books and crockery, all mixed together. Bunches of dried herbs hung from a clothes line and a basket of ironing and a pile of folded clothes were heaped on a crumpled sofa.
Mum dropped her big black handbag on the sofa and all the other things tipped towards the dip it made. A duck waddled out from under the table and dashed outside, but nobody said anything. It wasn’t like our house with its shiny surfaces and everything tidied away and organised.
We sat at the table. All the chairs were different. Mine wobbled on the stone floor and Mum brushed crumbs off hers before she sat down and hung her jacket over the back.
“This one’s yours,” said Gem, reaching across the table to me with a cupcake in her hand.
“Have a sandwich first,” said Mum, holding out a plate of egg sandwiches before I could say anything. She always spoke like that, cutting corners. Mum told Aunt Liv about the important conference that she had to go to the week after and how hard she’d been working to help organise it. I watched the butter cream squelch up on Gem’s cupcake and the cherry plop off. Gem clambered down, picked up the cherry from the floor and stared at the ball of dust stuck to it. She looked at me, at the cake. Head down, she ran towards her mum and buried her face in Aunt Liv’s dress, holding the cake up high so she didn’t ruin it any more.
“Never mind,” Aunt Liv said softly. “Nell’s here for two weeks. Plenty of opportunity to make her more cakes.”
“Yes, but I wanted her to have this one.”
“I know, love,” whispered Aunt Liv. “It was a special one.”
The cupcake reminded me of the things I had found in the loft. Even when they’re squashed or broken or bits are missing and they look a bit rubbish, they’re still important. And right from that moment I thought my Aunt Liv was nice.
The kettle whistled from the old-fashioned iron stove. Aunt Liv got up and steered Gem back to her own chair. She told us she was growing plants in her fields to make tea.
Mum said, “Tea?” Like that, like a question. “You can’t grow tea in England.”
But Aunt Liv told her they had their own microclimate in the valley and that things just needed the right conditions.
Aunt Liv and Mum were only alike in their faces and their skin. They both had a way of shaking their fringes away from their eyes when they looked up. But that was about it.
Mum chatted about her recruitment agency and everything else that was keeping us busy and therefore unable to visit relatives.
“And I need to get back soon, Liv,” Mum said. “I’ll fetch Nell’s case from the car, then I ought to go.”
She got up, rummaged in her bag to find the car keys. But I couldn’t let her fetch my case!
“I’ll get it,” I said, snatching the keys from her hand.
I ran out, with everyone watching me dodge the flapping geese and ducks. I couldn’t let her get that suitcase. I didn’t want her to find what else I’d hidden in the boot.
I’d just wanted to see the carousel built again. That’s all. And I wanted to build it myself this time. I’d hidden it in the boot when Mum wasn’t looking. She wouldn’t know and then it would only matter to me. Only I hadn’t thought about how to get it into Aunt Liv’s house without anyone seeing. I couldn’t think how to do it without getting found out and I was about to put it back in the boot, cover it with the picnic blanket and forget the whole stupid idea, because now it was actually happening it wasn’t easy or like I had imagined. And then I heard something. The thunder of thumping hooves.
I spun round. Galloping round the corner, pounding straight towards me, was a black-and-white horse, a dark rider hidden behind its flying mane. They hadn’t seen me.
I dropped the case. All the metal pieces inside clanked as it slammed to the ground. The horse swung its side round towards me, skidding on the gravel. I leapt back to flatten myself against the car, but missed and fell. The horse screamed, reared up, its long mane billowing around it like a storm. I covered my head, curled up, held my breath.
And when you believe you’re going to die because the flying hooves are going to crush you, you can’t help what you think. And what I thought in that moment was that I’d be dead and Mum was going to find the carousel next to me and then I wouldn’t be able to explain and she wouldn’t understand. She’d think I’d been hiding it all along. She’d be unhappy forever thinking I had betrayed her too. And then the tin girl was there in my mind and she whooshed around and turned her back and I shouted, “No!” because I thought she was going to leave me and somehow it mattered more than anything.
Instead, there was a cry, a thud, as the rider hit the ground. The horse stamped down beside me, brushing my arm with the long feathery hair on its legs as it kicked away from me.
For a moment the startled horse stood over me, throwing its head, its skin quivering. I could see me in its wide dark eye, a tiny me lying there on the ground. It snorted, its nostrils flaring. Then it turned and galloped away, its white tail streaming behind it.
From the verge behind the car I heard the footsteps of the rider.
“Help,” I said.
Nobody came. But from where I was lying I saw a pair of small feet in black pumps tiptoeing past the other side of the car. I saw a hand reach out to the brown leather case and drag it away.
“Hey!” I said.
But the feet were running, running away with the case and the carousel.
“What happened?” she said.
I held out my hand so she could see the graze and the blood and the dirt.
My throat ached from not crying, from holding in the things I wouldn’t be able to say. Mum brushed me down, got some tissues and antiseptic cream from her bag.
“There was a horse—”
“A horse hurt you!” Mum said, which wasn’t what I’d said at all. “What were you doing going in a field with horses? They’re unpredictable, dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re far more sensible than that. Really, what has got into you, Nell?”
“I wasn’t in a field,” I said. “The horse came down the lane and nearly crashed into me.”
“What sort of horse
