Chapter 26

Tilly woke up in her bed. It was early morning, and the room glowed with the strange light reflected off snow.

Snow!

Last night!

Everything flooded back. The fox and the tiny cubs being carried by the vixen, one by one, and Helen…

Saying good-bye.

The last time.

Sadness flooded over her. And at the same time, she remembered something else. Today was the day they’d find out about Mom and the baby and the tests at the hospital.

Granny bustled into the bedroom. “Good morning, Tilly! Have you seen outside? If it carries on like this, there won’t be any school today!” She pulled the curtains back. “And more snow is forecasted for later today! Isn’t that exciting? It doesn’t snow for nearly twenty years, and then it snows twice in one month!”

“Can we go sledding?” Tilly asked. “Can we take Susila too?”

“We’ll see,” Granny said. “We don’t even know about school yet. You’d better get ready just in case.”

Dad was already in his study. As she went past on her way down to the kitchen for breakfast, Tilly could hear him tap-tapping his story on the computer. One word and the next, and a sentence and another.

Granny put a bowl of porridge on the table for Tilly. She made herself toast and coffee. “We’ll put out food for the birds in a minute,” Granny said. “And something tasty for your fox.”

Tilly stared at her. “My fox?”

Granny laughed. “All that food disappearing from the fridge! I knew it wasn’t you eating it, Tilly!”

“She’s got cubs,” Tilly said. “And she had to move them because of the trees being chopped down.”

“No one will be chopping down trees today,” Granny said. “Not in the snow.”

The telephone rang. Granny went to answer it.

Tilly’s heart beat faster. That might be Mom.

Granny called out for Dad to come to the phone.

Tilly listened, trying to guess what was happening. But Dad was just saying Umm and Yes and Of course, so it was hard to tell. Then it was her turn.

“Tilly?” Dad called her over. “Mom wants to talk to you.” He handed her the phone.

Mom sounded just like Mom—like the old Mom, before she got ill. “We’re being sent home this weekend!” she said. “Isn’t that the best thing ever?”

“What if it’s still snowing?” Tilly said. “What if the car can’t get to the hospital?”

“I’ll walk if necessary!” Mom said. “Nothing’s going to stop me. I just want to be home now, with you and Dad. I’ve had enough of being cooped up here.”

“We’ve got everything ready,” Tilly said. “The baby basket and the clothes and everything.”

“What else have you been doing?” Mom asked.

“School. Writing a story. I had a friend over to play.”

“Wonderful,” Mom said. “The baby wants to talk to you. Do you mind?” There was the sound of the phone being fumbled and put down and then picked up again, and then silence.

“Say something, Til.” Mom’s voice came, a bit distant.

“Hello, Toby,” Tilly said. “Or Todd. Or Norbert.”

“He’s listening. He’s blowing bubbles. He’s poking out his little tongue!”

“Charming!” Tilly said.

Mom laughed.

Tilly heard a faint squeaky sound and then the beginnings of a hungry-baby cry, working itself up to a full-blown wail.

“Nothing wrong with his lungs,” Mom said. “It’s feeding time at the zoo; I have to go. But it’s not long now until I can see you. Just a few more days. I miss you, Tilly! Love you!”

“I love you too,” Tilly said. She put back the phone.

“You’re jumping up and down like a—like I don’t know what!” Granny said. “I assume it’s good news?”

“She’s coming home this weekend.” Tilly was smiling so much her cheeks began to hurt.

Granny turned the radio on. She pressed the buttons till she found the local radio station. The traffic news came on, and then something about sports, which Tilly ignored, and then a woman started reading out a list of schools closed because of snow.

“Northfield Elementary!” the woman said.

Tilly, Dad, and Granny cheered.

“Give me another hour on my book,” Dad said, “and then let the sledding commence!”

“We’ll phone Susila,” Granny said, “as soon as we’ve cleared up.”

Tilly pulled on her too-tight boots and grabbed her coat and ran out into the garden. The birds flew down from the tree for the toast crumbs. Tilly filled the birdfeeder hanging on the tree with more seeds, and then she waited for the robin to come for his piece of cheese. That done, she ran in big circles around the snowy garden, covering it with a maze of boot prints. She found a perfect, smooth place for making angels; she flopped back onto the snow, swooshed her arms up and down to make the wings, and got up carefully, so as not to spoil the angel shape. She practiced until she made two perfect angels: one for her, one for Helen. Then she did one more for Susila.

She went to the garden gate; there were tiny V-shaped prints of birds, light on the ice crust on the surface of the snow, up and down the snow-covered lane, and other tracks: rabbit feet, she recognized, and there—at last, a little to the right—the deeper prints of her fox.

Tilly followed the neat prints right to the end of the lane, as far as the gate to the horse field, and then she stopped. The prints kept going, into the field, across to one side, and disappeared over the brow of the hill. The field was empty, a smooth, beautiful mound of perfect snow, almost blue, and pink at the edges where the tree shadows fell. No horses today. There was nothing to stop her from going on; the tracks would lead her straight to the new den. It was obvious now. She could find it easy as anything.

But she didn’t.

If I follow her now, Tilly thought, and she hears me, smells me, she won’t feel safe. She’ll look for another den. Move the babies all over again. It’s not fair.

Helen was right. You couldn’t really be friends with a fox. That moment, ages ago now, when she’d reached out her hand and touched her fur, and the times she’d held out food and the vixen had taken it, that wasn’t fair either. The vixen had been hungry and desperate; that’s why she’d come so close. And if by chance she did start trusting Tilly, it wouldn’t be good for her, not really. She was a wild animal, not a pet.

Tilly ran back down the lane, back through the gate, across the garden to the kitchen.

“I’ll phone Susila,” she told Granny.

They had one red plastic sled between the four of them, so they took turns. Then Tilly and Susila squeezed up together in the sled, Susila at the front, to make the long whizzing slide down the hill above the school. They shrieked and giggled as the sled bounced and careened off at an angle and dumped them in a heap at the bottom of the slope.

“We never did this in London. We never even had snow,” Susila said, laughing. “I never had so much fun. Ever!”

“We’ve never had it before either,” Tilly said. “Not deep like this.”

They picked themselves up and trudged back up the hill for the next go. Tilly’s face tingled with cold. Her boots were full of snow and her mittens sopping wet, but she was happy. She hadn’t laughed so much in ages. When Granny took her turn on the sled and it went sideways and shot into the hedge and Granny had to bail out and landed in a heap of wet snow, Tilly thought she’d be sick she was laughing so much.

Granny laughed till tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Back for lunch?” Dad said eventually.

Dad heated up soup while Granny went for a long, hot soak in the bath.

“I’m soaked through!” Susila said. “Can I borrow some dry clothes?”

Tilly and Susila trooped upstairs together. They slid along the shiny edges of the hallway in their damp socks.

Tilly opened the wardrobe for Susila to choose some clothes. She picked out blue jeans and a black sweater, and sat on the carpet in Tilly’s bedroom to pull on a pair of pink fluffy socks.

“What’s that?” Susila said, pointing. “Under your bed?”

Tilly flushed. “It’s my old dollhouse,” she said. “I don’t play with it anymore.”

“Why not? It looks amazing! It’s really old, isn’t it? Like that other stuff in your attic. Can I see?”

Tilly helped her slide it out from under the bed. They blew the dust off the top of the tiled roof.

Susila lay on her tummy so she could look through the windows.

“It’s got lights and everything!” she said. “But no furniture.”

“I put it all away,” Tilly said. “But I know where it is. I can get it if you like.”

“Yes please!” Susila said.

Tilly rummaged in the wardrobe again. The box was hidden under a pile of old sweaters. She opened it up to show Susila.

“Little pictures and pots and pans and beds and everything! Let’s put it all in the house.”

Tilly opened the front up. “It’s all a little dusty,” she said.

“Wow! Wallpaper! With roses on!” Susila said. “That’s like in that story you wrote, about the girl. She had rose wallpaper.” She picked up the table and the chairs and arranged them in the kitchen. She put the beds upstairs. She found the tiny cradle at the bottom of the box. “This is so sweet! You should get a tiny baby doll to go in here! Like your real baby. When’s he coming home?”

“Saturday.” Tilly’s face felt hot.

But Susila didn’t notice anything. She was too busy, getting the furniture out, rearranging things, putting the dollhouse people together into the kitchen, around the table, playing happy families.

And now Dad was calling them down for lunch.

Susila had gone home. Dad was working in the study: “My last chance,” he said, “before Mom gets here tomorrow with the baby, and all our lives change forever.”

Tilly lay on her bed to think about what would be different.

Mom would be up and about. Granny would go home. Mom would have the baby to look after, but babies sleep lots, especially to begin with, Dad said. So Mom would have time to spend with Tilly again. And when the baby grew a bit bigger, Tilly could help look after him. She could play with him, show him things. She could read books to him and tell him stories and make him laugh. And at school, now, there was Susila to be friends with.

Tilly pulled out her notebook from under her pillow and leafed through the pages of her story.

Make it have a happy ending, Susila had said.

She picked up her pen and turned over a fresh page and began to write.

Outside, the sun came out, briefly—a pale wintry February sun, like a promise of spring.