The Christmas Surprise Read Free

enough of a gigantic upheaval in his life for one year).

    It was late February when she snuck away one Monday morning, telling Tina she was going to check out some new Parma violets, and drove to Carningford at top speed. Then when she left the chemist’s, with shaking hands, she realised that she couldn’t wait after all and had to go to the horrible toilets in the shopping centre that were full of teenage girls shouting. She wondered how many people before her had done exactly the same thing, how many people had had their lives changed in this exact space simply because it was close to the chemist, and she looked at it and didn’t understand what it meant, and read the instructions again and still didn’t understand, and then finally accepted that there were two lines, clear as day, one straight, one a little wobbly; one was her and one was Stephen, and together they meant …
    ‘Oh my God,’ Rosie said, dropping down onto the loo seat. ‘Oh my God.’
    In the next booth over, a couple of teenage girls were talking loudly in a strange accent that was half local, half an attempt at a kind of London slang.
    ‘So I says to him, awriight …’
    Rosie fumbled for her phone and thought she was going to drop it straight down the loo. She wanted to wash her hands, but oh, she was here now, and what was she going to do anyway, she couldn’t call outside.
    ‘So I says to her, you backs off RAGHT NOW, innit …’
    Stephen didn’t keep his phone on in class; she’d have to call the office. She tried to keep her voice steady when Carmel, the school secretary, answered, although it was considered very odd to call a teacher in the middle of the day.
    ‘You want Stephen? Is everything all right?’
    Rosie thought again how, even though she didn’t miss London very often, she had rather enjoyed its anonymity.
    ‘Fine!’ she trilled. ‘All fine! Great, in fact! Just a little thing …’
    ‘Because you know it’s choir and he’s a bit busy …’
    ‘I’ll be two seconds,’ lied Rosie.
    ‘I’sa gonna duff you up,’ said the voice loudly from the next cubicle.
    There was a silence.
    ‘I’ll just get him,’ said Carmel.
    Rosie rolled her eyes, her heart hammering in her chest.
    ‘What’s up?’ said Stephen, when he finally got to the phone. ‘Carmel says you’re being duffed up!’
    ‘She NEVAH,’ came the voice.
    ‘Uh, no,’ said Rosie. A mucky toilet in a horrible going-downhill shopping centre with two screeching fifteen-year-olds – a reminder of what awaited them one day – wasn’t exactly how she’d dreamt of this moment.
    ‘Um, it’s something else.’
    ‘Good.’
    ‘So AH says, YOU UP THE DUFF?’
    ‘Who are you with?’ said Stephen.
    Rosie closed her eyes.
    ‘Nobody. But listen …’
    ‘An’ SHE says, SO WHAT IF I AM, an I’m like, SLAG …’
    ‘I’m up the duff,’ said Rosie.
    ‘Wha’?’ said the girls next door.
    ‘Mr Lakeman, I need go toilet, please,’ came a small voice from Stephen’s end.
    ‘What?’ said Stephen, who thought that saying ‘pardon’ was common.
    ‘Um. Uh.’ Rosie realised she was about to burst into tears.
    ‘Um, yes,’ said Stephen desperately.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘No, I’m talking to Clover Lumb. I mean, yes?’
    ‘UH,’ said Rosie. Her hand was shaking as she held up the little stick. ‘Yes. I mean. I think so. No. Definitely. Yes. YES.’
    There was a long pause.
    ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Stephen. ‘Miss Hopkins, you do not mess about.’
    Rosie choked, half laughing, half crying.
    ‘Plus, I was rather under the impression that I’d already sealed the deal.’
    ‘That’s right, I did it all by myself.’
    Stephen let out a short. barking laugh.
    ‘Oh Lord, I guess it was always going to happen sooner or later.’
    ‘I did tell you we should get central heating.’
    ‘This really is quite a lot sooner, though, isn’t it?’
    For a moment Rosie forgot all about the horrible toilet, the fact that it was freezing, the obviously