17. What Jennifer Did Next

A SUMMER UNDER THE SUN Part 17

A SUMMER UNDER THE SUN

17. What Jennifer Did Next

The scent of the sea washed over a very weary Darren and a perky mini-skirted Jennifer as they cycled slowly into Skegness. And mingled with that natural aroma was the less natural smell of fish and chips, which struck like a dagger at Darren’s stomach.

He pulled up at the side of the road and Jennifer slid to a stop behind him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, “after all, we have made it! And back when we bumped into old Alfred I thought you never would.”

“I began to wonder myself,” acknowledged Darren, “but we’re here and there’s a chip shop over there, with seats outside, and I’m starving!”

Jennifer didn’t like to admit that she felt the same, but she did, and she suggested they went to it and she’d let him buy her a fish for his sins.

“What now?” he asked when they had finished an excellent meal, washed down with an indeterminate fizzy drink.

“We’ll find the field we’re supposed to be pitching the tent in,” she said, and she fumbled in her backpack for the sheet of paper she’d written the details on.

“Here it is,” she said, “Dunes Camping site, caravans and tents welcome. We’ve been allocated a corner pitch, not too far from the toilet blocks. Here’s a map, look:” She sowed him a folded piece of paper where am x marked the spot where they were to pitch their tent.

“But where’s the site?” asked Darren, fearing the answer might involve more pedalling.

“Half a mile from town. That’s what it says. Come on: let’s go and find it. The instructions are quite clear. We go down to the clock tower and then go down here…”

She traced the way on a duplicated map they had been sent, and it looked quite close to where they were now.

Darren sighed. “Okay then,” he muttered, “I think my legs can manage that distance.”

They set off, following the route indicated in the instructions only to discover that the dotted lines on their map indicated where the scale had been altered and that, in actual fact, they would have to go quite a few miles before they reached a small sign indicating that they were approaching Dunes Camping Site, which was still a mile off.

It was late afternoon by the time they finally rode into the site. It was a smallish field and an elderly woman sat on a deckchair outside the doorway that led into a hut which was apparently the office come shop come store for leaflets etc, and she was guarding it with a rare facial ferocity.

“Excuse me,” said Jennifer, smiling as sweetly as she could bearing in mind the apparent discontent on the woman’s face, “I’ve booked in. Here’s the letter.” And she showed the woman the paper on which the map had been roughly duplicated. “Ah, yes, the gaffer said,” mumbled Ada Braithwaite, the elderly woman, “‘e said as two kids were coming and to put you near the lav course if I didn’t you’d likely to be shitting all over the place, being in a tent and all.”

”We would do no such thing!” retorted Darren, and, “we’ve been brought up to respect other people’s grass,” added Jennifer.

“Have it your own way, but you’re in that corner, near the brick built bog,” said the woman, “and see that you look after things, and no litter. Davy can’t abide litter and he goes after litter louts with a shot gun if he gets the chance. Now be off with yer.”

Darren felt that he ought to say something, maybe point out what ought to be obvious, that there was nobody less like a litter lout than Jennifer and that he wasn’t so far behind her, but thought better of it when he noted the woman’s scowl, and they followed the direction she was indicating.

“Some welcome,” muttered Jennifer, “I mean, after a hard day’s pedalling, to have to face that miserable old grump. No wonder there aren’t many other campers here. Just two caravans and no more tents.”

“Maybe it’s early in the season?” suggested Darren.

“It’s the school holidays, which means it is the season,” replied Jennifer, “but when I went on-line there weren’t so many places willing to take tents unless the campers were accompanied by an adult.”

“We’re as near damn it to being adults,” he said, “but come on. At least it looks like a decent enough corner, and the grass must have been mowed today. Let’s get pitched and see what’s what when we’ve done that.”

He pulled the bag containing tent and its accessories from his trolley and undid the buckle that held it in place.

“Ground sheet first,” said Jennifer, “and then the rest is easy. At least, it was easy when I was shown a few years ago. Dad was keen on camping back then, until he had a quarrel with a hedgehog, that is, and the hedgehog scurried off double quick, minus a few prickles!”

It was a fairly modern tent modern tent and thus presented two reasonably intelligent teenagers with far too many problems to make sense, but in the end they managed to get it up in such a way that it was unlikely to collapse on them when they were inside it.

”Well, our home for a few days,” murmured Jennifer, “and you did a good job helping me to put it up, so I think I should thank you, and there’s only one way I can think of doing that, so close the flap and come here, big boy!”

He’d never heard her in such a mood before, but he zipped up the entrance flap and shuffled across towards her.

“Here, I am, even bigger girl,” he grinned.

“I want you to know that I think you’re the nicest boy in the whole wide world, but then I used to think that before we ever spoke when I saw you on the street or going to school, or even in the playground talking to Patsy Pantsdown!”

“I don’t think I ever said a word to her!” he protested.

“Well, you might have done,” came her reply, “just about every other boy did, when she wasn’t parading around with her pants in her hands and a smile on her tormenting face!”

“Well, I didn’t know her,” he said, “and if I had I would almost certainly have looked the other way.

“You can say that now,” she grinned, “now come and get this great big juicy kiss I’ve stored up for you before it trickles away and gets lost in the toilet over there!”

And that’s what he did, and what she did.

And then, what she did next was even better…

© Peter Rogerson 15.05.21

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