Polinka Goes on Holiday
Copyright© 2026 by Clee Hill
Chapter 1
“Hey, Dad,” Polinka shouted as her father got home from work that day. It was Friday, the end of June, and more importably, the end of her exams. No more studying until the autumn - god, it felt so far away, saying it like that - and no homework until then either. Better still, even as she sniffed theatrically she could already see he was holding out a parcel containing fish, chips, and for her, tinned roe in batter.
“Can I trust you to put this out and not start until I’ve had chance to change?” he asked, smiling at her simple enthusiasm.
“Dad! I wouldn’t start without you. I’ll even ‘allow’ your request to go get changed first if you want. Er, I don’t need to change too, do I?” she asked, Polinka having worn a loose cropped top and an equally baggy pair of shorts, both in green, her top the lighter of the two, and neither of them the uniform she had insisted on wearing through exam season, even when she had been studying at home. True she felt it helped her to keep her ‘school head on’ rather than revising in her normal clothes, but that didn’t mean she liked to. She didn’t. And now she didn’t have to do that, either.
“No, Biscuit, you can stay as you are.”
“Cool. So, time for a kiss?” she grinned, taking the parcel from him, putting it on the hallway table and hugging onto him hard.
“Don’t think can say ‘no’, can I?”
“Nope,” she said as she stepped up on the tippiest of her toes, kissing him softly on the lips, her eyes closed as she tried to pour all her love into him. “I love you, Daddy.”
“More than roe and chips?”
“That’s unfair!”
Stephen smiled. “And would it be even more unfair to ask you to make the tea while I get changed?” he asked.
“In a mug, of course.”
“Of course,” Stephen agreed, they using cups and saucers the rest of the time, but somehow the tea for the fish and chips always tasted better from a mug.
“You got it. Don’t dawdle. Dad, go fast!” she grinned, snatching one more quick kiss before she was down from her tip-toes, out of his embrace, and headed for the kitchen with a purpose. And their tea. Knowing her Dad really wouldn’t take long, she swiftly got to work, leaving their food wrapped for the moment to keep the heat in as she put the kettle on, running the teapot under the hot tap to warm it before adding two spoons of Kenyan leaf tea, strong, malty, and able to stand up to the salt and vinegar assault.
Sure enough, only a couple of minutes later she head the footsteps as her father came back down stairs. “All done,” he declared as he joined her in the kitchen, his shirt and tie office combo gone, now.
“Nice shirt.”
“Thank you.”
“Not, haha, not sucky at all,” she grinned, his shirt being seersucker shirt, white, with checks in red, blue, and green on it, making it look like graph paper but with different colours instead of different widths. It was also a very well made shirt in that the pattern on the arms and the body matched up and aligned perfectly. “However, you’re not wearing chinos are you?”
“Polinka you know I don’t own any,” Stephen said, his trousers being white cotton.
“Pretty ‘adjacent’ if you ask me...”
Stephen smiled. “I promise, they only seem ‘adjacent’. They are from a reputable gentleman’s tailors who have never even heard of a ‘chino’ much the less ever sold them.”
“Okay, I guess I’ll take your word. This time. But don’t forget, I’ll be watching you,” she said, comically waggling her eyebrows. “Can I trust you to do the unboxing?” she asked as she checked the pot, nodded, and poured their drinks into two capacious mugs, still bone china of course, and these with green palm leaf designs on them. They already had a splash of milk and a cube of sugar each.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Stephen smiled as he did his, she did hers, and a couple of minutes later they were sitting, eating, drinking, and listening to some vaguely classical music on the radio as they did. “So what did you get up to today? Wild parties? Boys? Girls? Both?”
“Dad! I’m not like that.”
“I know, but you’re at the age you should be.”
“Oh? So I can organise a ‘rave’ I think you old people called them.”
“Hey! I never ‘raved’ in my life, and I’m not old either,” Stephen said. He had just slipped into his forties a couple of years ago though he tried not to let her remind him too often.
Polinka giggled. “So not having been a ‘raver’ was more important than me not thinking of you as old?”
“They were equal.”
“Uh-huh. Sounded like it to me,” she said, dipping a chip in her creamy tartare sauce.
“So what have you been up to?”
“Oh, you knowing, just calling occupants of interplanetary craft.”
“Any answers?”
“Not yet, but it’s early.”
“So now your exams are over—”
“—Don’t! Please?—”
“How are you getting on with your toys?” he asked, smiling as he knew what her reaction would be.
“Dad! They are not toys! They are musical instruments.”
“Musical?”
“Musical to me, and that’s all that matters, right?”
“It is. So, how are you getting on?”
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