Crab Apples: Part 6

By GED MAYBURY

"Randy!" she said in surprise.

"Er ... hi," he stammered. "I uh, I was waiting for you, sort of ..." and to save himself any further embarrassment he held out the piece of dried seaweed he still had clamped in his sandy hands.

"Here.""Ooooo-oo!" said Tammy in exactly that kind of tone that always sent shivers up Randy's back, "Ooooo? What's this?"

Well, it wasn't exactly a rose.

"Uh ..." he stammered, "it's a found object, like like something I found!"

"Cool," she said, taking the dried seaweed and holding it up to the light. "It's rather lovely, isn't it?"

"Yes," he said, "it's, it's sort of like the Enchantment of the Waves."

Tammy looked up at him, her eyes shining. "Randy, sometimes you say the nicest things. thanks, and thanks for being here. But how did you know I was coming?"

He shrugged, "Oh ah kind of it was a sort of a feeling, that's all."

"Thank you." She gave his hand a quick squeeze, then looked up and down the main road as if she had actually been expecting someone else.

"Where ya staying?" he asked.

"With my aunty, Daddy's older sister."

He looked up and down the road too. "She not here then?"

"She's a bit of an absent-minded professor type."

"Cool! Is she an inventor then?"

"No, a marine biologist."

"Ahhh." Randy nodded wisely. He didn't have much idea of what a marine biologist even looked like. Sort of blobby, maybe, with tentacles?

"Oh well," said Tammy suddenly, "I'll just walk."

Publisher: Scholastic

Price: $13.95

Age group: 11 plus years