The Bell Family by Noel Streatfeild

Author:Noel Streatfeild
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448182732
Publisher: Random House

8

Play Saturday

EVERY AUGUST ALL the family went to stay with Uncle Jim and Aunt Ann. Always it was a perfect month looked forward to by everybody. Cathy’s old home, which her brother, Uncle Jim, had taken on, was a large rambling house, with heaps of room in it. It was the perfect place to have a holiday in, because Uncle Jim had not got much money, and though Aunt Ann kept everything looking as nice as she could, there was not a great deal in the house that would spoil.

The house was in Berkshire. It was right in the country where everybody could run wild and do exactly what they liked. Aunt Ann, who was a sensible sort of person, full of good ideas, had long ago started the habit of putting extra beds in Ricky’s and Liza’s rooms for Ginnie and Angus. These two rooms were a little cut off from the rest of the house, and so, however much noise the four made, as Aunt Ann said, ‘They enjoy it and it can’t hurt us.’ This arrangement meant that, for all August, Jane and Paul had the luxury of rooms to themselves. They did not mind having Angus and Ginnie in their rooms the rest of the year, it was part of life as it was, but there was something very holiday-ish about having a room to yourself. As on Zoo Saturday, the families usually split up into twos. Paul often went out with Uncle Jim on his rounds. Ricky and Ginnie would disappear for hours on end, often coming back with rather a bloated look, and stains round their mouths, for when they were not eating the last of the family raspberries they visited somebody else’s canes. The loves of Liza’s life were the family pony Thomas, colonies of guinea pigs, several hutches of rabbits, various cats and some bantam hens. Angus thought Liza the luckiest girl in the world; every minute he spent playing with, feeding, or, in the case of Thomas, riding on, her pets, was unadulterated bliss.

‘Of course picnics are simply gorgeous, Mummy,’ he told Cathy; ‘but it does seem a terrible waste to go out when there are guinea pigs, rabbits and a pony at home.’

Alex was usually so tired by the time his holiday came round that for the first week he just lay about in a deckchair sleeping. After that he enjoyed anything that was going, and, best of all, he liked fishing. He did not want grand fishing, just sitting on a river bank staring at his float, and, better still, watching the life of the river. The only member of the family who enjoyed fishing with him was Jane. They would sit side by side for hours, seldom getting a bite, Alex watching the tiny water boatmen, the moorhens and sometimes a heron, Jane staring into the water, seeing underneath it swirling dancers moving exquisitely in a never-ending ballet.

Cathy looked upon August as the time for filling her shelves.

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