The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern

either.’
    He picked up a folder from beside him and licked his finger before flicking through some pages. ‘What’s the author’s name?’
    ‘There’s no author’s name.’
    He frowned and looked up. ‘Not possible. Open it up and see what’s on the first page.’
    ‘I can’t,’ I laughed. ‘It’s locked.’
    ‘Oh, come on,’ he smiled, ‘you’re taking the piss, Goodwin.’
    ‘I’m not,’ I laughed, moving towards him. ‘Honestly, look.’
    I passed it to him and our fingers brushed, causing a tingle of seismic proportions to rush through every single erogenous zone that existed in my body.
    The pages of the book were closed with a gold clasp and attached to that was a small gold padlock.
    ‘What the hell…’ he said, trying to pull at the lock, making a series of grimaces that had me smiling. ‘Trust you to choosethe only book in here that doesn’t have an author or title and is padlocked.’
    We both started laughing. He gave up on the padlock and our eyes locked.
    This was the bit where I was supposed to say, ‘I’m only sixteen.’ But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I told you, I felt older. Everybody always thought I looked older. I wanted to be older. It wasn’t like we were going to have sex on the floor, he wasn’t going to be in prison for staring at me. But still. I should have said it then. If we were in some old Gone with the Wind -style southern early nineteenth-century book, back in the good old days where women were men’s property and weren’t protected at all, then it wouldn’t have mattered, we could have rolled around in the hay in a barn somewhere and done whatever we wanted and nobody would have been accused of anything. I felt like hunting down that book from the shelves, opening it and jumping into the pages with him. But we weren’t. It was the twenty-first century. I was sixteen, very nearly seventeen, and he was twenty-two. I’d seen it on his ID card. I had experience in knowing that a guy’s horn didn’t last until my seventeen birthday. It was rare they felt like coming back in July.
    ‘Don’t look so sad,’ he said, and reached out and lifted my chin with his finger. I hadn’t realised he’d come so close to me and there he was, right before me. Toe to toe.
    ‘It’s only…a book.’
    I realised I was hugging it close to me, both my arms wrapped around it tightly.
    ‘But I like the book,’ I smiled.
    ‘I like the book too, very much. It’s a cheeky very pretty book, but it’s obvious we can’t read it right now.’
    My eyes narrowed, wondering if we were talking about the same thing.
    ‘So, that means we’ll both just have to sit and look at it, until we find the key.’
    I smiled, and I felt my cheeks pink.
    ‘Tamara!’ I heard my name being called. A screeching, desperate call. We stopped gazing at one another and I rushed to the door of the bus. It was Rosaleen. She was running across the road toward me her face scrunched up, her eyes wild and dangerous. Arthur was standing on the pavement beside his car, looking calm. I relaxed a little then. What had Rosaleen all riled up?
    ‘Tamara,’ she said, breathless. She looked from Marcus to me, appearing like a meerkat again, on high alert. ‘Come back to us, child. Come back,’ she said, her voice shaky.
    ‘I am coming back,’ I frowned. ‘I’ve only been gone an hour.’
    She looked a little confused then, looked at Marcus as if he was going to explain everything.
    ‘What’s wrong Rosaleen? Is Mum okay?’
    She was silent. Her mouth opened and closed as if she was trying to find words.
    ‘Is she okay?’ I asked again, panic building.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘of course she’s fine.’ She still looked confused, but beginning to calm.
    ‘What’s wrong with you?’
    ‘I thought you’d…’ she trailed off, looking around the village now and, as though realising where she was, she stood up straight, ran a hand across her hair to smooth it down, fixed her dress which was