The Exiles

Just to see what we’ve been missing?’
    ‘We’ll never have time to get everything done.’ Naomi was still studying the calendar. ‘And I’ve got to go back to that beastly awful hospital the day before we go, to get my arm checked. Graham might have told us earlier about the books. We could have arranged something if we’d had a bit more time.’
    ‘What sort of thing?’
    ‘P’raps we could’ve picked the lock. We could’ve bought tools if we’d known. Too late now; we’ve spent all our money.’
    ‘We don’t know how to pick locks anyway, so what use would they have been?’
    ‘Obviously,’ Naomi was withering, ‘obviously you get instructions with them when you buy them. Anyway, it’s too late now.’
    ‘We ought to climb the fell once more.’
    ‘And make another bonfire and cook dinner.’
    ‘We could invite Big Grandma.’
    ‘My lettuces and radishes are still too small. They’ll never be ready before we go.’
    ‘I’ll never have time to swim to the Isle of Man now. We ought to start doing things much faster.’

    The last days of the holiday, like fairy gold counted in the sunlight, disappeared as fast as they were numbered. The shining wealth of summer that had been theirs to squander dwindled to a few dull-gleaming days. Ruth, Naomi, Rachel and Phoebe began to spend them with the distraught recklessness of those who see the end of the world. A day was ransomed to climb the hill, and a morning to revisit the scene of Naomi’s accident.
    ‘Which one did you fall off?’ Naomi watched hopefully as her sisters and Graham climbed up, ran down, stood on the step from which she had fallen, closed their eyes, let go of the rock, did it backwards, stood on one leg, tickled Rachel, shoved Phoebe, tried to startle Graham into jumping and distracted Ruth with imaginary badgers. It was as they had imagined, impossible to fall. They marvelled.
    ‘Look, I’m doing it on tiptoe, leaning outwards, with my eyes crossed. Tell me a joke, some one!’
    ‘Oh, come down,’ said Naomi crossly. ‘I’ll show you where I was sick.’
    ‘Looks like any other grass to me,’ said Rachel, disappointed.
    ‘Now, if we run all the way back,’ said Ruth, ‘we’ll have time to go swimming before tea.’

    ‘Big Grandma,’ said Ruth, one desperate evening, ‘will you come badger watching with me?’
    ‘Certainly,’ agreed Big Grandma cordially, ‘nothing I’d rather do.’
    Three evenings later there was a sound in the bracken and a glimpse of black and white in the moonlight.
    ‘Was it worth it then?’ asked Big Grandma as they tiptoed home.
    ‘A thousand times,’ said Ruth. At that moment of happiness, if Ruth hadn’t been Ruth, and Big Grandma hadn’t been Big Grandma, they might have hugged each other, but instead they exchanged a brief, smiling glance. Ruth wondered, slightly guiltily, if, in view of Big Grandma’s kindness, she ought still to be plotting to raid her books, and decided she should. Big Grandma wondered, also slightly guiltily, if, in view of Ruth’s shining-eyed gratitude, she ought to hand over her library, and decided she shouldn’t.

    ‘Big Grandma came badger watching with me,’ Ruth told Graham the next day. ‘We saw them twice! Twice! You should have come.’
    ‘Oh yes?’ said Graham sceptically. ‘I think your gran must be cracking up at last.’
    ‘Why didn’t you come to dinner yesterday? I told your mum to ask you specially,’ Rachel demanded. ‘We cooked it on the beach again.’
    ‘That’s why I didn’t come,’ said Graham.
    ‘It was good,’ Rachel told him. ‘Big Grandma drove us down with all the stuff so we didn’t have to carry it.’
    ‘She sat on a cushion,’ put in Phoebe, ‘and ate everything we cooked and said it was lovely.’
    ‘What did you do for her?’
    ‘Scrambled eggs and sardines and stewed plums. And we bought it with our own money.’
    ‘Crikey!’ said Graham. ‘She must be cracking up!’
    ‘Two more days left,’ said Naomi one morning, and the thought was so dreadful that they changed their currency and got forty-eight hours instead.
    ‘Time to do ninety-six short things,’ said Ruth.
    ‘How long will it take you to pack those bones?’ demanded Naomi.
    Ruth, who between cutting the grass and painting a farewell picture of a badger for Big Grandma, was trying to reduce three large carrier bags which she could not lift, into one small bag that she could, without abandoning any of the contents, shook