She is running through a dark tunnel, which echoes with her footsteps. Then a tiny light appears at the other end, and she is running toward it as fast as she can go, the sound of feet echoing in the tunnel behind her. She is breathless, winded; the light is growing no bigger. In a panic, she turns to face the one following her. She puts her hand to her mouth, but is unable to scream. Everything goes blurred; then suddenly a brilliant white light is all around her, and she is quite alone. Slowly the light turns to green and she is standing in a meadow, under a strange green sky. A little way off, looking at her, is Kippy. His legs are wet from the sea. She runs to him and puts her arms around his warm neck, but suddenly he is gone, and she is clutching her coat, and it is morning under the willow tree.
CHAPTER 5
The sun is pushing through the leafy walls of the willow, and a car is going along the road. From the nearby house comes the smell of frying bacon. Tom is dressed and sitting on his folded tarp, eating one of the last two sandwiches. He grins at Karen. His face is pink from scrubbing, and as she sits up and looks around she can see why. He has been in the yard of the house, found a bucket, and filled it with water. He has even brushed his teeth, for his wet toothbrush lies on top of his knapsack.
“How did you dare?” asks Karen, sniffing the cooking smell and peering between the leaves to see movements in what must be the kitchen window.
“I got it earlier, when it was still pretty dark. We should put it back, but I don’t think we’d better, now. Hurry up. When he sits down to eat might be the best time to leave.” They can smell coffee, too, and hear the clatter of dishes.
Karen hurries to scrub and brush and dress. The cold water makes her feel tingly, and hungry, but she rolls her tarp and closes her pack without eating, stuffing the sandwich in her pocket. Soon there is another clatter of dishes, and the man has set his plate on a table beside the window, and is sitting down where he can look out at the willow tree.
“Guess we’ll have to wait,” Karen whispers.
“Yes,” Tom says, settling down.
Karen unwraps the sandwich and offers Tom half. He shakes his head.
The man takes a long time to eat. At first he begins to read a newspaper and the children think they might slip away without being seen, but then he glances up sharply. There is a rustle in the tree overhead, and a mockingbird begins to scold.
“It’s scolding us,” Karen whispers, ready to run.
“Maybe not,” Tom says. “And the man won’t know that, anyway. He’ll think it’s just making a racket. But he’s watching, all right. Be very still.”
Karen doesn’t need to be told.
The bird makes an awful clatter, and Karen wonders if it is going to fly down and attack them. Maybe it has a nest nearby. The man continues to stare, until finally he pushes back his chair and gets up. The children wait, silent. The mockingbird screams furiously.
Then the back door opens, and the man comes out, still wiping his mouth. He is bearded and badly needs a haircut. He has narrow eyes. “He was in the inn last night,” Tom whispers. Karen nods briefly. He is coming toward the tree. Halfway there he stops and leans down. Karen holds her breath.
The man picks up a rock. Tom’s face turns pale. Before the children can move the man has put back his arm and heaved the rock. There is a clatter above them, and squawking. Through the branches of the tree the mockingbird falls to Karen’s feet and lies still. The man waits a minute, staring into the tree as if he intends to come after the bird, but then there is the rumble of a car on the road, a horn honks, and he goes into the house.
The bird lies quite still. Its eyes are closed, but as Tom picks it up its wings flutter. Tom holds it so it will not struggle, and tries to find a wound.
While they are examining the bird the horn honks again, the front door of the house opens, and the man goes down the steps and gets into the car and drives away. There is no other sound from the house. The children breathe a sigh.
“I can’t find a thing wrong,” Tom says, stroking the bird’s head gently. The bird is now alert and watching them, not trying to move. “I think it was only stunned. Let’s put it down.” He slips quietly out from under the tree, and kneeling, sets the bird on the ground. The bird looks at him, cocks its head, and hops a few steps, watching Tom with one eye. It shakes its tail, flutters a little, then leaps into the sky and is gone. A minute later it is back, sitting on the roof of the house, scolding as before. Tom laughs. “Let’s go,” he says, “while we have the chance.” They both look at the windows for further signs of life, but they see none.
“Before we do,” Karen says, “there’s a peach tree in the back yard, see?”
“It’s risky enough, without going back there. There might be someone else home,” Tom says. “Besides, that’s stealing.”
“They’re ripe,” Karen says. “Must be an early one.
Tom shakes his head.
“If I go close to the house I can’t be seen from the windows. There are some on the ground, near the porch.”
“They’ll be bruised.”
“Maybe not badly.”
“All right, Karen, I’ll go.”
“No. Let me. You watch, and whistle if someone comes.”
Tom frowns, but agrees.
As Tom watches the house and the road, Karen slips out and dashes for the house, crouching. She goes along it quickly, silently, until she reaches the rear corner. On the roof the mockingbird still scolds. Karen looks around the corner, then slips out to where the peaches lie, filling her pockets and blouse with the best ones, then scurrying back to the corner of the house.
Just then there is the noise of a car on the road. Karen huddles next to the house, not moving. But the car goes by, and when its sound is fainter she rounds the house and runs, doubled over, to the tree, bursting through the branches just as another car is heard. Tom frowns at her. “We could have been caught,” he says.
While the car is approaching, the children put the peaches in their packs, slip the packs on, and get ready to run. Tom is still frowning, Karen pale. The excitement of stealing peaches has not lasted, and she is growing frightened.
This car, too, passes and goes on, and the children, listening for only a second, make a dash for the road and cross over into a thick clump of trees, walking briskly. They travel for a long way before they come back to the edge of the road once more. When they do, the last houses are behind them and the land ahead is rolling and green, here and there dotted with patches of yellow broom and clumps of dark-green trees. Away to the left the sea sparkles in the sun.
The children sit on an old stump behind a patch of tall wild barley, and share their stolen peaches, peeling them with Tom’s knife.
“It is stealing,” Tom says, enjoying the peach.
“I know,” Karen says. “But at least not from a nice person. I wonder if the bird will be all right?”
“I’m sure it will,” Tom says. “What a stupid thing to do. I wonder what it is about those people, and that inn. I’m glad we didn’t stay.”
“Yes,” Karen says, peeling another peach.
As they come out onto the road again the sun is warming the earth and swarms of tiny gnats have begun to hover close to the ground. From the trees flocks of brown wrens are swooping and darting after them, making a shrill chatter.
“If I were a bird,” Karen says, “no one would know that I had run away from home. And I wouldn’t need money, either.”