The jolting of the train wakes me.  She's sat across from me smirking as if she knew what I was dreaming about and my heartbreaking pain brings her nothing but amusement. Dad squeezes my arm "bad dream?" then looks at me with those soppy eyes.

"No I'm fine" I mumble so he won't worry but also not to give the crazy old bat the satisfaction of my discomfort. I change the subject as their staring eyes is irritating me "where are we going?"

She picks up her beloved bag probably a fake and replies "Not going, we are here. Follow me".

We stand and obediently follow the old witch to the doors.  As we step off the train on to the station the smell of sea air it's my nose, I know the beach smell as dad took me years ago to Margate beach for day trip the sandy beach and arcades is one of my favourite memories but this isn't Margate there is no illumination of lights or chatter of holiday makers, where are we?  I look up at the sign it says Whitstable, I've never heard of Whitstable but already hate it, there beside the tiny train station is a metallic blue jaguar waiting, I turn to whisper to dad "How long was I asleep?"

He holds my hand and squeezes it gently "a while I had to carry you when we swapped trains".

"We are here" the old crazy lady throws her arms in the air like over top games host showing you what you could have won "this is my own little part of hell, Whitstable.  A town famous for its oysters and harbour, nicknamed 'The Bubble" - she starts to walk towards the car then turns "Well,come on". 

As we approach the car I notice a gang of youths on bikes lurking near the car as if dad has read my mind he muttered "well there is trouble if I've ever seen it" but she seems disinterested in them as she glides by they all nod in unison to her.  She barely glances at them as we walk by, they scowl at us, the same way a dog does when you've touched its food bowl and like a dog they looked like they'd quite happily bite a chunk out of you.

Once in the car the driver nods in her direction then we whirl off we drive pass little houses all unique and quaint in their own way, the car purrs like a big cat as we zigzag through the town until we stop in the high street and stop outside a bar called named Devils Den.  From her bag, she retrieves a large set of jangly keys, a lot like I'd imagine they'd have in prison with the jail warden swinging around jangling in front of the prisoners in a mocking fashion to show the small object that stands between them and their freedom.

The bar is more of a pub and not a particularly remarkable one , the dark wood and pictures of the harbour makes the décor feel old, tired, worn with very little modern touches, scattered around are pictures of Whitstable through the years as I wander around I feel her eyes on me the whole time watching my every move .

I stop in front of a picture of young Victorian girls in front of large depressing building all of their gaunt still faces look haunted by life underneath it simply says Whitstable Young Ladies Finishing School, she is now beside me "finishing school" she scoffs  "Just a more glamorised way of saying brothel, they finished off a lot of men if that counts for anything, many of them entered as girls but left as women whether they liked it or not, I miss those girls now they knew how to have fun".

I giggled "miss them" I might have missed a lot of school, but even I know basic maths.  "For you to know them that would make you ..."

She sniggered "really old but a lady never digresses her age". 
I eyed her up and down suspiciously, she was old but certainly not that old.  Then she pointed to a woman standing beside the girls I leaned in and gasped it looked just like crazy lady but that was impossible, she put her finger to her lips and silently mouthed shhhh "As I said a lady never reveals her age".

We are ushered upstairs, where there is a two-bedroom flat and told this will be ours, ours? nothing was ours. 

The feeling overwhelmed me and subdued the nagging feeling I felt in the pit of my stomach.  The flat was homely with everything you'd need, far more than we were used to.  Dad's face, even in his exhaustion, lit up like a child on Christmas Day, his tense shoulders relaxed for a moment as he absorbed his surroundings.  She asked if we had belongings that we would need bringing here.  Although the truth was that anything of value, we always carried on our person. 

When you move from place to place you become accustomed to travelling light, things just weigh you down.  Dad would say all we needed was each other, with this she tells us there are spare clothes in the wardrobes in the bedrooms from the previous employee as they'd left them and that we were welcome to them should we want them.  She rattled off where everything was then left but I think very little of what she said sunk in between confusion and pure amazement very little was making sense.

Dad turned to me "do you still want to run?"

I looked around even with all this being given to us on a plate I still had this terrible nagging feeling that something wasn't right was somehow off but the hope on his face, I couldn't squash that so I smiled and lied to protect him like he'd done for me a million times before and simply said "No it'll do for now, until our mansion is built".

He chuckled "yeah we can slum it here until the mansion has the new pool fitted".

I giggled "and the underfloor heating" he nodded.

"Ohh yes the underfloor heating, we aren't savages. What would people say " he laughed and with that, we had silently agreed to stay and see where this took us, of all the odd things we've acquired doing a staged mugging, this was by far the oddest.