‘I’ll buy it.’
All three turned around to find Joss’s uncle standing in the doorway, staring at the car.
Abigail gave him a cold, hard stare. ‘It is not for sale.’
‘But you just said—’
‘Well, I’ve changed my mind.’
Gerald looked pleased to hear it.
Joss turned to his uncle. ‘Why do you want with this car? You’ve got your own car!’
‘Now, that is a silly question,’ Gerald blurted. ‘This is a Volkswagen Beetle.’
Abigail gave her stepdad a sideways glance. It looked like Mum had some competition; Gerald was smitten. Next, he’d be giving it a name.
‘I overhead you.’ The rude old man pointed an accusing finger at Abigail.
She took an involuntary step back.
‘I heard you say you’ll send Penelope to the scrapheap.’
‘Who?’ three voices asked simultaneously.
He waved an angry hand. ‘The car, of course. Who did you think I was talking about?’
Nobody dared answer.
‘That’s the name of the car?’ Abigail said in surprise. ‘Wait – how do you know that?’
He leaned against the wooden door. ‘That’s what Daphne called her.’
Abigail stepped forward. She glanced outside at the whitewashed cottage next door before turning to her crotchety old neighbour. ‘You knew Daphne?’ It was a rhetorical question. Of course he had. They had been neighbours. Although the way he carried on, trying his best to disrupt anyone else living here, she couldn’t imagine there had been any love lost there. But why hadn’t she thought about this before? She quickly asked, ‘What was she like? What can you tell me about her? How long did she live—’ Joss’s uncle cut her off mid-flow by turning his back on her and stalking off.
‘Well, I never!’ exclaimed Abigail. She’d never met such a rude man in all her life. For some reason, the young man who had called into the flower shop came to mind. That was what he’d probably thought of her.
Joss turned to Abigail. ‘Just ignore him.’
‘Don’t worry – I will! And he is not having Penelope!’ Now she had a name, Abigail suddenly felt absurdly protective over the little orange car with the black faux leather seats. Just to cheese Joss’s uncle off even more, she decided to see if the car worked. The trouble was, she had no idea where the keys were. ‘Shame I haven’t got the car keys.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ Joss said. ‘Stupid question, but they wouldn’t be on the keyring with the keys to the cottage – would they?’
Abigail stared at him. That was where she had found the key to the padlock on the garage door. The set of keys was still dangling from the shed door, where she’d left the key in the padlock. Abigail retrieved them, thinking that Joss could be right. She hadn’t tried all the keys yet and had assumed the others fitted the back door and the cottage windows.
There were quite a few keys. Abigail tried each one.
‘Bingo!’ Gerald said excitedly when they heard a click. A little black plastic button popped up on the inside of the door. ‘That’s how you lock it from the inside,’ Gerald pointed out. Just press it down.’
Abigail shrugged. ‘Oh, okay.’ She opened the car door and sat in the driver’s seat. ‘Oh, this is old,’ she commented, looking at the sparse dashboard. The steering wheel was quite large, larger than a modern car, as was the gearstick; a long stick with a knob on the end sprouting from the floor. Abigail put the key in the ignition. ‘Well, here goes.’ She turned it once, wincing as she did so, anticipating the roar of a Beetle engine.
Nothing.
Everyone’s shoulders sagged in disappointment.
‘I wonder how long it’s been mothballed,’ Joss said. He had an idea. ‘Do you think the battery is flat?’
They opened the engine compartment with the keys, and both Gerald and Joss had a look at the engine. They agreed it looked pretty good. ‘I think there’s some work that’s been done on this car over time,’ Gerald commented.