Small World

[Red Ranger 1]

Well, I don't know whether people are going to be pleased(in a good way-I hope)or disappointed(again, in a good way, I hope)but this is the last chapter.Hope you enjoy.

CHAPTER 11

Sally took a deep breath outside the classroom door.Did she really know what she was getting into?She had no experience at teaching children this young, especially ones who didn’t even have English as a first language.She was lucky that Phurket’s burgeoning tourist industry meant they were all reasonably fluent. Steeling herself, she pushed open the door to reveal nine children aged between five and eight, all sat neatly at desks.At least she could see the reassuringly familiar face of Jaidee in the back row.Smiling with a confidence she didn’t feel, she stepped to the front of the class.“Good morning, everyone.My name is Miss Fletcher and I want to start today by…”

She was interrupted by a knock at the door.A boy who seemed to be at the lower fringes of the class’ age range opened the door nervously and stuck his head round.“Miss Fletcher?”

“Kasem!”shouted Jaidee in recognition.The other children looked at him in horror, as though calling out in class wasn’t really something they were used to happening.

Sally looked at the boy.“Kasem, is it?Are you late?”

“My mum said to ask if you would teach me too.I asked Mai and she said it was up to you.”

“Your mum…Then you’re not one of the orphans here?”

“No.I’m a half-orphan though.My mum said you’re a very nice lady who helped pay for my new clothes and I could learn a lot from you.”

Sally looked at his clothes.They were hardly what any of her old students would have called fashionable yet he seemed proud of them.Then she remembered where she’d heard the name Kasem before.“Your mother…does she work as a waitress at a café in Patong?”

“Yes.”

Sally smiled.Such a simple little incident and yet it had had repercussions far beyond what she could have foreseen.“Then tell her that I’m very glad I could help and of course I’ll teach you.Come on in and take a seat.Jaidee, can you hand out these text books for me?”

Cassie was sitting on the wall outside the hotel.Sally watched her from the balcony.Despite everything she’d been through, and despite how grown up she might consider herself to be, there were still times when to Sally’s eyes she looked very young, like a hurt child in need of love and attention.She thought of herself at that age:so sure that her way of looking at the world was the only one valid, unable to comprehend why Pippa wasn’t prepared to just forget about the other foster children and hand the house over to her and a boy who, as it turned out, she didn’t know nearly as well as she thought she did.Perhaps everything did come around after all.

She heard movement behind her and turned to find Vinnie there.“You wanna go and talk to her?”he asked.

Sally looked down at the figure just emerging from the hotel.“I think someone else is about to do it for me.”

“Is this seat taken?”

Cassie looked round at the voice.They were the first words he’d spoken to her but that was where the similarity ended.Where before he had been cocky and fun-loving, now there was a profound sadness about him.She noticed the heavily overloaded backpack he was wearing.“You going somewhere?”

Scott shrugged.“Well, I’m starting at college in six months and I’ve still got half the world to see so I think it’s time I was moving on.I, ah, I owe you a really big apology, Cassie.I had no right talking to you the way I did.”

After everything that had happened recently, Cassie had convinced herself she didn’t care what Scott thought.But now that he was saying what she wanted to hear, she realised she did.“I should have been up front with you right from the start.”

“I don’t suppose it’s the sort of thing you can just drop into conversation when someone offers to buy you a drink.It’s funny, I always thought if someone told me something like that I’d handle it a lot better.”

Cassie smiled.“When I found out, I ran in front of a speeding car, ordered the man I loved out of my life, emotionally blackmailed my friends into doing what I said and spent three weeks in hiding because I was too scared to face Sal.So I reckon you’re doing better than I did.”

“All the same…it’s made me take a good look at myself.I’m not too happy with everything I’ve seen.”

“Looking pretty good from where I’m sitting.”

“Thanks.”He held out a scrap of paper.“If your travels ever take you anywhere in the region of Derbyshire…”

Cassie took the paper from him and glanced at the name and address scrawled on it.She remembered what Sally had said when she had first told her about Scott.“Swap numbers, promise to write?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, our travels seem to have stalled a bit but if I am ever in the area I promise I’ll look you up.”

“I’d like that.”He bent and kissed her on the cheek.“Thank you, Cassie.For everything.”

It was early morning again when Sally was down on the beach, but this time she was not unobserved.A small group was gathered by the hotel, watching her:Cassie, Pippa, Vinnie, even Jaidee.Was this her family now?She’d had stranger.Cassie still didn’t know who Vinnie was.As far as she was concerned, he was just Harry Baker, the guy they’d met on holiday.Would they ever tell her?One day perhaps.Time would tell.

Sally wasn’t sure why she’d come back here but she felt she needed closure.She’d even considered bringing another white rose but it hadn’t seemed appropriate somehow.She looked out at the waves again. The ocean had brought such pain to her brother.Yet it was his coming to Summer Bay that had given her the strength to cross that ocean, to head out into the world knowing there was a safe pair of hands watching over all that was dear to her.She had been so full of doubts when she’d stood on that spot before, so uncertain of what she was meant to do, but now she understood.Both Tom and Vinnie had been right.She wasn’t going to change the world.But she could hold out a hand to anyone that needed help and perhaps, in doing so, make their small corner of the world just a tiny bit better.Just as everyone in Summer Bay had held out a hand to that lonely orphaned girl all those years ago.

“Are you proud of me now, Tom?”she whispered.

She heard nothing, she saw nothing.But for a moment she knew, just knew, that they were looking down on her and smiling.Not just Tom but Michael and Bobby and Ailsa and Nev and Chloe and Charlotte and Flynn, dear Flynn.And maybe even a brown-eyed little girl who she had never met but who was a part of her all the same.Everyone who had helped to shape the woman she had become and would continue to do so, whether it was here or in Summer Bay or anywhere else in the world.

Sally stood there a moment longer before heading back up the beach to her friends…and her new life.

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