At least it wasn’t raining here in the park. I wriggled up until I could peek out of the tablecloth and saw the sky fiery red again above me. I wondered if I could ever draw a sunrise with my felt tips but I knew I’d never get the colours right.
I thought about Spain. I wasn’t sure if the time there was the same as our time, but they’d obviously have the same sun. I wondered if Mum was watching it too, looking forward to sunbathing on the beach all day. Or was she thinking about us four, wondering if she ought to come back home? I remembered a little rhyme we used to chant in the Infants: Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children are gone.
I thought of mum coming back tomorrow. It seemed such a long time away. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get through all of Friday. I served up the last of our food for breakfast, portioning everything out on leaf plates and making little trails of flowers beside each serving. Bliss and Pixie were enchanted when I called it a fairy breakfast, but Baxter moaned and said fairies were stupid and he wanted a proper breakfast.
‘Well, the poor fairies have clearly wasted their time trying to please you,’ I said huffily – though I wished the fairies could have magicked up a more substantial meal.
We’d just have to walk all the way to the Lodge and graze on leftover food like yesterday. This plan appealed to everyone, so we set off mid-morning, but it was a wasted effort. When we got to the Lodge at last and sat at the furthermost rickety white table, a guy in white overalls came and shooed us away immediately.
‘These tables are for our café customers. You children will have to go some place else,’ he said in a surly voice.
We didn’t dare sit back down at the table. We hovered on the steps, pretending to be playing. We waited while old couples sipped their coffee, but after a while people walked out with trays of cakes and cookies. We watched hungrily. Baxter got ready to pounce when the first couple stood up, half a rock-cake left on each of their plates – but the overall guy was still watching us. He caught Baxter by the wrist.
‘Oh no you don’t!’ he said. ‘You kids! You’re worse than the sparrows. Go on, clear off, or I’ll report you.’
Baxter looked as if he might argue, but I grabbed him quickly.
‘I’m sorry. He’s my brother. He’s a bit soft in the head. He doesn’t understand,’ I said quickly.
‘What do you mean, I’m soft in the head?’ Baxter said indignantly as I hurried him away. ‘I’m hard, like my dad.’
‘Yes, you’re hard as nails, but I didn’t want you to get into trouble, OK?’ I said. ‘Come on, all of you.’
‘I want my breakfast!’ said Pixie. ‘I’m hungry! Let’s have ice cream!’
‘We can’t go begging off that nice man again,’ I said, but the other three over-ruled me. I started fantasizing about a big soft whippy cone too, so I let them drag me right round the Lodge to the front, where the ice-cream kiosk was. But it was a different man today. He didn’t smile, even when Pixie started jumping up and down, going, ‘Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream!’
‘Come on then, make up your minds,’ he said. ‘Is it four small cones?’
‘Well, that would be lovely,’ I said, smiling at him nervously. ‘The only trouble is, we haven’t actually got any money.’
‘So what are you doing wasting my time?’ said the man. ‘Come on, you’re holding up the queue.’
‘You couldn’t give my baby sister a really tiny cone? She so wants an ice cream,’ I begged.
‘I’m running a business here, not a charity soup kitchen. No money, no ice cream, OK? Off you go.’
So we had to trail away, hungry and humiliated.
‘I didn’t like that man,’ said Bliss.
‘No, he was horrid. Never mind. Let’s forget him. Let’s – let’s go and find the magic garden again, it’s lovely there, with all the roses.’
‘You can’t eat roses,’ said Baxter.
‘No, but we can nibble at people’s picnics, remember?’ I said. ‘Come on, let’s set off. Find yourself another big stick, Baxter, so you can whack any nasty men who come near us. Bliss, hold Pixie’s hand too and we’ll jump her along for a while to cheer her up.’
I thought I knew where the magic garden was, but there was no sign of it, even when we’d been walking for half an hour. Bliss was limping again, though she didn’t complain.
‘I was sure it was over here somewhere,’ I said, squinting into the sunlight. I saw a silvery gleam in the distance. I rubbed my eyes and took a few steps nearer.
‘What? Can you see it, Lily?’ Bliss asked hopefully.
‘I think I can see . . . water.’
‘Like a pond?’
‘Well, a really big pond. Come on, perhaps we can all go paddling!’
It wasn’t just one enormous pond, it was two, with a sandy path between them. There was a little sand at the edge of the water too, almost like the seaside. Ducks bobbed cheerily across the rippling water, looking at us expectantly, but we didn’t have any bread for ourselves, let alone them.
There was a sign that forbade swimming, but I didn’t think paddling counted. We kicked off our shoes and ran into the water. Baxter went right on kicking, soaking himself and us, but it was a sunny day so I decided it didn’t matter. We all kicked and splashed and the ducks bobbed off huffily because we’d turned their smooth pool into rapids. Pixie tried to drink the water, scooping it up in her cupped hands, until I stopped her.
‘No, Pixie, it’s dirty water. It’ll make you sick,’ I said.
‘But I’m thirsty,’ Pixie wailed.
‘I know. We all are. I’ll find you a proper drink as soon as I can,’ I said.
I hoped the toilets would have a drinking fountain. After we’d walked for ages in our soggy trainers and damp clothes we found a toilet, but without any drinking fountain whatsoever. I let the kids drink from the cold tap instead, though none of us liked the taste, and we were still horribly hungry.
I didn’t know what to do. There were lots of people out walking their dogs or jogging along. I wondered about straightforward begging, concocting a story inside my head about some rough boys who had stolen our picnic – but I knew they’d want to know why we were in the park on our own. I went round and round things in my head, wishing I knew what to do for the best.
We were trailing along beside the high wall at the edge of the park now. If we stepped right back we could see the rooftops and windows of the big houses on the hill. I thought of the posh families inside, sitting at long tables and munching away happily. I thought of their big fridges stuffed full of food, enough to keep the four of us going for days.
I eyed the brick wall. It was much higher than my head, but if I got Baxter to give me a bunk up I might be able to scramble up and over. I loitered by each back garden, assessing them seriously. I saw one house with the French windows wide open. It was almost as if they were inviting me in.
‘OK,’ I said, spitting on my hands. ‘Baxter, you’re going to help me get over the wall, right? Bliss, you hang onto Pixie and keep her quiet.’
‘Are you going to be a burglar?’ Bliss whispered, her eyes huge.
‘No! I’m not going to take any things. I’m just going to see if they’ve got any spare food. That’s not really stealing,’ I said. I knew it was – but I decided I had to do it, to feed the kids. I was the oldest and the biggest, so it was down to me.
I got Baxter to bend over, then I climbed on his back and leaped upwards. I missed the first time and scraped my hands and knees on the brick wall. I swore viciously and had another go. This time I managed to grab the top of the wall and cling on, and then dug my sore knees and feet into cracks in the crumbling mortar and hauled myself up. I wedged myself on top of the wall, holding my breath.
The garden was empty. I squinted through the French windows. I couldn’t see anyone. I’d risk it. I let my legs dangle on the other side of the wall and then dropped to the ground. I landed neatly on a clump of poppies, stirring a flurry of red pe
tals around me. I wondered how I was going to get back over the wall without Baxter to help me, but there wasn’t any point wasting time worrying about it. I ran across the green lawn, past a big plastic playhouse, an elaborate garden swing and a trampoline. Imagine being a child in this house and having this huge garden to play in!
I crept right up to the French windows, holding my breath. I could see right into the room now. It was like a playroom, crammed with brightly coloured toys. I crouched beside a big plush pull-along dog, listening. I could hear a murmur of voices: an adult voice with a funny foreign accent and some little kid burbling away. They were upstairs, maybe the bathroom, because I could hear running water.
I crept through the playroom into a huge living room with a real white carpet, just like the one in my dreams. I went on tiptoe, worried about making muddy footprints. I went out into the hall. I could hear the people more clearly now. It seemed to be just one little kid. Maybe the foreign woman was its nanny? They were definitely in the bathroom because now I could hear splashing. Brilliant! They wouldn’t be able to hear me.
I darted down the hall and into an enormous kitchen. Thank goodness, it was empty. I circled the oven in the middle of the room, marvelling at all the gleaming surfaces. There was a long scrubbed table with a blue and white bowl full of apples and pears and bananas. I grabbed a big sacking shopping bag and emptied all the fruit into it, and then eased open the door of the vast fridge. It looked as if a whole supermarket had been crammed inside. I poked punnets of enormous strawberries, stroked soft downy peaches and smooth purple plums, and then snapped into action. I filled my bag with fruit, along with a big wedge of cheese, a pack of cooked chicken breasts, some sliced ham, yoghurts, a pot of cream, four chocolate eclairs, and a carton of orange juice. The bag was so full I could barely lift it, so I started decanting half into a plastic carrier. Then I realized the water noise had stopped.
‘Hello?’ the foreign voice called from upstairs.
Oh no, had she heard me? I grabbed both bags and ran out of the kitchen into the hall, over the snowy living-room carpet, kicked my way through the toys in the playroom and out into the garden. I stared at the trampoline, madly wondering if I could bounce up and over the wall, but I wasn’t a cartoon girl. I knew it wasn’t possible. I peered wildly around the garden, wondering how on earth I could leap over the wall with two bulging bags.
I heard the voice calling again. I didn’t have any time to waste. I seized the playhouse, dragging it over to the wall, the bags banging on either arm. I hauled myself up onto the pink plastic roof. I slung one bag up and over, flung my leg up after it, rolled right over the top of the wall, and fell flat on the other side, the bags on top of me, knocking the breath out of my body.
‘Oh, Lily! Are you all right?’ Bliss asked.
‘No!’ I gasped. I scrabbled to my feet, thrusting one of the bags at Baxter. ‘Come on, we’ve got to run for it!’
So we ran, all of us, even though my hands and knees were bleeding and I’d banged my elbow and twisted my ankle. We ran and ran until we were out of sight of the wall, and then I flopped down on the grass and started making hysterical choking noises. I wasn’t sure whether I was laughing or crying – maybe both. Bliss and Baxter and Pixie squatted beside me, Bliss dabbing gently at my scrapes with the hem of her T-shirt.
‘Poor, poor Lily, it must hurt so much,’ she said.
‘Yes, but never mind, who cares? Look what I’ve got for us!’ I said, opening up the bags.
They peered in and gasped.
‘Wow, it’s better than birthdays! I want them strawberries – and the chocolate cakes!’ said Baxter.
‘They’re going to be shared out equally between us,’ I said firmly. ‘Let’s go back to our tree and have a feast.’
We ate the fruit in awe. We had fruit at home sometimes but it was only ever apples, and perhaps little oranges at Christmas. Bliss nibbled her share of strawberries first, dipping each one delicately into the pot of cream, but Baxter golloped everything all at once: a bite of peach; half a banana; a chunk of cheese; a slice of ham; a big lick of yoghurt; a slurp of juice; and he stuck his éclair in his fingers like a giant cigar and sucked at it.
Pixie tried to eat the cream on its own, just like ice cream, but I stopped her, scared she’d be sick. I gave her a chicken breast and then some strawberries and then a banana, though I had to peel it for her. She tried to eat it with the skin on first, which made us all laugh.
I sat back, licking my sore hands clean, my heart thumping. I’d jumped right over the wall, I’d stolen sackfuls of food, and I’d fed my kids. I’d proved I could look after them, no matter what.
We were all tired out now so we stayed beside the tree. Bliss and Pixie played tea-parties with Headless while Baxter drove his truck through fern jungles. I got out my drawing book and pens and drew myself a huge kitchen with an oven in the middle and a giant fridge. When I was too tired to draw I spread my angel cards out and stroked their feathery wings.
That night, curled up with the kids in our tree, I dreamed I was flying again, with a great flock of angels this time, our wings flapping in unison as we soared over the park, keeping everyone safe.
I slept so well I missed the sunrise. I woke up to bright daylight, and Bliss and Baxter and Pixie bringing me fistfuls of fruit for my breakfast.
‘Are you better now, Lily?’ Bliss asked, picking up my hands and examining them.
‘Much better,’ I said, though they were still very sore.
‘You’re so brave,’ said Bliss. ‘I wish I could be brave like you.’
‘Are you going to go and get us more food from that big house?’ Baxter asked.
‘Not the same one, stupid! That would be asking for trouble. Maybe I’ll try one of the other houses later on today. But we’ve still got heaps here.’
‘You were great at nicking all this stuff,’ Baxter said.
‘Can you nick ice cream today, Lily?’ Pixie asked.
‘Maybe later,’ I said. ‘But first we’re going to find the magic garden again, OK?’
They all seemed to have lost track of time and forgotten what day it was. Saturday. When Mum was coming home. I kept quiet, not wanting them to get all worked up about it. After all, we didn’t know she’d be back for definite. ‘Maybe the weekend, whatever.’ Saturday was the start of the weekend. She might be getting on a plane in Spain right this minute. I didn’t think she’d be back this morning. But maybe this afternoon . . . ?
I thought about it all the time we were in the magic garden. I’d worked out that the only safe and sure way of finding it again was to go right back to the park gates and start up the hill. It was too long a walk for Pixie and the buggy was not good for paths, so I had to give her a piggyback part of the way. Baxter and Bliss were fine though. It was funny, they’d always whined if they had to walk down to the end of the road when we were at home, but they were getting used to trudging miles in the park. Bliss’s blisters had dried up and she skipped along beside me, and Baxter ran, dancing ahead and then loping back and circling us again and again.
There were more strollers and dog walkers on this route but none of them took any notice of us. There was one twinkly little lady with a tiny white poodle who smiled at us, so I dared to ask her if we were definitely going the right way to the magic garden.
‘You mean the Plantation, with all the azaleas and the rhododendrons? Yes, it is a magic garden, my favourite place. Just follow the little track through the grass and you’ll be there in ten minutes.’
Her poodle was just as friendly as his owner, nuzzling up against my legs. Pixie slid off my back and patted its curly little head. Baxter squatted down and patted him too – and Bliss didn’t run away, though she kept her distance.
‘It’s all right, sweetheart, Sugarlump loves people. She doesn’t ever bite. Do you want to come and pat her too?’ said the old lady.
I thought Bliss would hide behind me, but she actually came forward and gave the little dog a tentati
ve pat. She only tickled her with a fingertip, but it was still astonishing.
‘There now!’ said the old lady. She was still smiling, but looking past us. I knew what she was looking for.
‘You’re not on your own, are you?’ she said to Bliss.
‘We’re here with our sister,’ she whispered.
The old lady looked at me doubtfully.
‘Our big sister,’ said Baxter, nodding his head at some non-existent figure in the far distance.
‘She’s here with her boyfriend – we’re just tagging after her,’ I said smoothly. ‘We’d better catch her up now.’
We said goodbye, stroked Sugarlump farewell and then skipped off.
‘You’re brilliant, Baxter, coming out with that sister stuff – almost as good as me,’ I said.
‘I said sister too,’ said Bliss.
‘Yes, and you were very brave with Sugarlump.’
‘She was quite a sweet little doggie. Lily, can we have a little doggie like that?’ Bliss asked.
‘Of course we can,’ I said. Maybe it really was down to me now. I was Lilymum and these were my kids. Baxter had calmed down a bit and Bliss wasn’t so timid and Pixie had stopped being a baby and become a real little girl. I was looking after them, finding them food, organizing their games, telling them stories, taking them for lovely long walks, finding the magic garden for them . . . Yes, I could see the trees now, the iron railings, the special gate with the swirly pattern.
‘Here’s the magic garden,’ I said, leading them inside.
We played that we were princes and princesses and this was our very own magic garden. The other people wandering around were our servants, allowed to take the air in our royal residence because we were so kind and generous. We eyed up two very fat ladies waddling down the path.
‘They’re our cooks,’ I whispered. ‘That’s why we have to get our own food today. We’ve given them a day off.’
A nice old man in corduroy trousers looking at the flowers was our gardener, another man in a stripy jacket was our chauffeur. I let Baxter choose all our royal cars. Two posh ladies in dresses were in charge of our royal wardrobe. Bliss and I had a very long discussion about our ceremonial clothes. I appointed a smiley man our special royal ice-cream maker and let Pixie choose all the different flavours on offer. Her choices were a bit unusual: toffee ice cream, peppermint ice cream, cornflake ice cream, even chicken ice cream, but I told her they all sounded delicious.