Frankie’s Choice

Chapter One: Beginnings

NOTE: this is the beginning of the first book in a trilogy which apparently contains “too many difficult words” to be suitable for general publication. I offer this excerpt in the hope one or two people may find it diverting and if there’s sufficient interest (from more than my half-dozen friends) I may publish the next portion of the first chapter and so on until someone begs me to stop.

Frankie was bored. She hadn’t bothered to study for her exams but she’d received A+ for every subject except Religious Education where she’d simply written “it’s all absolute rubbish,” handed her paper to the invigilating teacher, and walked out of the examination room to the astonishment of her peers.

The convenience shop was one she’d been to on many previous occasions, sometimes with her few semi-friends and more often on her own. She actually quite liked the shopkeeper; he seemed nice, although rather ineffectual. Hassan was short, bald, and fat, which didn’t say much for his ability to look after himself. Perhaps he didn’t have the time, as he had seven children. Still, she was bored, and that meant she was going to do a little shoplifting. Nothing that would cost real money; just something to push back the oppressive sense of futility she’d lately been feeling too often.