Just The Way You Are(34)

‘Excuse me!’ Irene barked eventually, causing the boys to momentarily pause in their wrestle over a fire engine before resuming with increased vigour. ‘I have previously been clear that if you can’t keep your children’s behaviour under control, then you must leave. This is your final warning.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ the mum replied, tears welling up as her cheeks burnt with shame. She slid off the seat, causing the baby to let out a squawk, and tried to prise the soggy book from Holly’s hand.

Irene twisted her head, eyes scrunched in disgust. ‘Please cover yourself! While I am obliged to permit you to feed your baby here, I must ask you to do it in a dignified manner. Have you no self-respect?’

‘What do you think?’ the woman asked, her voice breaking. She huddled on the floor, tucking her baby in closer so that it could resume feeding. Her head drooped, hair obscuring her face.

One of the boys opened a picture book and began to slowly tear a strip from one of the pages.

‘Harry!’

‘That will need to be paid for!’ Irene shrieked. ‘Stop it at once!’

Holly dropped her mangled book in shock and after a moment’s stunned silence began to howl. I glanced at Trev, aware that we still had seven minutes on the clock.

‘Go on.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the ruckus. ‘I’m sure you’ll make the time up next week.’

Hurrying across to the children’s section, I ducked past Irene and practically threw myself onto the floor beside the toddler.

‘Hey, what’s this?’ I asked, grabbing the nearest toy, which happened to be a grubby plastic ice cream, and looking at it as if I’d discovered a trove of buried treasure. ‘Oooh, tasty! A lovely ice cream on a hot day. Yummy!’ I yelled over the sound of the younger boy screeching like a monkey as he climbed the shelf behind me, the other impersonating a police siren as he began racing up and down. I moved the chew-marked plastic as close to my mouth as I dared and pretended to give it a lick. ‘Mmm!’

The girl looked at me, her cries dying away as she focused on this bizarre stranger who’d appeared out of nowhere. ‘Would you like a try?’ I beamed, thrusting the ice cream into her hand before spinning around and grabbing the boy as he slipped off the shelf.

‘I know a good book about monkeys,’ I told him, as he wriggled out of my grip. ‘If you can find it before the book-exploding countdown, I’ll read it to you.’

‘What?’ The boy squinted at me suspiciously.

‘Ten, nine, eight…’ I began, trying to sound ominous, while pointing at the messy pile of books urgently.

To my immense relief, he started searching amongst the picture books, slapping them this way and that as he looked for one with a monkey. By the time I’d counted down to five, Trev had arrived, holding the hand of the older boy, and the mum had managed to position herself so that she could keep feeding while cuddling Holly.

‘What’s this?’ Trev asked. ‘A book hunt?’

‘We need to find the monkey book ’fore it explodes! Help me, Hudson!’

‘I can find it quicker’n you!’ Hudson bent down next to his brother, who by process of elimination must be Harry, and joined in the hunt.

‘Here!’ Harry announced a second later, just after I’d drawn out a slow three. I breathed a whoosh of relief. I’d spent enough time in libraries to know a monkey book was a fairly safe bet, but the selection here was more limited than most. ‘I found it! Now you have to read it to us!’

I took the offered book, and felt a prickle of pleasure that it was a good one. One so good, I’d used it in adult literacy classes more than once. Without needing to open the first page, I quoted the opening line, eyebrows dancing, eyes wide with anticipation.

‘All was dark and quiet in Monkey Forest. Until, just as the wise, old owl hooted midnight, something stirred in the bushes below…’

‘What was it?’ Harry squealed, jumping up and down in excitement. Hudson, trying to pretend he wasn’t bothered, nevertheless gave me a sideways glance through his overgrown fringe.

‘Sit down and I’ll tell you. But you must be quiet! Otherwise you might scare it away…’

‘Excuse me, it’s saying my card isn’t valid again,’ a man called from the automatic checkout machine, freeing Irene from where she’d been standing at the edge of the children’s section in a frozen stupor. She took a moment to regain control of her flapping mouth before ordering us to return the children’s corner to its previous order, and heading back to deal with the growing queue.

Twenty minutes later, we’d read five stories, chosen another armful each to check out and tidied up while Trev fetched the mum, whose name was Chloe, a coffee. While Chloe fumbled in her purse for enough money for the ripped and chewed books, despite me reassuring her that she didn’t need to pay for damage on a children’s book, I nipped over to the general fiction section and found two of the lightest, brightest, most uplifting novels I could find, adding them to the pile awaiting their turn in the machine.

‘Irene, don’t you think that Hudson and Harry have done a wonderful job in tidying up?’ I asked, smiling as though I was her best friend, rather than her arch-nemesis.

Irene strode over, ducking down and peering around and desperately trying to find something we’d missed. ‘Hmph,’ was the closest she got to agreeing that yes, there wasn’t a toy or a book out of place.