"When is Daddy coming?" I called, as I opened the door to the kitchen. The smell of toast drifted up my nostrils as Granny turned to face me, clutching the butter knife in one hand.
"Eleven o'clock. Only a couple of hours to wait, deary, and I made you your favourite breakfast." I turned to face the table and saw a plate filled with bacon, eggs and toasted bread in my place.
"Thank you, Granny!" Delighted, I rushed towards the chair, clambered onto it and then began to eat. Granny took the chair opposite me, nibbling at a piece of buttered toast and sipping a hot cup of tea.
"Are you looking forward to meeting Emma?" she asked. I bit into a crunchy piece of bacon to give me time to think.
"I'm not sure really," I answered truthfully, swallowing a mouthful. "I don't know if I like girls very much."
"Girls aren't so different from boys once you get to know them."
Granny always said the right thing. I visited her every Friday after school and she called me her 'little deary', which I didn't really mind. She also told me funny stories about when mummy was a girl and let me watch anything I wanted on her television.
"Are you enjoying that, deary?" she smiled as I dipped my toast into an egg, causing the runny yolk to dribble down the sides of the egg cup and onto my hands. I nodded, happily licking egg off my fingers. "I'll just go pour you a glass of orange juice.
"When I was a little girl, I had two brothers," Granny told me as she opened the fridge door. "We didn't always get on, but I miss them now." Then she paused for a moment, as if forgetting what she was doing, before shaking her head and reaching for the orange juice as the fridge began to beep.
Mum sometimes told me that Granny used to be really clever, but her memory wasn't quite the same as it was when she was younger. Sometimes she would get things mixed up - names, places and stories would confuse her. One time when she picked me up from school, she called for me as "Joe", the name of one of her older brothers, and I had to tell her "I'm Luke", to which she replied "yes, deary, I know you are." It always scared me when she forget things, but I never told anybody. I never had the chance to.
After gulping down my orange juice, I watched some cartoons on the TV in the living room, whilst Granny chattered on the phone to Mummy for a while. The time passed quickly and, before I had time to finish watching Tom and Jerry, the doorbell rang.
"Luke, go get your bags!" Granny called through to me. I raced upstairs and into the spare bedroom, stuffing patch (my big teddy bear) and last night's pyjamas into my bag. Hearing Daddy's voice from the room below, I dawdled for a moment, suddenly feeling reluctant to go home. I had no idea what Emma would be like and, now that it was finally time to meet her, my stomach hurt with nerves. She could've been lovely or she could've been horrible. I had no idea whatsoever.
A familiar sound reached my ears - I could recognise the bark of my dog anywhere. Reassuring and comforting, it replaced the uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty inside me with relief. Finally, I took a deep breath in through my nose and back out of my mouth (as Granny always told me to do when I felt nervous or scared), zipped up my bag and dragged it out of the room then down the stairs.
"Is he alright?" Daddy asked in his quite voice, which I wasn't supposed to be able to hear..
"He's had a lovely time," Granny replied. "I don't think you need to worry about him, Simon." She turned to face me as I reached the foot of the stairs. "Didn't you enjoy yourself, deary?"
I nodded eagerly and then reached down to rub Barney behind the ears. His tongue lolled out of his mouth as he looked up expectantly, longing for a treat. Things couldn't be so bad with Barney to watch over me.
"We'd better be going," Daddy said, taking my bag from me and slinging it over one shoulder. "Come on."
"Bye, deary, I'll see you next week." Granny bent down to my height, ruffled my hair and gave me a big lip-sticky kiss on the forehead. Breathing in her scent of strong perfume, I wiped my head and then waved at her with every step we took away from her house until the front door was closed.
"I thought it'd be nice if we took Barney for a walk," Daddy told me. I looked down to see my labrador tugging excitedly at his lead, tail wagging.
"Are we going to the park?" He nodded in reply.
I knew that he was going to talk to me about Emma as soon as he said we were going for a walk. That was his way of letting me know that he wanted to chat. Mummy always just sat me down at the kitchen table, but Daddy liked to be up and about on his feet when we discussed important things. Sometimes my parents were so different from each other.
We didn't say a word to each other until we reached the park entrance and then he only asked "Do you want to let Barney off his lead?" I reached down to release my dog and stood watching as he ran off into the distance before returning a few seconds later, fur ruffled in the wind. Daddy started walking along the public footpath so I followed him.
"I think you'll like Emma," he said, as I walked alongside him, kicking pebbles with my trainers. "Perhaps not a lot at first, but I'm sure you'll grow to really like her."
"Daddy, is she okay?" I asked him.
"Of course she is," he smiled reassuringly. "We wouldn't have picked her to come live with us if she wasn't. She's quiet at the moment - she doesn't say a lot - and she's waiting to see you. She wants to see you!"
I was silent in thought for a moment, then said "I think I want to see her."
After we had each thrown a stick for Barney (and he had finished racing through the trees and chasing the ducks on the edge of the pond), we began to walk home, nerves jittering in my stomach, the hot summer sun beating down on the tarmac and warming the pavement beneath my feet. We made our way to the front door, Barney bounding up the steps, and Daddy turning the key in the lock. I swallowed a mouthful of fresh air.
"We're back!" he announced as I shuffled along the corridor, Barney at my side.
In and out and in and out I told myself, inhaling air rapidly. In and out. I pushed the door open, my eyes scanning the room. Emma was sitting in my place on the settee.
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