by Mukheled Al-Amiry

Created on: June 01, 2009

The Whistle Keeper

The tantalising aroma of the freshly baked sponge cake; filled the kitchen and wafted through to the entire house, carried by the light summer breeze which drifted in through the open windows ... and yet still no Amanda..!

Eight years old Amanda would normally have been in the kitchen an hour earlier, using all her trickery to manoeuvre around her mum to the mixing-bowl; finger-scooping cake-mix and smacking her lips on it through incessant chatter, and then checking-in eagerly for a wedge of the finished article as soon as it came out of the oven, but not this morning...

Today was tinged with sadness for both Elspeth Dutton and her little girl Amanda. Poor old Mr Rigby, their close neighbour and closer friend -to Amanda in particular- was later that day, being taken by his eldest daughter into hospital for what seems to be the last journey he'd ever make ... and Elspeth -upon Amanda's urging- spent this Sunday morning; baking his favourite lemon-sponge cake to take with him.

'Amanda... Honey; the cakes are out of the oven, would you like a little slice?'

When no reply was forthcoming, Elspeth went into the living-room to check on her daughter. The TV was on and as usual; loudly tuned into a music channel but Amanda was on the easy chair by the front window looking over at Mr Rigby's house and crying.

Elspeth went over to her daughter, put an arm around her and spoke to her gently 'Hush now sweetheart... Mr Rigby is going to be in good hands. I'm sure that they'll be doing everything they can for him...'

'Mum, he is so old and poorly, I think he's going to die...' Amanda spoke through her sobs 'his grand-kids say that the house is being put-up for sale, and he's never coming back...'

Elspeth knew how callous the two Rigby teenage grandchildren were... they reflected their parent's lack of compassion for the old boy. He had two daughters and a son; all in their forties and with their own mostly grown-up children... all of whom seemed to be waiting for the old man to pop his clogs and commence their quarrelling over whatever proceeds they'd get from his less than modest estate.

Amanda was born in the house they lived in. She had never known her father... He did the only chivalrous act of his life when he disappeared soon after Elspeth told him that she was pregnant, and a good riddance it was. Elspeth's own father had died a few years before then, leaving her in reasonable financial comfort. Her mother had since remarried and moved

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