Her old school friend squealed in excitement. “I got back a few weeks ago!”
“Not long after you and Alex imploded,” Mae added.
Erin’s face screwed up in sympathy. “I heard all about that. I’m so sorry. I’ve been meaning to reach out, but I’ve been desperately job hunting and I wasn’t sure whether you were ready to get out and see people.”
“That’s okay,” Pippa said. “Iwaskind of a recluse for a while.”
Mae rolled her eyes. “Kind of? There were successive sweatpants,” she said to Erin. “You were best off out of it.”
Erin pushed her bottom lip out. “Poor thing. Break-ups suck. Hao and I split up, and three days later I was booking my flight back home. And now, you’re looking at Hurst Bridge Primary’s new Deputy Head!”
“No way!” Pippa gushed. “Huge congrats. You’re going to be amazing! I know it.”
“I think this catch-up would go down much better with a brew.” Mae beamed at Pippa. “Kettle?”
Soon they were huddled around the table, drinking tea and scarfing chocolate biscuits that Mae had produced from her string bag.
“Now, we have ulterior motives for being here,” Mae said after the initial catch-up. “We have a favour to ask of you.”
“Oh?” Pippa was intrigued.
“Yeah.” Erin cleared her throat. “As Deputy Head of the primary school, I’m heading up any fundraising and my first project as a newly minted employee is to raise money to fix the roof.”
“The roof?” Pippa repeated. “That sounds like a big undertaking.”
“We need about eight grand,” Erin said. “It really is big. Give me a collection for new books or pencils, sure, but a roof?” She tugged at her hair. “And, given it’s almost June, we need to fix it before winter kicks in.”
“Where do I come in?” Pippa reached for another biscuit.
“Fundraising.” Erin’s eyes widened. “I have many strengths. Teaching. Identifying the title of an episode of Friends before ten seconds in. Making the perfect Negroni. But fundraising events?” She shook her head frantically. “No. Not me. You, on the other hand …”
Pippa’s hand froze, biscuit midway to mouth. “Me?”
“I bet you’d smash this!” Mae declared. “You turned Goodman’s around. It was going down the tubes before you came along!”
“I don’t know about that…” Pippa chomped on her biscuit but then she thought about the state of the accounts when she finally got her hands on them. Why was she downplaying her role in the farm’s success?
“We need to set up a big fundraising event,” Mae went on. “Like Erin said, it has to happen before winter, so, sooner rather than later.”
“The great news is we finally found a roofer able to do the job,” Erin went on. “And as we are a school, he’ll give us a lovely discount but only if he can do it during August as he had a cancellation. That’s perfect, as it’ll be finished long before the bad weather starts. He needs an upfront payment of fifty percent for materials four weeks before the start date.”
Pippa consulted her internal calendar. “It’s almost June now,” she said. “That means we have to pay him in July.” She gulped. “Are you telling me that we need to get this event up and running in less than amonthso we can pay him?”
Mae grimaced. “See why we need you? I offered to help with my local business contacts but I’m way out of my depth when it comes to, like, everything else.”
Pippa took a contemplative bite of her biscuit. “And you say we need eight grand?”
“Yes, we do,” Erin answered. “It’s a lot, I know, but that’s cheap for the work that’s needed, believe me.” She worried a loose thread from her pink blouse. “If there was anything in the budget, we’d be making use of it, but we need to find this money and fast. I do have some pin money for start-up costs but not much. So, we need to do something cheap and easy to set up, but something that will also yield a ton of cash.”
“Come on, what do you say?” Mae nudged Pippa’s arm. “Please say yes.”
Erin fluttered her eyelashes. “Please. For the kids, Pip. Think of the kids.”
Mae affected a wide-eyed, mournful expression. “The kids will shiver through their lessons this winter if you don’t do this.”
“All right, all right!” Pippa waved her hands. “I’m in. If only to shut you up.”
Erin and Mae squealed in delight.
