Chapter 6

It was Saturday again. “We’ve got shopping to do, Tilly,” Dad said.

Tilly put Little Fox on Mom’s bedroom windowsill so he could watch over the garden and keep an eye on Mom.

Mom helped Dad make a shopping list. Dad wrote it all down so he wouldn’t forget anything or get the wrong things. Tilly didn’t listen to their boring list. She had her own things to think about.

The town was busy. It took ages to find a place to park the car. Crowds of people all dressed in the same blue, white, and black sweaters and scarves were pushing and shoving their way toward the rugby field.

“Must be a home match,” Dad said. “I’d forgotten.”

Tilly and Dad were walking the opposite way of everyone else along the riverside path, moving against the flow. It took a long time to reach the steps leading up to the bridge and the main street.

“What shall we do first? Food or fun?” Dad asked.

“Boring food first,” Tilly said. It was best to get it over and done with. That’s what Mom would do: supermarket shop first then something for fun, like a café or a bookshop or sometimes both. “Then I know where I want to go for a treat.”

The dollhouse shop was in a small street that climbed up a hill to the traffic lights. Tilly stopped to look in the window. It was all lit up with special lights on glass shelves: rows of tiny beds and tables and chairs; a shelf full of food on tiny china plates; garden stuff like benches and flowerpots and a tiny watering can and tools. Tilly looked at the nursery section: a tiny crib on rockers, a cot, a little stroller. There were animals too: a family of kittens in a basket; a black and white collie dog. She liked the little wooden toy box, a bit like her real one, with a hinged lid and everything. Best of all was the tiny dollhouse. A dollhouse to go inside a dollhouse! Like Russian dolls, where the dolls go on getting smaller and smaller as you take them apart, until you get to the last teeny one that doesn’t open.

Dad was looking at his watch. “How about I leave you here for ten minutes or so, Tilly, and then come back to get you? Then I can take care of a few things I need to do.”

Tilly nodded. Mom would have enjoyed coming right in with her and looking at everything: the special wallpaper and the electric light sets and the rows of tiny dolls, and the houses themselves. But Dad would fidget and be bored. He would say how everything was too expensive.

Tilly watched him going off down the hill. Suddenly, the street seemed too big and busy, and she was too small and alone. She pushed the shop door open and went inside.

The shop lady smiled from behind the counter. She didn’t say anything, and she went back to shuffling papers and writing things down.

Tilly began to relax. First she looked at the rows of dollhouses on a big shelf on one side of the shop, then she crossed over to where there were more cabinets full of stuff like in the window, and then she studied the families. It was important to get the size right. Most of these people were too big for Tilly’s dollhouse. That was because her dollhouse was very old.

She thought about what Mom had told her. The dollhouse was older than Mom or Granny even. It had belonged to the old lady called Miss Sheldon who had lived in the house before them. It had been Miss Sheldon’s dollhouse when she was a girl, a long, long time ago. She hadn’t had any children of her own. And that’s how Mom, Dad, and Tilly had come to live in her house. Miss Sheldon died when she was nearly one hundred years old. She had left the house to Mom in her will.

Tilly only had enough money for one thing from her list. She went to the window to choose. The lady was watching her now. Tilly took a long time to decide. The tiny dollhouse was best of all, but it cost too much. She picked up the cradle instead.

“You made a good choice,” the lady said as she handed Tilly her change. “I love that cradle too. I like the way it actually rocks.” She wrapped it up in pale pink tissue paper and put the package into a blue paper bag. “Have you got a baby to put in it?” the lady asked.

“Not yet,” Tilly whispered.

Now she didn’t know what to do. The door jangled again as she opened it and stepped out into the street. She looked up and then down the street, but there was no sign of Dad. He’d said ten minutes, but it seemed much longer than that. She was glad no one spoke to her or asked her what she was doing there. She felt too small all by herself in town, even though lots of the girls in her new class wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Harriet, Lucy, and Simone came to town by themselves every Saturday, they said.

She didn’t want to think about those girls. She imagined meeting them now, and the way they’d smile and stare at her clothes and toss their hair and giggle to each other. They’d think she was weird, still being interested in dollhouses at her age!

Dad was running up the hill at last, laden with bags, and smiling.

“Sorry! I got carried away!” Dad said. “Got what you wanted?”

Tilly nodded.

“Come on then, before the parking meter runs out.”

They jogged together back to the car. This end of town wasn’t so busy, now that the match was in full swing. Every so often the roar of thousands of voices echoed up from the riverside field as someone scored.

Tilly shoved the paper bag deep in her pocket to keep it safe.

She climbed into the front seat while Dad stowed all the bags in the trunk. Dad was in a good mood. He chattered all the way home about the books he’d found in the thrift store. Her hand curled around the package in her pocket, feeling the small wooden shape nestling in the paper.

“We should have bought a get-better-soon present for Mom,” Tilly said.

Dad looked at her. “Flowers?” he said. “What do you think? I can stop at the florist on the corner if it’s still open. You could run in and choose her some.”

Dad stopped the car just outside the flower shop. “Here,” he said to Tilly. He gave her some money.

Tilly looked at all the buckets of flowers on the pavement outside the shop. Then she went inside to see what was there. She picked out a bunch of pink and creamy-white flowers, and the florist wrapped them up and tied a ribbon around them. “Someone’s birthday?” she asked. “She’s going to be very pleased.”

Tilly didn’t say anything. She just smiled and handed over Dad’s money and went back out to the car with the change in one hand and the flowers in the other.

“That’ll do the trick,” Dad said. “And we’ll make tea and sandwiches for the three of us when we get home.”

Little Fox was bored. He wanted an adventure. Can’t we go back to the magic garden? he asked Tilly when she picked him up off the windowsill.

It’s getting dark, Tilly said. It’s cold outside now.

So? I’ve got fur and you can put on your coat! Little Fox said.

Dad and Mom were deep in conversation. Dad was eating his way through the pile of sandwiches. The pink and white flowers were in a big glass vase on the table. Mom had said they were truly beautiful, the perfect choice.

Tilly slid down off the windowsill. “Can I go and play?” she asked Dad.

He nodded. He didn’t ask where. He didn’t say not outside.

Downstairs, Tilly put on her coat. She slipped her feet into rain boots. She put Little Fox in her pocket. She opened the back door and went into the garden. Birds were flying high in the blue-dark sky, calling to each other. Lots of birds, flying together in a V-shape, with one bird leading the way, as if they were traveling a long distance.

It was nearly dark, but once you were outside, your eyes got used to it and it wasn’t really dark at all.

Hurry up! Little Fox said.

They crossed the grass. The little bird scolded from the tree—tut tut!

Tilly opened the gate, crossed the grassy path, and squeezed around the wooden door into the magic garden.