Lily Alone (20 page)

We had to wait a long time because the grannies nattered to each other for ever, but eventually they heaved themselves up and tottered off in their baggy trousers and sensible sandals.

I nipped off my seat, grabbed the plate of cake, and was back at our own table in a second. I cut the cake into four and gave Bliss the biggest piece.

‘No, she doesn't want any. I'll have hers,' said Baxter.

‘You eat your cake, Bliss. You've seen those old ladies. You could see they weren't a bit germy, and they were very fierce about handwashing, weren't they? So you eat your cake, OK?'

She still wasn't too sure, but when she'd tried a crumb of cake and a smear of cream she decided it tasted so good she didn't care if it was crawling with germs. Baxter finished his cake in one gulp and was already rocking back on his chair, craning his neck to see if he could see anyone else likely to leave us a feast.

‘Look at those girls there! I bet they never finish their chips. They're too busy giggling. I think they're going, they're picking up their bags, quick!'

He started weaving his way through the tables. He picked up a plate with a piecrust and chips, grabbed an uneaten sandwich, another half cake, a mound of salad and three cooked carrots, piling them on top of each other higgledly piggledy. He returned triumphantly with his loaded plate.

‘Honestly! You couldn't be more obvious if you tried,' I said.

‘You shut up. You don't have to eat it,' said Baxter, gobbling the whole of the piecrust before I could cut it fairly into quarters. I divided the rest for the girls, making them eat a carrot each because I knew it had lots of vitamins, and I ate the salad myself. It probably had lots of vitamins too, but it tasted like damp flannel.

‘Now it's
your
turn to find us some food, Bliss,' said Baxter. ‘I did great, didn't I?'

‘I don't really like this food,' said Bliss. ‘Not when it's all mixed up together.'

‘It gets mixed up in your stomach, doesn't it?' said Baxter. ‘You're just too scared to go and nick some.'

‘It's
not
nicking, Baxter,' I said fiercely. ‘I wouldn't let you do it if it was. It's just . . . clearing up the plates.'

I let him go and do some more ‘clearing' because he loved doing it, and I figured the café people wouldn't be too cross with him if they caught him because he was such a little boy. We sat there a whole hour or so, with Baxter going off foraging for us every few minutes. We had such a feast at our table that little brown sparrows kept flying down for a beakful too. One of them hopped right across our table top and back, cocking his head at us cheekily.

‘Oh, he's so
sweet
,' said Bliss. ‘Can we keep him and tame him and have him for our own pet bird?'

‘Oh yeah, and we'll have a pet rabbit too, and maybe a baby deer,' I said, but then I stopped, because Bliss's eyes were shining hopefully.

‘Only joking, Bliss. They're like Baxter, you
can't
tame them,' I said, which at least made her laugh.

When we were at last so full of everyone's leftovers that
we
were leaving stuff too, we strolled off down the steps, through the gates, to sit on a fallen tree trunk in the sunshine. We kicked our legs for a while and sang silly songs, but the food and the warm sun made us all sleepy, even Baxter. We curled up in a heap in the grass, Pixie on my lap using my chest as a pillow, Bliss and Baxter either side of me, and went to sleep.

It was a long, long sleep, in spite of the hard ground and the kids squashing me, perhaps because I hadn't slept properly at night since Mum met Gordon. I dreamed I sprouted angel's wings, pink and red and gold. I floated up into the air away from everyone. I flew far away in the sunshine until the parakeets squawked so loudly that they woke me up. My wings fell off and I was left sprawling on the grass with pins and needles in my arms.

I gently slid Pixie off me and sat up, stretching. She was still asleep, but Baxter and Bliss were taking it in turns to walk along the fallen tree trunk.

‘At last!' Baxter shouted. ‘You've been asleep
ages
.'

‘Baxter wanted to wake you but I wouldn't let him,' said Bliss. ‘We're pretending to be tightrope walkers, Lily. Come and join our circus!'

I joined in the circus games, doing handstands and cartwheels. When Pixie woke up we played she was our performing monkey. Then Baxter and Bliss were lions and I was their trainer. When they grew hoarse with roaring I became Madame Lily with my troupe of lily-white horses, and we all cantered round and round, Pixie puffing along behind us like a little Shetland pony. I was way too old to play these sorts of silly games and told myself I was just joining in to keep the kids amused.

When we were all out of breath we flopped down on the grass again and took it in turn to tell stories. I told them a story about all of us growing wings and flying off to different parts of the world. They were interested for a while, but Bliss crept nearer and held my hand and said she didn't want to fly anywhere without the three of us. She told a long convoluted story about Cinderella and Snow White and the Sleeping Beauty, who all lived in a palace together and wore a different beautiful ball gown every day.

Baxter started telling a story about a terrifying wolf man who burrowed through the bracken and attacked his victims, sinking his vicious teeth into their necks, but I shut him up, especially when he started acting it out and both little girls started squealing. Pixie was excited and yelled, ‘More, more! More wolfie!' when I sat on Baxter to stop him, but Bliss was truly frightened. Pixie herself was too little to tell a proper story. She just said a whole jumble of stuff: ‘Pixie did dancing, then Pixie did singing, then Pixie ate lots and lots of ice cream,' droning on and on about herself.

‘Pixie did telling stories and she was
boring
,' said Baxter unkindly. He stood up, kicking through the bracken, and found an old dog-chewed ball. ‘Hey, let's play catch!'

It was more a game of ‘drop', playing with Bliss and Pixie, but they became two piggies-in-the-middle while Baxter and I threw the ball over their heads. Then we found a small broken-off branch that could just about serve as a bat. We invented a weird game, half cricket, half rounders, where Baxter and I bowled and batted and fielded all at the same time. Bliss lay on her back and mumbled another fairy story to herself. Pixie skipped round and round behind us like a substantial little shadow.

Baxter and I had an argument about who was winning our silly game. I eventually gave in and said he was the winner – even though he
wasn't
.

‘I'm the
winner
!' he shouted, punching the air. ‘Right, what do I get for a prize?'

‘Here's a huge silver trophy,' I said, miming handing it to him.

‘No, I want a
real
prize. Can I have another ice cream?'

‘What's up with your brain? We haven't got any
money
.'

‘That man gave us one ice cream for nothing. Maybe he'll give us another one. Go on, ask him.'

‘No, I'm not asking! He'll think we're horribly greedy.'

‘I am,' said Baxter, patting his tummy. ‘Can we go back to the café then? We'll nick some more leftovers.'

‘It's
not
nicking. But all right,' I said, because I was getting hungry all over again and reckoned it might almost be time for tea.

The four of us climbed up the hill to the gate – but found it was locked.

‘Why did they go and lock it?' said Bliss.

‘Because they're meanies,' said Baxter. ‘
Stupid
meanies, because we can climb over, easy-peasy.'

Baxter and I could, but we had to haul Bliss up and she went very white and wobbly halfway over and wailed that she was stuck. We had to give her a little push and that made her scream. Pixie couldn't manage it either, but she clung to me and I swung us both over.

‘There we are! Come on then, let's see if we can find lots of cake,' I said. ‘Stop whimpering, Bliss, you didn't really hurt yourself.'

‘Yes, I did,' Bliss sniffed, but she wiped her eyes and nose and trudged along by our side.

We went up and up and up the steps until we saw the terrace – but it was empty. There were no people there at all, and all the tables had been wiped clean, and the chairs stacked. The café was clearly closed.

‘Oh rats,' said Baxter, running round the tables, even peering underneath them, but there wasn't a scrap of food left.

‘Never mind, it wasn't very nice food anyway,' said Bliss.

‘Are you mad! It was
lovely
, especially the pie,' said Baxter.

‘Yes, but not with other people's slurp all over it,' said Bliss.

‘Let's have ice cream!' said Pixie.

‘No, the ice-cream place must all be shut up too,' I said, but Pixie wouldn't quieten until I took her there to show her. We couldn't go through the café because it was all shut up and locked. We had to walk right round the back of the big house and then circle it. We found the ice-cream place eventually – and of course it was shut.

‘
Open
it!' Pixie wailed. ‘I want an ice cream!'

‘I want another piece of pie with lots of chips!' said Baxter.

‘Stop moaning, both of you. You're such greedy-guts.'

‘It's not greedy to want tea.'

‘Well, we've got lots of tea, back by the tree. Come on, we'll go back there and have a little feast,' I said.

‘That's just boring home food,' said Baxter, stamping, starting to get into a real strop.

‘It's all we've got – and if you don't want it, I'll give your share to Bliss and Pixie,' I said. ‘Now, come
on
.'

I wasn't quite sure how far away our hiding place was. I just knew it was
too
far. We were all tired now, grubby and hungry and thirsty. Pixie started whining to be carried when we'd only been walking five minutes.

‘Come on, Pixie, you're a big girl. You can walk all by yourself,' I said, trying to be bright and encouraging.

Pixie threw herself down on the ground.

‘No, I can't walk, I'm
little little little
,' she declared, going stiff as a board when I tried to pick her up. I couldn't just leave her there – though I was tempted. I had to give in and carry her. It didn't feel too bad at first, in fact it felt good to have Pixie's arms right round my neck and her legs clamped round my waist, but in a little while I felt as if I was hauling
fifty
pixies. My neck ached, my back ached, my legs ached, and my arms felt as if they were being pulled out of their sockets.

‘Shall
I
try carrying Pixie for a bit?' said Bliss.

‘Oh, you're a darling, but Pixie's almost as big as you. Thank you, though, Bliss – you're a gold-star sister.' I saw that she was limping a little. ‘What's the matter with your foot?'

‘It's sore,' said Bliss. ‘But it's OK.'

I made her take her shoe and sock off. Her sock had slipped down under her heel and her trainer had rubbed her ankle raw.

‘Oh Bliss, you should have
said
. Look, take your other shoe and sock off, give your toes a treat and run around barefoot,' I suggested.

‘No, it's all
dirty
.'

‘It's just grass.'

‘And lots of animal poo!'

‘No, there isn't. Well, teeny tiny rabbit poo every now and then, but that's nothing to be scared of.'

‘I
am
scared of it.'

‘Well, all right,
don't
go barefoot, but pull your sock
up.
here, wait a minute, put my sock on too, that will protect it better.'

My own trainer started rubbing after five more minutes but I just had to ignore it. We kept on trudging. Baxter was the only one of us with any energy left. He found another branch and played a mad tree-whacking game, pretending they were all enemy soldiers. At least it kept him moving forward in the right direction. If it
was
the right direction.

My heart started banging in my chest. I
thought
we were going the right way, but how could I be sure? And how on earth were we going to find our special hiding-place tree when there were hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of trees in this vast park? Well, we'd just have to find
another
hollow tree. No, wait, what about all our food, our blankets, our special things? What about Pixie's buggy? Why hadn't I kept a careful note of where we were going? I should have left a little trail of bread or stones like the children in fairy tales.

I was getting so anxious now that I could barely breathe, and I was close to dropping Pixie altogether. The others didn't seem to notice. Bliss limped along, Baxter bashed his trees, and Pixie crooned sleepily into my chest. ‘Little, little, little.'

I kept looking all around, trying to get my bearings. We were walking near a road, and I didn't think that was right at all. The road
itself
wasn't right – it was completely empty. Where had all the cars gone? The park gates must be closed, like the café. It meant we were all alone in the park.

‘We're absolutely safe now. There's no one around to be nosy,' I said. ‘Look, we can walk in the road, we can shout at the tops of our voices, we can strip off and wander about stark naked!'

‘Yeah!' said Baxter, tearing off his T-shirt and shorts.

‘I didn't mean
literally
,' I said, but I decided to let him be silly just for the fun of it.