Tumbleglass by Kate Constable

Author:Kate Constable [Kate Constable]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A&U Children's
Published: 2022-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

In the dining room, Uncle Pete was giving a speech while Ernie smiled faintly and smoothed the back of his head, pink with embarrassment. Frank and Moira (Ma and Dad) stood close together, his arm around her waist; she was smiling proudly, but blinking hard. The middle brother, Jack, perched on the arm of a chair, moodily drumming his fingers, while Gran carved up the sponge cake and loaded it onto plates for aunts and nieces to distribute. Rowan made sure she kept behind the twins, safely out of sight of Verity. Not that Verity from this time would know who she was, she reminded herself; but it was safest not to risk drawing her attention.

It was Harry who cut the rambling speech short by launching into a shrill rendition of ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’, which everyone joined in, some laughing, some crying. Uncle Pete kept ploughing through his speech up to the first chorus, then gave up, and toasted Ernie with a bottle of beer.

This was a happy family, thought Rowan. Like her own family had been, up until a week ago when Ash had disappeared and everything turned weird. She’d never understood before how fragile happiness was, how it could shatter so quickly.

Janie tugged at her sleeve and beckoned mysteriously. Rowan followed her out into the hallway where they joined a knot of giggling kids mostly younger than the twins – Rowan guessed they were cousins – who hurried toward the front room. Harry was bearing the remains of the cake on a glass stand (a possibility? No, it was too awkwardly shaped to hide under her jumper), and when they reached the shelter of the parlour, Janie closed the door and the cousins clustered around the low table and dug in with spoons as greedily as if this was the last cake they’d ever see.

Rowan hung back; she wasn’t a massive fan of cake at the best of times (Verity’s muffins were a different story) and she felt shy about pushing her way into the scrum. She wandered round the room, looking at the pictures on the walls, inspecting the ornaments on the mantelpiece in the hope that one might be both made of glass and small enough to tuck into her jumper sleeve. But she had no luck there. All she discovered was Janie sitting next to a basket of wool in one corner.

Janie stroked a soft blue hank of knitting. ‘Ma’s making a cardigan. She’s calling it her Last Hurrah before she has to start knitting socks for soldiers. And this is mine …’

It was a perfectly recognisable beginning to a sock, a khaki-coloured tube suspended on four double-ended knitting needles. The stitches were even and neat. Rowan gaped. ‘Did you make that?’

‘Course.’ Janie stuffed it back into the basket. ‘It’s not so wonderful. The socks you knit are better than that, all those fancy patterns.’

Rowan gulped. She could no more have knitted a fancy sock than flown to the moon, but clearly Annie was more capable than she was.

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