on that flowery rug, even if Frankie was her sister. The two older girls were radiating go-away vibes. Lillie looked at them for a moment and then went to help Gran unpack the cool boxes.
11Frankie sat next to her while they were eating lunch, and even shared the last chocolate-chip cookie with her, and Lillie wondered if she’d been imagining the weird go-away force field from earlier on. But when Gran finally announced that it was long enough after lunch for people to go in the sea, Frankie and Lara disappeared down the beach before Lillie had even got her swimming costume on.
They were messing around with one of the foam bodyboards, pushing each other on and off, and Lillie was desperate to join them. She got her swimsuit on at last and padded over the pale sand to where the tiny waves were hitting the beach. The sea was so calm, the waves were hardly there, and they came up on to the sand with nothing more than a low swoosh. The water even looked warm – it 12was a soft greenish, brownish sort of blue. But it was actually quite cold, Lillie found, when she dipped her toes in.
Her sister and cousin were only a few metres in – Gran had warned them that there was quite a steep shelf on this bay, they’d be out of their depth quickly if they went too far out – and Lillie knew that they’d seen her. Lara glanced right through her, as though she wasn’t there, but Lillie saw Frankie notice her watching. Her sister paused for a moment, standing in the water and looking at Lillie over Lara’s shoulder. There was an uncertain, worried expression on her face. But then it smoothed away and she squealed and splashed Lara, and became wilder and brighter and even more grown-up and part of a pair who didn’t want anyone else.
Lillie sat down at the edge of the water and stuck her feet in the sea, feeling the wavelets suck the sand back around her toes.
What was going on? Frankie had never 13abandoned her like this before. Even when she’d gone up to secondary school, she still let Lillie walk with her and a couple of friends, if she didn’t mind leaving early. Sometimes Frankie let Lillie borrow her phone to watch YouTube videos, and she loved planning movie nights for them both and Mum, with popcorn and everyone wearing onesies. Lillie had always thought that Frankie was the very best sort of big sister. Now Lara had stolen her away.
It wasn’t as if they’d never met Lara before, Lillie thought, piling up a tiny cairn of stones. They saw her and Auntie Sasha every so often – just not all the time, as they lived quite far away. Lara was about six months older than Frankie and in the school year above, but she’d never acted like this to Lillie before, they’d always messed around together. Now it was as if all those sleepovers and trips had never happened. This Lara seemed years and years older. 14
“You OK, petal?” Dad had crept up behind Lillie without her noticing, and she jumped. She’d been concentrating hard on the pebbles, so it didn’t look like she was watching Lara and Frankie. Watching them and wanting to be with them. She was trying very, very hard to show she didn’t care in the slightest.
15It was possibly not working very well.
“I’m fine,” she said grumpily, pushing the little tower of stones over.
“You want to go in the sea with me? Is it freezing? I blew up the turtle…”
Lillie looked up and realized that her dad was carrying the huge, inflatable turtle that she and Lara had begged for last summer when they went on their first holiday abroad, to Spain. Everyone on the beach had some sort of boat or raft or fantastic animal, it seemed, and they’d fallen in love with the turtle’s sweet grin. He was big enough for one of them to sit on, or both if they didn’t mind falling off again quite quickly, which was all part of the fun.
Lillie’s dad plunged into the sea, muttering, “Oh wow, oh wow, that’s cold,” and then, “Uuurrrggghhh,” and then, “It’s actually quite 16nice when you’re in,” in an encouraging way to Lillie. He launched the turtle further, spreadeagled himself on top of it, and slowly slid off backwards.
