that person who constantly sought help or reassurance. She wanted to be the reliable person who coped, the one that the head could leave to it, confident that she’d do a good job, but it certainly wasn’t turning out that way.
Thinking back on it all now made Sadie’s stomach sink and her face burn. She didn’t want to give up her training because – more than anything else – she didn’t want to admit she’d failed, but she was beginning to feel that she’d reached some unnamed and as yet unclear crossroads in her life. She was starting to wonder if fate had something different in store for her; if, perhaps, it had never really meant for her to be teaching at all. And if that was the case, was it really failing to let fate tell her what that thing was? Was it really so bad to stop and listen to the tiny voice for a moment while it whispered to her the real destiny, the one it had been trying to tell her about when she’d refused to take any notice? Perhaps she’d been landed with class 3G of Featherbrook School today for a reason that was not yet clear to her. But was that to steel her resolve, to make her a better and stronger teacher, or was it to make her think twice about the future she’d chosen for herself?
She brushed a fly from her leg and looked out on the white cliffs of the headland, tinged now with the rose gold of the sinking sun and gleaming like Greek marble, the glittering water of the bay swelling at their feet, a shell-pink haze scoring the horizon. A sudden cool gust blew up from the sea and she shivered, reaching for her cardigan and pulling it on. She checked the time on her phone, vaguely surprised that she’d been sitting on the sand a lot longer than she’d realised. If she took a slow walk home now she’d probably arrive back around the same time as her parents, and if she got back a little earlier then she’d make a start on dinner and surprise them with something nice.
Mulling over what she might cook, she shook out the towel she’d been sitting on and rolled it into a neat tube before stuffing it into a cloth bag. Then she poked her feet into a pair of denim flip-flops and headed across the beach to the promenade. Lined along it, windows like eyes looking out to sea, was a long row of terraced cottages that served as Sea Salt Bay’s main shops and restaurants. They’d once been fishing cottages, back when that had been the main source of income for everyone in the bay – at least, when they weren’t trying to sneak barrels of rum past the King’s men, which had been the other little sideline, spoken of only in hushed tones.
Sadie had read all the old classics like Moonfleet and Treasure Island where the smugglers were painted as romantic heroes and loveable rogues, and she liked to imagine that Sea Salt Bay had been filled with men like that once. But the reality, she acknowledged with some disappointment, had probably been a lot less romantic and a lot more dangerous. Her dad had once done some research on the bay’s history and had read some of the old records. Times had been brutal and tough in Sea Salt Bay all those hundreds of years ago, and many people got involved in the smuggling only because they’d had no choice – it was either that or starve. She’d sat at her dad’s side one Sunday afternoon just as she’d turned nineteen and looked over at what he’d been reading before wishing she hadn’t. It had only confirmed Sadie’s suspicions of a depressing reality – though, on days like today, she preferred to think about her version of Sea Salt Bay’s past. Her version was more fun and far less grim.
Looking at the row of cottages now, each painted a different pastel shade – apple green, cornflower blue, sugar pink, soft peach, primrose yellow, lavender and lilac – gleaming in the light of golden hour, it was easy to believe in Sadie’s preferred alternative history. Sea Salt Bay was still a small town – a village really – and still reliant on the sea, but it was a brighter, happier place these days. Every window of every cottage showed a different display: surfing supplies, beach games and