The Outside Child (12 page)

*

And that is the end of the story. The end of my youth, Plato says I could call it. Or the beginning of something much more exciting.

I go to meet my father when his ship comes home. We have a good but short time together as we always did. Sometimes his mother comes later on, and we have tea together in his cabin. She makes a fuss of me and is quite jolly. But she doesn’t feel like my grandmother.

I see my brothers and sister occasionally. I keep a wary eye on Amy even though she is always so sweet to me that I have to warn myself she is not to be trusted. And I can tell from the way Annabel watches her that she knows it, too.

I love Annabel and George and Hugo, but they are ordinary children now—not as interesting as they were when they were my secret people. Aunt Bill and Aunt Sophie are my real family.

And Plato, of course.

I don’t suppose Plato and I will ever get married, not with the way he feels about families. But when we are old and famous and rich, we might buy a big house in the country and bring some outside children inside, to stay with us for a while.