To Catch a Creeper, page 29
‘For you, Eric, I’ll keep open a whole one,’ I grin at him. ‘Us Crouchenders are a close-knit community, you know.’
I spy the postman who’s returned from his round and has been listening at the back of the little gathering.
‘And I’ll do all her fuses and fences,’ Declan says in a strangely gruff voice. ‘Make sure she gets all her mail OK. And supply her with free eggs.’
‘You will?’ I say, astonished.
‘Least I can do, my Cathleen.’ He kisses the top of my head. ‘Very least I can do.’
***
You see I started off my life assuming most people are entirely sane, then I find out one of my neighbours wasn’t. But over time I kind of changed my mind about that, thinking I was being paranoid because one nasty incident had occurred. Then not many months later my mind was influenced again by a counsellor who kind of made out that most people were slightly mad, my husband and new neighbour included, so I’d assumed the worst again, which really isn’t a good thing to do.
Declan’s now perfectly happy and any signs of insanity are just the usual insanity of all men in their early forties having suffered two kids and a lengthy marriage to a not so perfect wife and mother.
It’s like the way advertising’s going, people are generally apathetic. For example, organ donors. People can’t be arsed signing up to donate on their death, yet neither can they be bothered ticking the box saying they don’t want to. Thus the opting-out method means many more organ donors, which obviously is a good thing. In fact a hugely important thing.
Now if you could put that all that passivity into an advertising campaign, you could… Oh, but I’m not in advertising any more, am I?
No. I’m Cathy O’Farrell – Founder of the HPWWOCS.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ellie Campbell is a pseudonym for sisters, Pam Burks and Lorraine Campbell who collaborate across the mighty Atlantic from their respective homes in Surrey, England and Colorado, USA, finding writing together a great excuse for endless phone conversations. Together they have written three previous novels How To Survive Your Sisters, When Good Friends Go Bad and Looking For La La. They love any chance to connect with their readers and you can reach them at:
www.chicklitsisters.com
twitter: @ecampbellbooks
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Ellie Campbell, To Catch a Creeper
