Kook: (surfer slang): a learner, a wannabe.
JADE GOT ME in trouble from day one.
We moved back to Cornwall one Saturday, early last September. Mum, my kid sister Tegan, and me.
It was a sunny day, with a cool wind. The first day of autumn, or maybe the last of summer.
We drove through the village of Penford, and after a five-minute drive over the moor, bounced our way down a broken track.
When we got there, I saw why the rent was cheap. There were two cottages, storm-beaten old things, with moss on their roofs and rotten wood windows, nestled between the clifftops and the moor. There were stone walls to keep the sheep away, a few brush trees bent into weird shapes by the wind, and not much else.
Half a mile downhill, the land ended in a sharp line at the clifftop.
We were going to live in one cottage. Jade, her dad and their dog already lived in the other. They came over in the afternoon when Mum was arguing with the removal guy about why it wasn’t her fault the track had knackered the van’s suspension.
Jade’s dad introduced them both. Jade hung back and let him do the talking. He said about borrowing a cup of sugar any time and other neighbourly stuff. I didn’t pay any attention. I was working hard trying not to stare at Jade.
Her hair was long and black. Her eyes were sea blue-and-green, shining out of a honey brown face. Jade had a glow about her, something no old T-shirt and denim jacket could hide.
She took one look at me with those sea eyes and curled her lips into a half-smile. It put a hook in me.
