A HORSE FOR ANGEL. Sarah Lean

things to do with that. I was too scared of what she’d say, what she’d think of me. A moment passed. There were potholes and bumps in the road.

      “I feel sick,” I said.

      “Don’t be silly. The two weeks will pass in no time.”

      Which was not what I meant, and anyway it was wrong. Two weeks takes two weeks. Which is ages.

      “No, I mean I really feel sick.”

      Mum pulled over, searched her handbag and fished out a travel sickness sweet, a bottle of water and a paper bag – just in case.

      I opened the window and leaned my head out. The air smelled cool and clean. I felt the tickle as Mum curved my hair round my ear, a warm patch growing across my shoulder where she laid her hand.

      “It’ll be hard for me too,” she said, “being without you.”

      I watched her expression, but I couldn’t tell. She kind of looked lost for a minute. Then she drove away, saying we’d be there soon.

      Ruts jiggled us down a lane only just wider than the car. We passed mostly green and brown things: trees and hedges, empty fields and gates. The satnav showed we were off the map, the car on the screen floating in nowhere. The only thing that seemed the same was the sky, the same as it was in the city, high and out of reach.

      We dipped further into the valley, round a corner past a place called Keldacombe Farm and then Mum parked by a stone wall.

      There were two small children sitting on the wall chewing red liquorice laces. Gemma, the youngest, had fair hair; Alfie had dark hair and flushed cheeks, like me. They wore muddy wellies, jeans with holes in the knees and baggy, home-made jumpers. Before Mum got out, she reached across and held my hand. I noticed how warm her hand was, how it changed the temperature of mine.

      “Hello, Aunty Cathy,” my cousins said together as Mum stepped out of the car.

      “You’re Nell, aren’t you?” said Gemma, holding the lace in her teeth. “Everyone calls me Gem.”

      “Cos Mum says she is one,” said Alfie.

      “Is Nell short for Nelly?” said Gem. “Like the elephant?”

      “No,” I said, thinking it wasn’t a very nice thing to say.

      Alfie elbowed her.

      “What? I didn’t mean she looks like an elephant, cos she doesn’t,” Gem said, swinging her legs and shrugging away from Alfie. “Is it short for Nellina, then? Or Nellanie?”

      “It’s not short for anything,” I said. “I’m just Nell.”

      Gem jumped off the wall and said, “You’re going to sleep in our room, Just Nell.”

      Which made my eyes open wide and my heart sink.

      Gem said, “Come on. We’ve been waiting.”

      Her hand was warm and sticky as she pulled me through the gate.

      We followed my cousins through another gate between chicken-wire fences, sheds and coops, past a blue greenhouse, along a crazy path towards Lemon Cottage and its open door. There were ducks and geese wandering around the wide garden. The lawn and pond were speckled with feathers.

      “They’re here!” Gem called.

      The geese swayed and raised their heads, honking at us like we’d caused a traffic jam. Their beaks looked hard, their eyes sharp, like they knew something just by looking at me.

      Aunt Liv came out of the door. She wiped her hands on a tea towel and flicked it over her shoulder. She didn’t seem to mind the birds as she waded through them. Her flowery dress swished over her knees and across the top of her wellies as she hurried to meet us.

      She tucked her short dark hair behind her ear. Mum hugged Aunt Liv as if she was in a hurry, gabbling on about how kind she was to have me at short notice.

      “I tried everyone I could think of,” Mum said. “You were our last resort.”

      Mum has a way of saying what she thinks without thinking what she’s saying. Then she listed foods I didn’t like (fish, Marmite and salad cream – embarrassing) and how she expected me to behave (polite, kind, helpful) and said I would be no trouble.

      Aunt Liv smiled, put an arm round Mum and me.

      “Come on in. Gem’s made cakes.”

      OST OF THEIR JUMBLED HOME WAS IN THE BIG kitchen. There was a long wooden table half laid for lunch, half covered in toys and papers. Cupboards with no doors spilled out 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