Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Fern walked down Curiosity Lane, the warm coastal air feeling so different from London’s.
She looked forward to a night in The Old Ship Inn with Amelia and her friends.
As she reached the pub, she paused before stepping inside.
The pub looked so cosy, and the laughter and chatter suggested it was busy.
Walking through the door, she scanned the room and spotted Amelia waving from a table near the fireplace.
‘There you are!’ Amelia called, lifting her pint.
Fern made her way over and smiled. ‘This place is busy!’
‘Quiz night,’ Amelia said with a grin. ‘Did I forget to mention that bit?’
‘You did!’ replied Fern.
‘Oh, you’ll love it,’ said Becca, who was already there with a half-empty pint and a bowl of chips. ‘We’re very supportive. Unless someone gets a question wrong about puffins!’
‘Hi, Fern,’ said Clemmie, smiling warmly from the other side of the table. ‘Welcome to the madness.’
‘And this,’ Amelia added, gesturing to the one woman Fern hadn’t met yet, ‘is Dilly. Artist, resident lighthouse dweller and notorious sore loser.’
Dilly raised a hand in greeting. She had wild curly hair tied up in a scarf, smudges of paint on her hands, and a twinkle in her eye. ‘Nice to meet you. Don’t worry, I only throw pencils at people if they confuse Monet with Manet.’
‘Duly noted,’ Fern said, sliding into a seat. ‘I have a GCSE in Art and zero quiz skills, so I’m mostly here for moral support and crisps.’ She grinned.
‘Perfect,’ Becca said. ‘You’ll fit right in.’
‘And this is Verity, vet’s assistant and now a permanent resident after arriving on a whim because she discovered a postcard sent years ago from Puffin Island.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ chimed Verity, as she took the last unoccupied chair.
‘And you. That sounds very intriguing.’
‘It was, and now I’m here for good.’
They passed Fern a menu and within minutes someone had put a cider in front of her and a plate of onion rings that tasted suspiciously like actual heaven. The quiz sheets were already on the table and the argument about their team name was soon underway.
‘Let’s Get Quizzical,’ Amelia said confidently.
‘Too obvious,’ replied Clemmie.
‘What about “Agatha Quiztie”?’ Fern suggested, sipping her drink.
There was a pause.
‘That’s not bad,’ Becca said. ‘Very on brand. Murder, mystery and a decent pun.’
‘Agatha Quiztie it is,’ Amelia declared, scrawling it across the top of their answer sheet. ‘Team registration complete. No backing out now.’
‘That’s Pete,’ Amelie said, pointing to a man near the front of the bar. ‘Tonight’s quizmaster lives in Cliff Top Cottage, counts puffins, is a retired vet and was once a singer in a famous band.’
‘Really?’ replied Fern. That last bit of information had certainly piqued her interest. Before she could ask any more questions, Pete tapped his microphone.
‘Right! Let’s get started… Round One is General Knowledge. Remember: no phones, no cheating, and no arguing with the quizmaster unless you’ve bought me a pint.’
The room erupted in a chorus of good-natured groans and shouts.
Round One began with a mix of easy and obscure questions.
Fern surprised herself by getting a question right about capital cities, and even more by knowing who invented the World Wide Web (thanks to a particularly boring ex-boyfriend who worked in IT and explained it at great length during a cinema date).
Dilly was unbeatable on anything artsy, Clemmie nailed the food and drink round with unnerving precision, and Becca got into a passionate disagreement about whether Jaffa Cakes were legally cakes or biscuits.
Amelia, naturally, was the glue holding it all together – half team captain, half chaos coordinator. Since she owned a book shop, all literary questions were hers.
By the halfway point, Fern’s cheeks ached from laughing. Someone had bought a round of shots ‘for luck’, and it was loud and messy and completely joyful at their table.
During the music round, Fern correctly identified three boybands and an obscure Shania Twain lyric, all to raucous applause from the group.
‘You’ve been holding out on us,’ Amelia said, nudging her. ‘Secret pop princess.’
‘I’m a music journalist, but I also do own an entire collection of Smash Hits magazines,’ Fern said modestly.
They didn’t just do well … they stormed it. By the final round, Agatha Quiztie was tied for first place with a rival team made up of local fishermen, who had an unsettling knowledge of 1980s soap operas.
The tie-breaker question was about the population of Iceland and the girls huddled together, whispering guesses.
‘Three hundred thousand?’ Fern said.
‘Maybe more,’ Clemmie whispered. ‘I feel like it’s more.’
‘We’re going with 372,000,’ Amelia said confidently.
It was 376,000.
They won.
Their prize? A ￡25 bar tab and eternal glory.
Amelia raised her glass. ‘To Agatha Quiztie. May we reign supreme.’
‘And never be asked to spell Czechoslovakia again,’ said Dilly.
Fern couldn’t stop smiling. She felt a bit buzzed from the cider, a bit giddy from the win, and completely full of something she hadn’t felt in ages: belonging.
Around eleven p.m. she stepped outside the pub.
It was dark and quiet, the kind of peaceful that only an island could be.
As she walked home, she could picture herself doing this again.
A monthly quiz night spent catching up with the girls.
Laughing too hard over too many chips. Not rushing.
Not checking her phone every five seconds.
She looked up and was surprised to see the vivid tapestry of stars. There were so many more than you ever saw in the city.
And in that moment, with the cider still warm in her belly and her cheeks pink from laughter, she thought she could get used to this slower pace of life.
But she wasn’t quite ready to admit that out loud.
Not just yet.