The Exiles

trouble?’
    ‘We’ve only got fourteen and a half more hours,’ Rachel explained.
    ‘You can eat a fair bit in fourteen and a half hours,’ said Graham callously.
    ‘Graham’s going to miss you,’ said Mrs Brocklebank.
    ‘I’m not,’ said Graham going bright, bright red,
    ‘Well, I’ll be coming back to marry him anyway,’ said Rachel, the prospect of which depressed Graham (who had been unaware of his fate) into absolute silence.

    ‘Bed, bed, bed,’ said Big Grandma when they got back, but she was interrupted.
    ‘We were going to give you our goodbye presents,’ said Ruth, ‘in case there’s no time in the morning.’
    ‘Presents?’ asked Big Grandma.
    ‘Because we’ve had a nice time,’ explained Rachel, ‘even with nothing to read.’
    Big Grandma did not even flicker at this hint. ‘Well, let’s get at these presents,’ she said cheerfully.
    The parcels, carefully wrapped in birthday paper bought with the last of Ruth’s swimming to the Isle of Man money (‘Good job I didn’t go,’ she had said), stood waiting for Big Grandma on the kitchen table.
    There was a spare chessboard from Phoebe, cheerfully, if unconventionally chequered in green and yellow, and a note with it saying, I hav rit som more chess in the bak of yor book .
    A watercolour of a badger, most lovingly painted and framed in cardboard. Big Grandma gazed at it in astonishment; she had been completely unaware of the fact that Ruth could paint.
    A battered and greasy notebook, the meticulous record of a summer’s good eating, right up to date with Chapter Forty One: The Good Riddance Tea.
    ‘That’s what you were scribbling at under the table!’ exclaimed Big Grandma. ‘Big Grandma,’ she read on the very last page, ‘You are a very good cook.’
    ‘Thank you, Rachel,’ said Big Grandma.
    There were no more presents, but there was a piece of paper which said, Mine is down the garden. I hope it is all right. Love Naomi . Big Grandma went outside and viewed, by the dwindling light of the torch, Naomi’s goodbye present. She stayed there a long time and when she came back she said, ‘Good God Naomi!’
    And then she made them go to bed. Pausing on the stairs, Ruth gave her one last chance.
    ‘Aren’t there any books we could borrow just for tonight, just to help us get to sleep because it’s so awful?’
    But Big Grandma had held out for too long to mellow all at once.
    ‘Get out the Shakespeare,’ she suggested cheerfully. ‘That’ll send you off !’

    There was a desperate meeting in Ruth and Naomi’s room.
    ‘We can’t possibly go without looking.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I almost wish we hadn’t found where the key was.’
    ‘You made me tell you,’ said Phoebe.
    ‘Don’t you ever, ever spy through keyholes again.’
    ‘Anyway, what are we going to do? D’you think we could creep in? Just to look?’
    ‘When she’s asleep? We couldn’t put a light on.’
    ‘There isn’t one anyway,’ said Phoebe. ‘I looked before.’
    ‘The torch battery is nearly flat from last night. Are there any candles left from when we went to the cave?’
    ‘There’s three in the red handbag under my bed. I was saving them to take home.’
    ‘Matches?’
    ‘I’ve got matches,’ said Ruth.
    ‘It’s lucky she sleeps so heavily.’ Naomi had already made full use of this fact several times that holiday.
    ‘That’s because of her bedtime whisky,’ said Phoebe.
    ‘So when she’s asleep …’ said Ruth.
    ‘We’ll scratch on your door. We won’t light the candles until we get in. We’ll have to find the key in the dark. Phoebe can do that, she’s seen it before.’
    ‘What if she wakes up?’
    ‘We’ll just have to explain.’

    ‘It’s a funny way to spend the last night,’ whispered Ruth as she and Naomi slid out of bed.
    ‘No funnier than last night was really. I can hear her snoring, you get the key while I fetch the other two. Have you got those matches?’
    A few minutes later a goblin procession passed silently through Big Grandma’s bedroom; three scraggy forms, clad in tattered pale clothing following the beckoning finger of a small and quaking figure outlined against a dark doorway. Once inside, they pushed the door silently behind them until it almost closed, and stood with thumping hearts until the steady sound of Big Grandma’s snoring gave them courage enough to light the candles and begin the exploration.
    For a long time (‘It must have been hours,’ said Rachel the next