"Cheered on by the dreadful Clarice?"

"No, she was furious. She'd got it all planned for me to work in her brother's grocery store for slave wages, and go on doing all the housework." Pippa's eyes gleamed with mischief. "I told her where she could put that," she said, with such wicked relish that Luke laughed out loud.

"I'll bet you did!" he said admiringly.

"She said she'd never heard such disgraceful language. I told her she'd hear it again if she didn't get out of my way. She screamed at me while I was packing, down the stairs, through the front door and all the way to the bus station.

"She said I'd come to a bad end in London, and I'd be crawling back in a week. I told her I'd starve first. I got on the bus and watched Clarice getting smaller and smaller until she vanished from my life and I vanished from hers. I've kicked the dust of Encaster off my feet, and it's staying off."

"Encaster? Don't think I've heard of it."

"Nobody's heard of it except the people who live there, and most of them wish they hadn't. It's about thirty miles north of London, very small and very dreary."

"Didn't your dad want you home?"

"I called him at his work once to let him know I was all right. He told me to 'stop being an idiot' and come back, because Clarice was giving him a hard time about it. That was all he cared about. If he'd been just a little bit concerned about me I'd have told him where I was. But he wasn't. So I didn't. That was the last time I talked to him. I'm still in touch with Frank, but he and Dad aren't speaking. He won't give me away."

"So you came to seek your fortune in London? At sixteen? Good for you, kid! Did you find the streets paved with gold?"

"They will be, one day. I do cookery courses in the evenings, and when I've got some diplomas I'll get a job as a cook. Then I'll do more courses, get a better job, and so on, until the gourmets of the world are beating a path to my door."