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Chapter 3
Halloween had come and gone and Seren was stacking boxes of Christmas crackers on the supermarket shelf when a voice cried, ‘Mummy, Mummy, it’s Seren!’ and she turned around just as a small body launched itself at her.
‘Oof!’ Seren grunted as the head of a five-year-old child hit her full in the stomach and nearly knocked her off her feet.
‘Freya!’ Nicole rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry – she got away from me.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Seren said, kneeling down and hugging the little girl. ‘She’s got a hard head, though.’ It would take her a minute to catch her breath properly after being headbutted in the belly button. ‘Have you been a good girl?’ she asked her goddaughter.
Freya nodded vigorously. ‘I’ve been the goodest girl ever.’
Seren giggled. ‘I’m glad to hear it. That deserves a kiss.’ She gave the child a smacker on the cheek.
‘Ew,’ Freya protested, scrubbing at her face with her sleeve.
‘She thinks she’s too old for kisses, and too old to hold my hand when we cross the road,’ Nicole explained.
‘Ilike having kisses,’ Seren said to the child. ‘Especially since I don’t get them very often.’
Freya stared at her curiously. ‘Why not? Doesn’t your mummy kiss you?’
‘She does when I see her, but my mummy lives a long way away, so I don’t see her very often.’
‘I see mine all the time,’ Freya sighed and shook her head, as if it was a chore to have her mum around.
Seren gave Nicole a sympathetic look. ‘Is someone itching to spread their wings a bit?’
‘Someone is trying to fly before they can hop.’
‘I can hop – see?’ Freya stood on one leg and hopped in a bouncy circle.
‘And someone understands more than they should,’ her mother added. ‘We were passing, and she insisted we came in to see if you were working today. Sorry,’ she repeated.
‘That’s OK. I love seeing her, and you too, of course.’
‘If you love seeing her so much…?’
‘You want me to babysit?’ Seren deduced, smiling.
‘Yay! Seren is going to look after me, Seren is going to look after me,’ Freya chanted, at the top of her voice.
‘Shhh,’ Nicole said. ‘Do you want everyone to hear you?’
Freya thought for a moment. ‘Yes. I don’t mind. It’s not a secret.’
‘You can’t keep anything secret with this horror around.’ Nicole ruffled her daughter’s hair to show her she didn’t mean it.
‘Geddoff!!’ Freya patted her curls back into place, and Seren stifled a giggle.
‘When do you want me?’ she asked.
‘Tomorrow evening? I’m supposed to be going to a WI meeting with Marjorie, and Aaron was going to be looking after her, but he’s been told he’s got to work, so unless you offer…?’
‘What do you meanoffer? You asked.’ Marjorie was Aaron’s mum and Seren envied Nicole’s easy relationship with her mother-in-law. She also envied her relationship with Aaron, because he and Nicole were madly in love. Seren would like to be madly in love and experience the bliss that Nicole felt. Oh, well, maybe one day…
‘Offer, ask… it’s the same thing,’ Nicole said.
‘Er, not really. What time do I need to be at yours?’
