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Chapter four

The tour begins

To be sure that I wasn’t late the next day, I got up early and was down at breakfast by seven o’clock.

Ellen was already there, and when she waved to me, I took my breakfast over to her table.

‘Morning,’ I said. ‘May I join you?’

She smiled at me. ‘Please do.’

I sat down and put sugar in my coffee. ‘Did you enjoy your afternoon in Nice?’ I asked.

Ellen nodded. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I did lots of shopping. It’s a very good thing our bags go by bus.’ She looked at me. ‘How did you and Grant do with your shopping?’ Something about the way she was looking at me made my face go red. ‘Fine,’ I said, and she smiled.

‘He’s a very handsome man,’ she said.

‘Is he?’ I said.

‘Don’t you think so?’ continued Ellen.

‘I haven’t really thought about it,’ I said, which of course wasn’t the truth. I just wanted to talk about something else. ‘Are you looking forward to today’s walk?’ I asked.

Ellen smiled again. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘very much.’

At that moment Grant came into the restaurant, and both Ellen and I looked his way. He wasn’t alone. A tall woman with black hair was holding his hand.

‘Who is that?’ Ellen asked me, not sounding pleased. Grant saw us and called over, ‘Good morning, ladies. Beautiful morning, isn’t it?’

‘That,’ I told Ellen, ‘must be his French girlfriend.’

‘Is she coming on the tour with us?’ asked Ellen.

‘I have no idea,’ I said.

But in the end the woman didn’t join us when the bus set off for St-Andre-les-Alpes. Grant kissed her goodbye and then he got on the bus. The woman stood and watched us drive away. She looked sad.

Ellen was sitting in the seat next to me. ‘Do you think he’ll see her again?’ she whispered, but I didn’t want to think about it.

‘Who knows?’ I said.

Grant was sitting at the front, next to the driver. He turned round to look at us. ‘OK, as we’re driving along, I’ll tell you something about what we’re going to do,’ he said.

Grant stopped to smile at everyone, and everyone - except me - smiled back.

‘As you’ll know from the holiday information, on this tour we spend two nights au sauvage,’ he went on.

David spoke up. ‘I read that, but I wasn’t sure what it meant,’ he said.

‘It means we put our tents up in the wild,’ Grant told him. ‘We won’t be using a campsite, and we won’t be near any towns or villages, so there’ll be no bars or restaurants.’

‘And no toilets?’ Ellen asked him with a smile.

Grant smiled back. ‘That’s correct, Ellen,’ he said. ‘No toilets. But don’t worry, there are trees to hide behind and lots of earth.’

Astrid didn’t look very happy about that and, to tell the truth, I didn’t blame her. But actually Astrid didn’t ever look very happy. I made a note in my mind to have a quiet talk with her soon. The poor woman looked as if she wanted to cry all the time. Something must be wrong.

‘Tonight we have both toilets and a very good restaurant, you’ll be glad to hear,’ Grant continued. ‘OK, one more thing before I let you enjoy the rest of the journey. When we stop for the night, you’ll all need to learn how to put your tents up

. I’ll show you how to do it tonight, but after that you’re on your own. Don’t worry, it isn’t difficult. But it’s important to put your tent up safely, or it could blow away if the wind gets strong.’

‘OK.’ Grant looked at us all. ‘Does anybody have any questions? No? How about you, Tess? Anything you want to add? About all the beautiful colours we’ll be seeing perhaps?’

He was having another joke at me, I knew. But this time he wasn’t going to make me cross. I smiled at him sweetly. ‘No, thank you, Grant,’ I said. ‘I think you’ve told us everything we need to know for now.’

Grant turned around, and I felt Ellen touch me with her elbow. ‘Isn’t he wonderful?’ she said. ‘I could eat him, I really could!’

‘No, thank you,’ I thought. ‘I don’t want my stomach to hurt.’