The blue bus dropped Robin beside the Aoinegh telephone box, faded now to a dusky pink, & she began walking towards the loch swinging her heavy school satchel & wondering if she didn't, after all, miss Queens as her mother had warned her, sniffing disapprovingly at the Portree High's plain black & white uniform. Queens had been one of her mother's poorer suggestions for having been lugged in her parent's train halfway round the world & back again covering uprisings & famines & genocidal wars Robin had not seen opportunities, only privilege. Lots & lots of privilege.
Not that her father 's option was any saner, though Robin could understand it better for having been blown up in the Sudan he had only wanted somewhere very quiet, very peaceful, very far away & Aoinegh was all those things. No~one could possibly call Aoinegh big. There wasn't even a shop. For that you had to travel to Carbost. What it had was atmosphere. The Cullins rose magnificently to the north. Loch Aoinegh stretched southwards & the Glenbittle Forest lay east with its intriguingly named Fairy Pools that Robin kept promising herself she would make the time to visit, only so far she hadn't.
She still felt a little shy wandering around Aoinegh for she didn't really know anybody though they all seemed to know a great deal about her, though how Robin had never puzzled out for her father was as close~mouthed as any dour Scot & rarely left the house & the houses were so scattered it was a wonder anybody ever saw anybody else. If he could have he would have let her drive herself into Carbost for their weekly groceries only Robin was so obviously underage he couldn't, though often he just sat in their battered combie & let Robin get on with it. She didn't mind, just as she didn't mind they lived at the very end of the rutted grass track that wandered somewhat aimlessly beside the loch. Only the Mcleod's lived beyond. She could just see their roof poking above the jagged rocks higher up, though how they fitted everyone in Robin hadn't worked out. There were so many of them that friendship seemed an impossibility
Not that her father 's option was any saner, though Robin could understand it better for having been blown up in the Sudan he had only wanted somewhere very quiet, very peaceful, very far away & Aoinegh was all those things. No~one could possibly call Aoinegh big. There wasn't even a shop. For that you had to travel to Carbost. What it had was atmosphere. The Cullins rose magnificently to the north. Loch Aoinegh stretched southwards & the Glenbittle Forest lay east with its intriguingly named Fairy Pools that Robin kept promising herself she would make the time to visit, only so far she hadn't.
She still felt a little shy wandering around Aoinegh for she didn't really know anybody though they all seemed to know a great deal about her, though how Robin had never puzzled out for her father was as close~mouthed as any dour Scot & rarely left the house & the houses were so scattered it was a wonder anybody ever saw anybody else. If he could have he would have let her drive herself into Carbost for their weekly groceries only Robin was so obviously underage he couldn't, though often he just sat in their battered combie & let Robin get on with it. She didn't mind, just as she didn't mind they lived at the very end of the rutted grass track that wandered somewhat aimlessly beside the loch. Only the Mcleod's lived beyond. She could just see their roof poking above the jagged rocks higher up, though how they fitted everyone in Robin hadn't worked out. There were so many of them that friendship seemed an impossibility
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