Page 11 of Summer At Willow Tree Farm

Crap, she’d just made it his business.

*

‘Chill out, Ellie.’

‘Chill out?’ Ellie hissed, the obese gymnasts ready to explode out of her ears.

This man and his vicious little minion had nearly killed her son. Not to mention taken her on a trek across most of Wiltshire when she was so exhausted she was ready to faceplant for a week.

She’d chill Art Dalton right into the freezer cabinet if he wasn’t careful.

‘I will not chill out. And the name’s not Ellie, it’s Eloise to you.’

His brows wrinkled. Fine, maybe it sounded a bit pompous. She didn’t care.

‘OK, Eloise.’ He rolled the name off his tongue as if it were the punchline to a particularly unfunny joke. ‘There’s no need to flip out.’ He swung a hand towards Josh, who had wriggled out of her arms and was standing beside Art’s evil minion. The two children edged closer to Art, as if he were the sane dependable adult in this scenario.

‘The boy’s safely on terra firma.’ Art’s patient tone made her want to kick him exceptionally hard, somewhere extremely soft. ‘He made the decision to go up there and he got himself down without too much help from me. Toto came to get you as soon as she knew there was a problem. So whatever you’re accusing her of, you’re wrong.’

‘She came to get me and then took me on a guided tour of Wiltshire to bring me to a tree that I know is only five minutes from the farmyard.’

She was getting light-headed again, her lungs aching from the effort to hold back the tortured breaths of her outrage.

They’d done to Josh exactly what Art had done to her all those years ago, Art and the other commune kids. A couple of days after she’d arrived they’d told her she needed to be initiated in their stupid club. And somehow, because she was fascinated by the rough boy, and a bit afraid of him too, she’d agreed to try. And had ended up with the brand new Kookai blouse her dad had bought her for her birthday covered in fresh manure and them all laughing at her.

‘I don’t want my son near your daughter,’ she said. ‘I don’t want her suggesting he climb up trees, or swim in the millpond or tramp through fields of young bullocks to get a mythical stone that doesn’t exist. Do you understand?’

‘But, Mom, I want to join Toto’s club,’ Josh wailed, as if she’d just ruined his life. She ignored him, her gaze focused on Art Dalton’s face, and the rigid line of his jaw. Good, at least he didn’t look patiently amused any more.

‘Toto, why don’t you take Josh back to the farmhouse?’ Art addressed his daughter. ‘Dee can clean him up. It’ll be suppertime soon.’

‘OK, Dad’; ‘Yes, sir,’ said Art’s daughter and her son in unison.

‘Excuse me,’ Ellie began, her breath coming in jagged gasps now. ‘Who gave you permission to tell my son what to…’

Before she could finish the sentence, the children had dashed off together through the woods, back in the direction of the farmhouse. The direction she should have come from if Art’s child hadn’t taken her on a five-mile hike while her heart was exploding at the thought of Josh tumbling to his death.

Her temper hit boiling point, the white noise in her ears loud enough to sound like the woods were being dive-bombed by the Red Arrows.

‘How dare you tell my son what to do. He’s my responsibility not yours. I decide who he–’

‘If Dee has her way, he’s going to be here the whole summer.’ Art’s gaze locked on hers, all signs of amusement gone. ‘Toto’s a good kid and she likes him and they’re about the same age. It won’t do them any harm to hang out together. He’ll be sure to get lots of exercise.’

‘I’m not asking you. And don’t worry, we’re not staying the whole summer. I doubt I’ll stay more than one night after this. And if you’re talking about his weight with that comment about exercise, you can piss off. It’s perfectly healthy.’

‘Did I say it wasn’t?’

‘You implied it.’ Other parents always assumed they knew best. That if your child was carrying a little extra weight and theirs wasn’t that they knew how to fix it. They knew nothing of Josh’s body image issues. His anxieties. The way he could comfort eat his way through a whole quart of rocky road ice cream in two minutes after coming home from school. ‘And, believe me, being forced to climb a tree when he’s afraid of heights is not going to magically make him lose two stone.’

‘No one forced him to climb the tree. And he survived.’

‘How do you know that? You don’t know anything about him, you only just met him.’

‘I know he’s a little boy. And little boys need the chance to cut loose now and again. Not get wrapped in cotton wool by their mothers.’

She sputtered. She actually sputtered. The Red Arrows circling her head now. How dare he tell her how to raise her child, when he’d clearly spent no time at all raising his own. ‘Oh really, well maybe that explains why your daughter thinks she’s a little boy too.’

‘At least my daughter doesn’t think she’s fat.’

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