hill.
“What do you reckon
Cave bestiam
means, Pete?”
“I dunno,” he said, shrugging. “‘Best cave’ or something. I dunno. Is it French? You’ve done French in your class.”
“Yeah, but only counting to ten and days of the week, and I can’t remember anything after Thursday,” I said.
“It’s not German, because it doesn’t sound like a war film, like when they’re escaping from a prisoner-of-war camp.”
We spent a bit of time discussing how we would have got out of Stalag Luft 5.
“Do you know what
Cave bestiam
sounds a bit like to me?” I said after a while. “I think it sounds a bit like Latin.”
“Like in church?”
“Yeah, the priests are always saying
quoniam
s
and
gloriam
s
.
Bestiam
’s the same.”
“I dunno. Maybe.
Cave
is English, though. How could we find out?”
“We’ll have to have a think. We can’t ask Mum. You know what she’s like, and Dad’ll just go along with her. She won’t stop asking questions, like where did we get it from. We’ll have to ask someone clever.”
“Crikey. Where are we going to find someone clever?”
“I dunno. I wonder what we’re having for dinner. Hope it’s rice pudding for afters. If it is, I bags the skin.”
“That’s not flippin’ fair. Let’s dip for it.”
Auntie Ida put plaits in so tight I could hardly get my fingernails through my hair to scratch my scalp.
She looked out of the window at the dark grey sky and said the tide was in, so Mimi and I could put on our boots and go and see if the chickens had laid any eggs, but we’d best be quick before the heavens opened.
We unlocked the back door, walked across the cobbles of the small paved yard between the two wings of the house, and took the narrow path that led down the garden.
It was damp and chilly. Rain had fallen in the night. The wet grass was sprinkled with drops like shiny glass beads, each one separate from the others. The branches of the overgrown shrubs arched over the path with the weight of dripping water, their drooping leaves showering us as we brushed by.
Mimi held the basket, and I pushed open the old gate in the wire fence round the henhouse. Our boots soon became clogged with mud and feathers, straw and chicken muck. When we went through the door, the chickens bobbed and jerked and looked us up and down with their little beady eyes, clucking like a lot of old women gossiping.
A huge cockerel with a big fancy-coloured tail and spikes on the back of its feet came over and started pecking around Mimi’s legs. She took hold of my arm, grizzling to go out. I told her she was to give the old bird a kick if it pecked too hard.
Auntie Ida said we had to be firm with the chickens and stand no nonsense. I took a deep breath, stuck my hand under the backside of a big brown hen sitting in its box full of straw, and pushed it off. It rose up, squawking in a flurry of flying feathers and scratchy claws, starting all the other chickens off. They went scattering into the air and scrabbling for the door, making a silly racket. In the empty boxes, I found five warm eggs altogether and let Mimi help me get them safely into the basket.
It started to spit as we pulled the wire gate shut. I rested one hand gently on the eggs while we ran back along the path towards the house. By the time we’d reached the back door, dashed inside, taken off our boots, and put them in the crate like Auntie told us, the rain was falling in heavy drops. We rushed down the stone passage to the kitchen in our socks and showed her the eggs. She was really pleased with us and said we’d done well for townies. For a moment, I thought a smile was coming, but it never did.
The rain went on all day. We listened to the wireless, and Mimi cut pictures out of old magazines and newspapers and stuck them onto bits of cardboard with glue that Auntie made out of flour and water. I thumbed through the stack of papers. Most of them were old and yellow, some even from before the war.
I didn’t
“What do you reckon
Cave bestiam
means, Pete?”
“I dunno,” he said, shrugging. “‘Best cave’ or something. I dunno. Is it French? You’ve done French in your class.”
“Yeah, but only counting to ten and days of the week, and I can’t remember anything after Thursday,” I said.
“It’s not German, because it doesn’t sound like a war film, like when they’re escaping from a prisoner-of-war camp.”
We spent a bit of time discussing how we would have got out of Stalag Luft 5.
“Do you know what
Cave bestiam
sounds a bit like to me?” I said after a while. “I think it sounds a bit like Latin.”
“Like in church?”
“Yeah, the priests are always saying
quoniam
s
and
gloriam
s
.
Bestiam
’s the same.”
“I dunno. Maybe.
Cave
is English, though. How could we find out?”
“We’ll have to have a think. We can’t ask Mum. You know what she’s like, and Dad’ll just go along with her. She won’t stop asking questions, like where did we get it from. We’ll have to ask someone clever.”
“Crikey. Where are we going to find someone clever?”
“I dunno. I wonder what we’re having for dinner. Hope it’s rice pudding for afters. If it is, I bags the skin.”
“That’s not flippin’ fair. Let’s dip for it.”
Auntie Ida put plaits in so tight I could hardly get my fingernails through my hair to scratch my scalp.
She looked out of the window at the dark grey sky and said the tide was in, so Mimi and I could put on our boots and go and see if the chickens had laid any eggs, but we’d best be quick before the heavens opened.
We unlocked the back door, walked across the cobbles of the small paved yard between the two wings of the house, and took the narrow path that led down the garden.
It was damp and chilly. Rain had fallen in the night. The wet grass was sprinkled with drops like shiny glass beads, each one separate from the others. The branches of the overgrown shrubs arched over the path with the weight of dripping water, their drooping leaves showering us as we brushed by.
Mimi held the basket, and I pushed open the old gate in the wire fence round the henhouse. Our boots soon became clogged with mud and feathers, straw and chicken muck. When we went through the door, the chickens bobbed and jerked and looked us up and down with their little beady eyes, clucking like a lot of old women gossiping.
A huge cockerel with a big fancy-coloured tail and spikes on the back of its feet came over and started pecking around Mimi’s legs. She took hold of my arm, grizzling to go out. I told her she was to give the old bird a kick if it pecked too hard.
Auntie Ida said we had to be firm with the chickens and stand no nonsense. I took a deep breath, stuck my hand under the backside of a big brown hen sitting in its box full of straw, and pushed it off. It rose up, squawking in a flurry of flying feathers and scratchy claws, starting all the other chickens off. They went scattering into the air and scrabbling for the door, making a silly racket. In the empty boxes, I found five warm eggs altogether and let Mimi help me get them safely into the basket.
It started to spit as we pulled the wire gate shut. I rested one hand gently on the eggs while we ran back along the path towards the house. By the time we’d reached the back door, dashed inside, taken off our boots, and put them in the crate like Auntie told us, the rain was falling in heavy drops. We rushed down the stone passage to the kitchen in our socks and showed her the eggs. She was really pleased with us and said we’d done well for townies. For a moment, I thought a smile was coming, but it never did.
The rain went on all day. We listened to the wireless, and Mimi cut pictures out of old magazines and newspapers and stuck them onto bits of cardboard with glue that Auntie made out of flour and water. I thumbed through the stack of papers. Most of them were old and yellow, some even from before the war.
I didn’t
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