The tall grass in the meadow was still wet from the rain last night, the multitude of droplets glistening like a thousand fallen stars in the thick field of the brightest green. There was that smell you get after a big storm, a new freshness as if the rain has washed away all the dust and dirt and horrid things that people shout at each other and are left reverberating in the air, waiting for the thunder to deafen it all out.
I decided that we’d go down to the little wooden bridge beside the Dawkinses’ beehives, as there are lots of wildflowers, and you can play stepping-stones across the stream. We went there on a picnic a few years ago when the motorcar wasn’t working.
No one got stung that time.
It was quite a walk, and when we got there, exhausted and ready for our picnic, we were rather peeved to find it already occupied. A boy was building a dam.
“Hello there!” he called. Standing shakily on a tree branch that was covering half the width, then steadying himself, he trotted over to the bank to greet us. He was older than I thought, tall and lanky like big boys are before they become men, his tatty shorts and rather unkempt appearance making him look younger from afar. He had a curious face, kind of spoon-shaped, his chin and forehead jutting out farther than the rest of it. Handsome. Not handsome like Henry, but still not bad-looking for a boy. Clearly enjoying himself, he grinned in the sunshine, putting a dirty hand up to shield his eyes from the sun as he hollered up the bank to us.
“Come down and join in.” His voice was thick and Cockney.
Since Silvie was already halfway down the slope, I felt obliged to add my protection, and we were soon beside him.
“I’m Tom,” he said, still smiling, his mouth open as he panted, hands on hips as he appraised his dam.
“How do you do,” I said, unsure whether to shake hands. “My name is Kitty and this is Silvie.” Silvie actually smiled. Did she like him?
“What are you children doing ’round ’ere?” Tom said.
“We are not children!” I corrected.
“She is,” he said, jabbing his head toward Silvie and laughing.
“Yes,” I relented, infuriated by his rudeness. “I suppose she is. But I’m not.”
“How old are you? Twelve?”
“Fourteen,” I smarted, my hand nudging against Silvie to stop her from calling me a liar. I am almost fourteen, after all. Well, almost-almost. “But more to the point, what are you doing here?” I asked crossly. The land belongs to the farm. As do the bees.
“We’re here for the hop picking.” He jerked his head behind to the hop pickers’ huts by the barn. Every year Dawkins Farm gets about fifty Londoners to come and help out with farm work, then pick the hops when they’re ready. They live in rows of huts. It all seems frightfully squalid to me, but apparently it’s exactly how they live in London—better even.
“How long have you been here?” I demanded, my eyes narrowing with distrust. I was still miffed he’d called me a child.
“I only came last week with me aunty. Me mum had to go help out in a factory, and no one knew what to do with me. I told them I wanted to fight.” He thrust a few tidy punches into the air. “But they said I’m too young.”
“How old are you?”
“Nearly fourteen. Strong as any man—probably stronger.” He showed us his biceps, which were puny, but we didn’t say anything. I felt sorry for him. His face was so open and funny that you couldn’t possibly think he was up to no good.
“Come and help me with the dam,” he ordered. “Get that branch there and bring it along.”
Fortunately, the dam was stable enough for us to totter to the halfway point.
Unfortunately, we’d quite forgotten about the bees, which suddenly surrounded us, buzzing furiously at Silvie.
“Tom to the rescue,” Tom cried, flailing his arms around like a deranged orangutan.
“No, not like that,” I cried. This city idiot clearly hadn’t got a clue about bees. “Keep still. Keep still, and they’ll go away.”
I trotted as fast as I could back to the bank, almost falling in once, picked up a long, narrow branch, and held it out to Silvie for her to make her way back without panicking too much—although I must say she was the calmest of us all, an amused little smile on her lips like the Mona Lisa having some kind of private joke.
Once on land, I opened our basket, found a jam sandwich, and as the bees headed straight for it, I flung it as far as I could up the bank, in the direction of the beehives. It did the trick all right, luring the bees away, although one of them stung me on the elbow as he went past, the monster.
I screamed, and Tom came bounding over, grabbing my arm in a most ungentlemanly way. We all looked down at the growing mound of pink.
“You’ll need some vinegar on that,” he said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said sharply. Didn’t this boy know anything? “We need honey.”
“If you want honey, I know where to get some.”