We Must Be Brave. Frances Liardet

yes, there are such persons – John Blunden and Daniel Corey for two, and Lucy for a third, and others, who all cry in protest, ‘But, Miss. We’ve gone an’ learnt two fives was ten. And now you says it’s two a’s that make ten!’

      I met Miss Yarnold’s eyes and saw a glint of tears.

      Lucy nudged me. ‘Or you could try soot. It spreads better.’

      One Sunday in autumn I left the house, leaving Mother unfolding three yards of calico on the kitchen table. There’d been a discount on five yards but we couldn’t run to five. Nonetheless she’d galvanized herself, taken herself to the haberdasher’s in Waltham, and she was going to make drawers for us: ‘The light’s good, darling,’ she’d pleaded, but I was too hungry to sit sewing. ‘I’m so slim now,’ she was saying gaily as I swung the door closed, ‘I can squeeze an extra pair in, I’m sure.’

      That gay tone I hated even more than the pleading.

      I went by the back lanes even though they were wet and my left shoe leaked. The clouds broke late in the afternoon and I stopped by a field in the low sunlight and leaned on the gate, the field a wet, vivid green, and a large, pale cow rocking her head by the fence halfway down the hill. Lucy Horne was in the next field, leaning on the fence watching the cow. Beside her was a boy with a shock of walnut hair. When he sprang up onto the fence I recognized him as Daniel Corey. Before I could move they saw me.

      ‘Ellen,’ Lucy called, ‘come here.’

      I could have darted on down the lane, pretended I hadn’t heard. I would have been hidden by the hedge in a second. But I was lonely.

      Daniel was at the top of the fence when I reached them. He was wearing an enormous pair of breeches, so long that the knee cuffs came almost to his ankles. He didn’t turn his head or say hello, just swung each leg over and sat on the top rail. ‘Dorc,’ he was saying. ‘Ready, Dorc.’

      ‘He’s going to get up on Dorcas, if she’ll let him.’ Lucy grinned at me. It was a sight. She had so many top teeth missing.

      The cow stood, still rocking her head although there weren’t any flies. Daniel perched his feet on the rail below the top, leaped up into the air, where he seemed to hover for a moment before falling deftly with his knees each side of the withers of the cow, who did not move. Lucy squeaked. ‘Good Dorc,’ Daniel breathed.

      Dorcas had deep folds on her pale neck. Her muzzle was the colour of the lining in my mother’s kid gloves.

      ‘She’s beautiful, int she,’ said Lucy.

      ‘What would the farmer say?’ I whispered. I didn’t want to startle Dorcas.

      ‘She’s Daniel’s. Well, his dad’s. Do you fancy coming to ours for tea, Ellen?’

      Lucy lived at the far end of the village street, on top of a high bank. I had always known there were cottages up there, but had never mounted the brick steps that led to them. Now I followed Lucy and Daniel up, placing my feet carefully, for the light was going.