“Cow!” Hayley’s father murmured, with his face still under the desk. He added loudly, “Yes, better leave Hayley. We don’t want you in trouble too.”
“All right,” Hayley said. “See you.” She scrambled violently out past the lady’s neat feet, hoping she would ladder the tights as she went, and stood up among the other desks. “I’ll be back,” she told the lady. “So watch out.” But the lady simply turned and walked away.
Hayley threaded her way between the busy desks and came to a door. She turned round there to wave to her father, but he was frantically at work again and did not look up. Hayley sighed – the kind of sigh you seem to drag up from near your knees – and pushed her way out through the door.
Outside, the strand leading away in front of her was cloudily transparent now, like smoked glass. Hayley hurried along it, blinking back tears and refusing to look at any of the dreary scenes happening on either side of her, until the strand suddenly turned almost as clear as air underneath her feet. She found herself walking high above the jumbled roofs and turrets of Aunt May’s guesthouse. She could see the gutter and the window she had squeezed out of the day she arrived. Ahead of her and below her were the grounds of the place, full of racing figures as the Tighs and the Laxtons all hurried towards the paddock, where Harmony was standing by the card table. Hayley could hear the clock, chiming out Over the Rainbow, but very slowly, as if it had almost run down. And Tollie had almost won. He was halfway up the paddock, pushing and rolling an immense egg. This reminded Hayley so of the man pushing the boulder that she stood still and shuddered.
Then, Hey! she thought. I can win!
She ran. She came charging down the almost unseeable glassy strand, brushed past Tollie and his egg and landed panting in front of the card table. Tollie screamed with fury.
“That does it!” he yelled. “I’m telling!”
“I’ve got one – a golden apple!” Hayley panted to Harmony.
Harmony seemed to have got over her bad temper. She smiled and said, “Let’s see it then.”
Hayley unzipped her pocket and fetched the apple out. For a moment it glowed bright as a small sun and smelled wonderfully of apple. But as Hayley held it out towards Harmony, it was a plastic Christmas ornament just like the ones Harmony gave out as prizes. “Oh!” Hayley said. “But it was! It really is!”
“I know,” Harmony said. “They go like that here.” And she passed Hayley another apple just the same. “Your prize,” she said.
“I hate you both!” Tollie snarled, leaning both arms on his vast egg. “Still” he added smugly, “I stole a lot of diamonds too. And I’m still telling of Hayley.”
James arrived then, waving what looked like a spike with threads of silk streaming off one end. “Is this it?” he asked Harmony. “It was on her spinning wheel. But it was a real closie. She sort of half woke up and said ‘Kiss me!’ and I just ran!”
Lucy pushed up from the other side with a dry-looking slice of cake in one hand. “Out of her cottage wall,” she panted. “She saw me and she chased me all the way back here. I don’t think I want to play this game again.”
“I’ve got a roc’s egg!” Tollie said loudly.
He went on saying this as the others began arriving, waving peculiar objects and jostling Hayley about as she carefully zipped both apples into her pockets. “Do these look like thumbscrews?” she heard someone ask.
“I know it looks like a handful of jelly,” said someone else, “but it really is an eyeball.”
“I’ve got a roc’s egg!”
“This card really was the Queen of Hearts, honestly. It’s alive. It sort of squiggles.”
“I caught the fox, but he bit me and got away. Do I need an injection, Harmony?”
“I’ve got a roc’s egg!”
“Sorry about the blood, Harmony. He’d just killed her when I got there. It was horrible.”
“I’ve got a roc’s egg!”
“Oh, be quiet, Tollie!” Harmony snapped. “What’s the matter, Troy?”
“And I’m telling,” Tollie mumbled, as Troy arrived last of all, very quiet and dejected.
“I couldn’t find that garden anywhere,” Troy said. “So I came back and the strand took me through the house for some reason. Mercer’s on the phone in the hall. He’s telling Uncle Jolyon all about the game.”
“Isn’t that all we need!” Harmony said. She scooped the cards, the markers and the clock into her coloured bag and snapped the table together. “Everyone go and put their stuff in the trophy cabinet. It’ll be open for you. Tollie, you’ll have to leave that egg there and hope Uncle Jolyon doesn’t notice it. Troy, Hayley, come with me. We’d better find Aunt May.”
Aunt May was hurrying out of the house as they came to it. She let Tollie, followed by the crowd of Tighs and Laxtons, rush indoors past her and stopped Harmony, Troy and Hayley.
“Quick,” she said. “Jolyon’s on his way here already. I wish Mercer wasn’t so damn dutiful, but Jolyon is his father, you know. Jolyon had no idea that Hayley was here with us, and he’s furious. We’ve got to get her away.”
“Does he know about the game?” Harmony asked.
“No – if he knew she’d been playing that, he’d go berserk!” Aunt May said distractedly. “But I’d get her away even if she hadn’t been. Hayley, you’re a darling and you saved us from the flood and what’s been done to you is a shame. Harmony, Troy, think what to do, quickly.”
“We were supposed to be taking her to Mum when we left,” Troy said. “To go to school in Scotland, Pleone said. We could take her now.”
“Yes, yes, take her to Ellie. At once,” Aunt May gasped. “Go upstairs and pack your things, all of you.”
Troy and Harmony wasted no time. They dashed indoors and raced up the stairs in long strides. Aunt May, looking perfectly distracted, with her hair unrolling in long lumps, seized Hayley’s hand and rushed her upstairs in a rattle of necklaces. When they reached Hayley’s room, Aunt May dragged Hayley’s little suitcase from under her bed, shook her head – causing more hair to unroll – and hunted in a cupboard until she found a big duffel bag. Into this she crammed all Hayley’s new old clothes as fast as Hayley could pass them to her. She was just forcing Hayley’s brush and comb in on top of Hayley’s washing things, when Troy and Harmony arrived at a gallop, Troy with a huge backpack and Harmony carrying a bulging airline bag.
“Got everything?” Aunt May said.
“Not quite,” Harmony said. “I had to leave my good dress. Can you hang—?”
She was interrupted by the crunching of wheels on the driveway outside.
“Oh, my God!” gasped Aunt May. “He’s here already!”
She tore aside the blowing white curtains. They all looked down from Hayley’s window at a taxi drawing up by the front door and at Mercer and Tollie going out to meet it, followed by Aunt Alice, Aunt Geta and Aunt Celia. Somehow they all managed to look like important people coming to meet a visiting president. Mercer actually bowed as the taxi door slammed open and Uncle Jolyon climbed out. Uncle Jolyon’s blue eyes glared and, among his white beard, his mouth was almost a snarl. Hayley had never seen anyone look so thunderously angry. She backed away as Aunt May gently let the curtain fall back across the window.
“I’ll go down and hold him up as long as I can,” Aunt May said. “Do your best, Harmony.” Necklaces clashing, hair flying, she ran out