A Heartbeat Away. Eleanor Jones

were half-closed as he stared at the flashing TV screen, while my mom just gazed vacantly into the fire, lost in a world I could not enter. Tomorrow, I decided, I would go and see Daniel whether my dad liked it or not.

      

      I slipped out of the house next morning before anyone was awake. It wasn’t very difficult because my mom never got up early anyway, and through the wall I could hear my dad snoring so loudly that nothing could have disturbed him.

      Last night I had lain in the dark, listening to him cursing in an angry voice. When the thumping noises started again and I heard my mom cry, I just pulled the covers over my head and snuggled down into the darkness, thinking of Daniel and Chocolate and Homewood Farm.

      As soon as the early-morning light filtered through my window, I struggled into my jodhpurs, filled with determination, and crept along the landing to peek into my mom’s room. My dad was slumped beneath the bedclothes, his whole shape heaving with each rumbling snore that filled the room. I hardly dared to sneak past him to peep at my mother, but I made myself because I knew that Mrs. Brown would ask me how she was.

      I tiptoed around the end of the bed to check on my mom. Her face was crumpled in sleep, all lined and gray, with a strange dark mark down one cheek, a purple mark—like the one I got on my side when I fell from Chocolate. Something fluttered inside my stomach, then gurgled up into my throat, and I ran from the room on wooden legs, down the stairs and out into the lane. And I kept on running until I saw the gray roofs of Homewood against the frosty hills.

      I walked along the side of the big stone house and in through the small gate that led into the back garden, where Daniel and I spent so many happy hours. The gentle, rhythmic thud of the milking machine filled the crisp air. I heard a cow bellow, impatient to be milked, and a warm glow spread through me. I felt that I was home.

      The delicious aroma of bacon wafted from the kitchen as I approached the back door. I crept inside to hide behind Mr. Brown’s tall chair and peered out at Mrs. Brown, who was standing at the oven. She spoke to me without turning around.

      “Are you hungry, Lucy?” she asked, as if expecting me.

      When I emerged from my hiding place, nodding soundlessly, she beckoned me over and laid another place at the table.

      “Mr. Brown and Daniel will be in shortly,” she said. “They’ll be so pleased to see you. Daniel has a new puppy. It came on Christmas Day and he’s been dying to show it to you.”

      I picked up the thick bacon sandwich she’d placed in front of me and started to talk with my mouth full, but she didn’t tell me off.

      “Is it a Labrador, like Timmy Brocklebank’s puppy?”

      She looked around from the stove with a smile, lifting her hand to push a stray lock of fair hair back up into the knot on the top of her head.

      “How did you know?”

      “Because Daniel loves Labradors,” I told her. “And Father Christmas would know that, wouldn’t he?”

      “Yes, I suppose he would,” she agreed with a thoughtful expression on her smooth plump face.

      I took another large bite of my sandwich. “Father Christmas knows everything, doesn’t he?”

      “I expect so,” she replied.

      “Then why didn’t he remember to visit my house last night?” I asked with a troubled frown.

      Mrs. Brown put down the spatula she was using to turn the bacon and crossed the kitchen to crouch beside me, so close that I could smell the scent of violets mingling with the aroma of bacon. I pulled in a big breath and looked up into her misty brown eyes.

      “Oh, Lucy,” she cried. “He didn’t forget you. It was just…”

      She hesitated and I held my breath.

      “It was just that he left your presents here, instead.”

      For the rest of my life, I will remember the happiness that flooded me in that moment. Father Christmas hadn’t forgotten me after all. He just thought I was at Homewood.

      “Come on, then,” said Mrs. Brown, “let’s go and find them.”

      As we walked together along the hallway, she took my hand in hers.

      “Does your mother know that you are here?” she asked.

      I shook my head slowly, looking down at my shoes.

      “They’re still asleep,” I told her, chewing on my sandwich with the pure delight that only true hunger brings.

      A gust of cold air whooshed through from the kitchen as we went into the living room and I heard the back door bang.

      “Shut that door, Daniel,” called Mrs. Brown. “And then come and see who’s here.”

      We waited for a moment until he raced in from outside. His cheeks were bright pink from the sharp winter’s air and his warm brown eyes glowed with delight.

      “I knew you’d be over,” he said simply, pointing to the bundle of yellow fur that followed him. “This is Fudge.”

      “I hope you cleaned him up before you brought him in,” grumbled Mrs. Brown, but her eyes were smiling.

      For a moment even my presents were forgotten as I gazed in wonder at the golden Labrador pup. The pup studied me with Daniel’s eyes, and when I pressed my face against his soft baby coat, his warm pink tongue curled across my cheek.

      “Why,” I gasped, “he looks just like you.”

      “That’s what my mom says,” laughed Daniel.

      I loved my presents. A riding hat from Mr. and Mrs. Brown to go with the jodhpurs, and a book from Daniel called Learn to Ride. But no gift could ever be as wonderful as Fudge. Daniel knew how I felt without being told and he smiled at me.

      “You can share him if you like,” he said. “Fudge can be our dog.”

      “Our dog,” I repeated over and over again. “Our dog.”

      After breakfast, when Mrs. Brown told me that my mother would be very worried and I really should go home, all my happiness faded. I ran to hide behind the big square kitchen table, but she gently escorted me out by my arm, stroking my thick dark wavy hair off my tear-stained face.

      “Now, you know that you have to go, don’t you, Lucy?” she said, kissing me softly on the cheek.

      I nodded, watching solemnly as she took her long beige coat from the peg by the door. As she fastened the buttons, Mr. Brown came in. His red hair was all wild, as if he’d forgotten to comb it that morning, and his overalls smelled of cows and silage. I thought he looked nice.

      “Go and say goodbye to Daniel and Fudge,” said Mrs. Brown, ushering me toward them as she turned to talk to her husband.

      “And remember that you can play with Fudge and Daniel anytime, so no sadness from you,” added Mr. Brown with one of the broad grins that seemed to fill up his whole face. Daniel smiled like that, too.

      

      When the blue car stopped outside our house, my dad burst through the front door even before we had time to get out. His face was heated with anger, but his voice was icy-cold.

      “Now then, Mrs. Brown,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “What is all this? Are you trying to steal my Lucy away?”

      He stood squarely in front of us, his arms across his chest. I was pleased to see that he was wearing clean clothes and had shaved off the stubble of a beard that made him resemble a Gypsy. He looked nice, my dad, when he was all done up. Not the Mr. Brown kind of nice that had nothing to do with appearance at all, but handsome and charming like the men on TV.

      Mrs. Brown was almost as tall as he when she stood very straight, and stared him in the eye without flinching. “Mr. McTavish,” she said in a fierce voice. “I cared for your wife and child when