The Turn Of The Page. Chapter 1.

This story would not look anywhere near as good without the custom content made by two very talented people. I have used a lot of stuff by Cyclone Sue (atTSR) and by Sandy at ATS3, and I am deeply grateful to them both for their skills and the joy their making has brought me.


Okay, this is me. And if our lives are stories, then I’d better give you a bit of the background to mine.
I’m Amanda Woodridge. I’m nineteen years old, and just about to start a new chapter in my life. I guess the bit I’m writing now is either a prologue to a brand-new story, or one of those bits you sometimes get in stories: you know – they’re about a page long in between chapters and they give you some information that you need to make the transition to the next part of the story.
Yes. Transition time. That’s what these next few weeks are. These are not my children by the way! I was far too busy studying these past few years (I had a lot of ground to make up) to waste time on boys, love affairs and making babies! But they are – sort of – my sisters.
Their parents adopted me. Not when I was little, but when I was fifteen, after Mum died. Our solicitor, who looks at least eighty years old, but is still as sharp as a tack and goes hiking for miles every weekend in the mountains, got in touch with Mark. A bit tentatively, because Mark's only a twice-removed cousin, and we both knew how well-off he was, and I didn’t want to sound like someone just wanting to touch him for some money because he was rich.
“Don’t worry,” old Mr Mellish said. “I’ll make sure he understands how you feel.” And he did. Mark came to meet me, with Jill, just to see how he could help to start with. But we hit it off amazingly well, once Jill had seen past my defensiveness about not wanting to be seen as a scrounger. I went to live with them, just while I finished my schooling, but it worked so well that they decided to adopt me. That’s a bit of an abridged version, but it’s the essentials. So if my cousins-who-adopted-me are so well-off, what are we doing outside what I can only call a shack. Or hut. Or possibly shed, but not really house.
Ah, that’s another story. And to understand that one, you have to know a bit about who my cousins are.
Mark’s quite a bit older than me – late thirties, but Jill is only twenty-six. And before they got married, she was Jill North. As in North’s Chocolates.
That’s right – the luxury brand. The one that is also famous for its highly ethical approach to chocolate growing and production. The trouble with being highly ethical is that you can start to make enemies among other producers who aren’t quite so ethical. Fairly deadly enemies. And if you are about to bring out a documentary highlighting best practices (on your part mostly, but not solely) and exposing not only bad practices but also highly illegal practices on the parts of others, then the stakes get higher yet.
The plus of being highly ethical and fair to your employees and the land you’re growing on is that you make friends. Friends in low places, rather than high ones. Friends who have relatives who are doing the cleaning or waiting on people in high places. And who overhear things and pass the information on. We were warned that someone was trying to suppress the documentary and they weren’t too fussy about the means they’d use. Once it was out, there’d be nothing they could do, but the next few weeks…
So we’re going up to the island. Mark’s great-grandmother (and my great-great aunt) grew up here: in this very house in fact, and it doesn’t look like it’s had much done to it since she died. It’s really hard for strangers to come up here to the island unspotted. And they’re not telling anyone where they’ve gone. I’ve come up ahead, with the children, and Mark and Jill are pretending that the children are still with them, just in case anyone’s planning a kidnap attempt. Sounds a bit melodramatic, but there was a rumour about that.
It was quite a journey, I can tell you! But now I’m here with them, and I should be able to cope for the next two or three days (“four at the most,” Jill said) and then Mark and Jill will be here. And then in a few weeks I’m heading off to university! I’m going to study business and economics (okay, it might sound boring to you, but it fascinates me. And living with Mark and Jill has taught me so much!) and then if I want a job with them at the end of it, I’ll have one.
“You can work in all the areas, and then we’ll find where your passions lie and where you fit best,” Jill had promised. So that’s how come I’m here, outside what, let’s face it, is a shack, and wondering where the facilities are – ah, I think I’ve found them. Hmm. Another minor problem. I’m here with all three girls, and there only seems to be two cots. Someone didn’t read the delivery instructions very well… We’ve got plenty of tinned stuff, and some fresh food as well though. And lots of baby milk: good. I’m now hoping I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew here. They sleep really well, all three of them, but what do I do with only two cots? I can’t stay awake all day and all night… I am exhausted! I’ve never been so busy! The trouble with this place is that the girls can crawl under the doors. And we have a pond. I thought at first I should fence off the pond, but I realised it was easier to fence in the house. So I’ve cleared all the dead wood and built two fences with it, and that’s made life much easier. I can nap when two of them are asleep in their cots and not worry about the third one falling into the pond or off the edge of the cliff.
I found a vegetable patch too as I cleared up. I think it might come in useful. I’m starving all the time and getting down the fresh food at a fair rate. I was hoping that Mark and Jill would arrive today (though I knew that was wildly optimistic), but instead a large parcel has arrived. Addressed to The Woodridge Place, Cliff Road. Nice address, huh? And it’s a box full of books! Mostly for the children, but some of them are for me: ones for my course and a few novels too. And a letter. And a sealed envelope that looks very important. I think I’ll start with the letter.
“Amanda, we’re going to be a bit later than we hoped. Things keep coming up and going wrong. Hang on in there – we should be sorted in the next couple of days. Here’s some of their books – always helps – and I thought you might like to take a break on the island (at the Island Inn: not with us!) so I’ve sent some of your books up too so that you can do some reading for the autumn as well if you want to.
The big envelope – it’s got the girls’ birth certificates and everything in it. And we’ve made you their legal guardian too. Just in case anyone has found out where you are and tries to pull a fast one, claiming they’re taking them into care or something.
I’m sure that won’t happen: I’m just feeling jumpy, nervous…It’s like there’s gremlins everywhere. I got your old solicitor to draw this up: I don’t really trust ours for some reason. He’s been the cause of at least one of these delays. Mark says we’re changing him as soon as the documentary is out, but if we do that now, there’ll be yet more delays. But I’ve also given your Mr Mellish some pretty sweeping powers over our estate if they’re needed: that’ll put a spoke in Garrett-Oldsby’s wheel!” With the children safely and happily reading, I could deal with the vegetable patch and think about the rest of the letter.
“Mark says he knows it’s a bit primitive up there, but when we arrive, we’ll sort that out. We didn’t want to be sending building materials up in advance though – it felt a bit too obvious. And once we’re there, we’ll put you up at the Island Inn, which even has a spa, and you can recover in peace!
I am so looking forward to getting up to the island. I just feel uneasy all the time at the moment. I keep looking over my shoulder. And I’m very glad that the girls are safe with you. See you all as soon as possible! Love, as ever, Jill xxx” I haven’t introduced you to the girls yet, have I? Daisy’s the blonde one, Fern the redhead and Hazel is the darkest of the three. Actually, their real names are Margaret, Fenella and Rachel, but one way and another, they picked up these nicknames on the way! I banned them from calling me Mandy though – I don’t mind Manda, but I can’t stand Mandy. It had tipped it down with rain that morning – the newspaper that I hadn’t had time to even pick up was a soggy mass of pulp, that I was just about to drop straight into the bin without even attempting to look at it – but the rain had blown over and the day was looking lovely. “Your Mummy and Daddy will definitely be here today,” I told the girls. “Let’s wash everything so that it’s all clean for when they arrive.” Especially the bedding I’d been sleeping in. Well, napping in and on.
I’d been expecting Mark and Jill yesterday, to be honest, but figured that if they hadn’t got away until late, they’d have stopped somewhere on the way overnight. No phone signal did make communication difficult. Of course, if I went over the ridge I’d have a signal, but how did I do that, with three children who weren’t walking yet? But as the day went on, I began to worry. I negotiated nap times, feeding times, potty training sessions (they were getting there, as long as I caught them at the right moment) and then went out to see what we had in the way of vegetables that were ready to pick, as all the fresh stuff that had been here when I arrived had been eaten up by yours truly. It was well after dark now. Fern and Hazel were asleep, and Daisy was playing happily on the floor (I’d made sure she’d had a mega-nap earlier on). My turn to grab a nap: I’d wake if Daisy cried for any reason, and she couldn’t hurt herself on anything. And Mark and Jill still hadn’t arrived. I fell asleep, uneasy about the delay, wondering what had gone wrong. Next morning I found out.