Liverpool Taffy by Katie Flynn

for emergencies, a rainy day,’ he urged her. ‘Today’s my treat. How’d you like a bus ride? That way we can get into real country.’
    They rode the bus into green fields, got off and climbed over a mossy gate. The grass in the meadow beyond was tall and starred with wild flowers, to none of which Biddy could put a name.
    ‘Ain’t it just lovely?’ Kenny said. ‘I brung a picnic – me Mam said I could but she were too lazy to cut it for me, so I done it big enough for two of us. I know how you can eat, young Biddy, so there’s all sorts … fruit, too. Even a chunk of stickjaw.’
    ‘She never gave you her toffee?’ Biddy gasped. ‘I’m sure she’d cut my hands off at the wrist if I so much as licked me finger after hammering a slab in bits. Oh Kenny, you didn’t prig it, did you?’
    ‘She moaned and groaned, but she said I could ’ave some if I ’ammered it small,’ Kenny said cheerfully. ‘Stop worryin’, young Bid, an’ enjoy the day. There’s a stream over there, under them trees – ever dammed a stream, ’ave you?’
    When they had cleared up a slight misunderstanding over the word ’dam’, they went over to the stream. It chuckled along over its pebbly bed, with trees hanging over it and little fish playing in the brown pools. It was the most beautiful thing Biddy had ever seen and she knelt on the bank, dabbling her fingers in the clear water for ages, before the serious work of damming began.
    It was such fun! She had made sandcastles at New Brighton years ago, laboriously filling her bucket and then carefully upending it so that the contents stayed firm and formed the castle’s battlements. She had walked down country lanes between her parents and seen the patchwork cows, the pink pigs, the rosy apples on the trees. But this – this was even better! She and Kenny scooped clay and pebbles, formed a deep ridge, shouted to one another … you would never have known that Kenny was a young man of seventeen, gainfully employed at the offices of Burke, Burke & Titchworth, or that Biddy was an orphan with no real home to call her own. For the whole of that sunny day they were justa couple of kids, playing a wonderful, messy game and enjoying every minute.
    ‘Look at me skirt,’ Biddy gasped, when they had made the dam, watched a huge pool gradually form, and then broken down the dam to let the water swirl back into the main stream once again. ‘The earth here is yellowy, I’m sure it’s stained this skirt for ever.’
    ‘It’s clay and a good job, too,’ Kenny said roundly. ‘You was beginnin’ to look a right mess, our Biddy. Time Mam bought you some gear, if only from Paddy’s Market. One of these days you’ll be a young lady, you’re quite pretty already when you laugh and aren’t tired out. Now shall we ’ave our picnic?’
    They ate their food, then lay down on the mossy bank, though Kenny refused to let Biddy lie in the sun as she would have liked to do.
    ‘You’ll get sunburned an’ you won’t be able to work tomorrer, you’ll be in pain, too,’ he told her. ‘Best lie in the shade, chuck.’
    Biddy agreed, meaning to move out into the sun for a little, but as soon as she closed her eyes she slept.
    Kenny’s mouth descending on hers woke her in a complete state of panic so that she was struggling already as consciousness returned and began at once to try to speak, to push at his shoulders. She had been dreaming pleasantly that they were still eating their picnic, but just at the moment when he started kissing her she assumed, the dream had changed; she was a sandwich and Kenny was about to eat her, was actually sinking his teeth into her bread and lettuce! When she woke to find it was really happening, he really did seem about to devour her, panic gripped her. He was no longer Kenny Kettle but a dangerous stranger who could mean her harm. She brought her knees up and felt them sink into his stomach and as he moved back a little she screamed and hit out. He gave a