Read Online The Yoghurt Plot by Fleur Hitchcock - Free Book Online Page B

you’d just do what you said you’d do. You were supposed to be looking after Granddad.’
    Lorna sticks her tongue out and opens the side door of the shop. The private door.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ I say.
    â€˜Getting something to eat. I’m interested – do they have Cheesy Crunchers in 1969?’
    â€˜You can’t.’
    â€˜It was my great-grandpa that started the shop. I don’t think it would be stealing.’
    â€˜But they wouldn’t know that. Supposing they caught you? You can’t possibly explain.’ Surely she couldn’t be so stupid.
    But she could. I stand out on the pavement as she vanishes inside, feeling ridiculously anxious. What happens if she gets caught? What would happen if we ended up in a police cell? How could we possibly explain ourselves? I imagine 1960s policemen calling in 1960s social workers. Did they even have social workers then?
    I have completely stopped breathing.
    â€˜There!’ says Lorna, bursting out of the shop and holding open her blue carrier bag. ‘Crisps,’ she announces. ‘I think.’
    I look inside: two blue and white waxy paper bags.
    She plunges her arm in, pulls out a packet, rips open the top and tips the crisps into her mouth. They cascade across the pavement. ‘
Yuck!
’ she splutters. ‘What’s this?’ She picks a tiny blue rectangle from out of her mouth.
    â€˜Salt,’ I say, reading the outside of the other packet. ‘You add your own salt.’
    â€˜It’s disgusting,’ she says, dropping the crisp packet back inside the carrier bag and throwing both onto the pavement. ‘I need something to drink.’ She turns and rushes back into the shop. I carefully tear the top off my salt sachet and shake it into the bag. The crisps are oilier, more delicious than now crisps, and the salt sticks to them in big crunching grains.
    Lorna bursts out of the door clutching a large bottle in her arms. ‘Run!’ she yells, and races off down the street.
    I hesitate. ‘
Hey, stop!
Thief!’ A grey-haired man charges out of the shop. ‘I’ll call the police,’ he shouts. ‘I’ve got your description. Nowhere to run to in this town.’
    A bubble of panic rises in my throat and my attempt to run away stalls. ‘How much?’ I squeak. ‘How much is the bottle?’ I daren’t mention the crisps.
    The man turns towards me. ‘Sixpence – why? Are you offering to pay?’
    A gust of wind bowls down the lane, catching the carrier bag that Lorna abandoned, scattering the contents. The grey-haired man manages to get the crisp packet, but the carrier bag fills like a balloon and scuds along the pavement. I try to stamp on it with my foot, but each time I get close it leaps a little and settles further down the street.
    â€˜Sorry,’ I say, abandoning the bag. I plunge my hand into my pocket and bring up the mix of old and new coins. He steps forward, grips my extended wrist and picks a threepenny piece and three big dirty coppers from my palm. I notice as he does so that at least one of them wasn’t minted until 1970, and I hope very much that it doesn’t cause some kind of hideous time accident.
    Still gripping my wrist, he looks into my eyes. I notice that he has the same mouth as Lorna, slightly too big. ‘I’ll let you off the crisps. I can see you haven’t got enough money. But I’d better tell your parents. Where do you live?’
    â€˜Out of town,’ I say, waving towards the west as if we might come from miles away. ‘But,’ I say, pointing at the carrier bag now scudding along the road, ‘I should  … ’
    The man’s face drops. He’s giving up.
    â€˜I should get the bag.’
    â€˜Off you go, but you’re both banned from my shop without an adult. Got it?’ He lets go and I run after the bag which is now hovering above a post box at the