Dani changed at once into a dress she had been given as a present from Grandma. But the headband stayed on. It was so cool.
Then she hurried to pack her backpack with cards, drawing paper, felt pens and a few other things.
When that was finished she took her wheelie bag and put a little soft toy in it.
The hamsters watched her sadly.
They don’t like it when she packs. It means she’s going away, and sometimes they aren’t allowed to go too.
“Don’t be cross,” said Dani. “I’m just going on a short trip to Northbrook to be a birthday present.”
She stopped and thought a moment. It was fun to be an experience present, but Ella would probably like something else as well. She does really like things.
Imagine if Dani could put together a treasure hunt for her.
Treasure hunts are wonderful things to get!
This is what you do:
One person gathers up presents, wraps them in paper and lays them out so they make a trail. Then the other person has to go and look for them.
Dani hurried to get paper and string, which Grandma always kept in the kitchen drawers, and she started immediately.
First she took a glass bird and wrapped it in a piece of paper with gold stars on it.
Then she took a teeny, tiny baby doll, which lay in a matchbox.
That had belonged to her mother.
In the third parcel, after some hesitation, she laid a ring with a blue stone—also her mother’s, once upon a time.
“We give each other the things we love the most.” She talked out loud to Ella. “The sort of things you’d never get from anyone else.”
In the fourth parcel she wrapped a yellow rubber duck with sunglasses.
Ella collects rubber ducks.
In the fifth parcel she put a fan that Grandma had bought when she was in Spain.
In the sixth: a newly baked jam cake she had nipped from the kitchen and wrapped in greaseproof paper.
She cut out and wrapped and folded and taped and made bows.
In the seventh parcel she wrapped a good book that Grandma had just finished reading to her. It was about a girl who was sold to a circus.
There wasn’t much room for anything else besides a toothbrush.
“What’s all this?” Grandma wondered when she came to check on her packing. “I thought you were the present!”
“Yes, I am,” said Dani. “The best present. But I thought that Ella should have…”
“Yes, yes,” Grandma interrupted, because she was in a hurry. “What about your nightie? And clean underwear? Sonja said you could stay for a few days!”
“I can borrow those things from Ella.”
But Grandma packed some warm clothes anyway. “Now we’d better hurry,” she said, taking out her hair rollers.
Dani said goodbye to the disappointed hamsters and gave them a pat.
“Up with the corners of your mouths! Soon you’ll have me back again. You must understand, I’ve been longing for this for ages.”
Then she took her phone, which was charging. Northbrook was waiting!