Chapter Eight
Harriet was cantering Breeze across a stretch of downland when she saw a hare behaving in an odd way.
It was leaping round and round in a circle, kicking up its heels. As she drew near, the hare stopped this strange behaviour and sat awaiting her, so she knew it must be Wiz.
‘Whatever were you doing?’ she said.
‘Just skipping about,’ said Wiz.
‘Why?’
‘Joie de vivre.’
‘Is that French?’
‘Oui.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘The joy of living. I’m just glad to be alive.’
I’m glad I shan’t see you dead, standing upright in a bottle, thought Harriet. You wouldn’t look like a hare, of course, you’d look like a Partian, and I’m quite glad I don’t know what Partians look like.
‘But you’re not going to die for ages, are you, Wiz?’ she said.
‘Hope not,’ said the hare. ‘I want to cram in a lot more happy holidays before I’m bottled.’
‘To Earth?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘To Longhanger Farm?’
‘Who knows? If I don’t return for some time, you won’t be here any more. You’ll be living somewhere else, married probably, with a pack of kids.’
‘Have you got any children, Wiz?’
‘On Pars, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
‘Well, you couldn’t possibly have any children on Earth, could you now?’ said Harriet, but the hare did not reply.
Harriet sighed.
‘It’s a funny thing about holidays,’ she said, ‘but once you get about halfway through them, the rest of the time simply flies. Before you know it, I’ll be back at school and you’ll have gone. The next full moon is on September the first. That’s less than a couple of weeks away now.’
‘Time for lots of surprises,’ said Wiz.
As usual he was right.
To begin with, on the very next day Harriet had three new egg customers.
‘We can’t have anything eggy to eat today, Dad,’ she said to her father. ‘I’ve sold them all.’
‘The pullets’ eggs as well?’
‘Yes. I charged much less for them, of course, because they’re still rather small.’
‘Quite the business woman.’
‘Yes, but I’m worried about my first customer. Suppose she wants some?’
‘Jessica Lambert, d’you mean?’
Harriet nodded.
‘Well, she’ll just have to buy some from the village shop. I’ll tell her. I’m going down there this evening.’
‘What for?’
‘To thank her for the picture of the hare, of course. You coming?’
‘Callin’ on Mrs Lambert, were you, duck?’ said Mrs Wisker next morning.
‘How did you know?’ said Harriet.
Mrs Wisker gave one of her screams.
‘She don’t drive a Land Rover,’ she said, ‘and there was one parked outside the old turnpike cottage yesterday evenin’. Any road, I seen you comin’ out. Hour and twenty-three minutes you was there. Nice, was it?’
‘Yes,’ said Harriet. ‘She showed me all the books she’s written. She does the pictures too, you know.’
‘Like that one of a hare you got in the sittin’-room?’
‘You don’t miss much, Mrs Wisker, do you?’ said Harriet.
‘Only my late lamented hubby!’ said Mrs Wisker with another screech.
One thing you don’t know, thought Harriet, is that Dad’s asked Mrs Lambert to supper this coming Saturday. And he’s going to cook Seven-hour Lamb, and I’m going to make a fresh-fruit salad, and I’m going to be allowed to stay up really late.
The weather was perfect that Saturday evening, August 21st. They sat out in the warmth of the old walled garden at the back of the farmhouse, and Mrs Lambert and Harriet’s father drank wine, and Harriet drank Coke, and Bran ate Twiglets in the sunshine.
Almost the first thing that happened was that Mrs Lambert said to Harriet (in the nicest way, with the nicest smile), ‘Harriet, you are to stop calling me Mrs Lambert, d’you understand?’
‘Yes, Jessica,’ said Harriet, and they all laughed, comfortably. And the Seven-hour Lamb, with lots of vegetables from the garden, was beautifully tender, and the fresh-fruit salad, with lots of cream, was perfectly delicious, and everybody happily ate too much.
‘Time you went to bed, Hat,’ said John Butler at last.
‘But Dad,’ said Harriet, ‘you promised I could stay up really late.’
‘You already have,’ said her father. ‘It’s gone eleven o’clock.’
In bed, Harriet lay and thought how strange it was to hear the murmur of voices in the room below, and how nice it was to think that Dad had someone to talk to.
A little later, she heard the voices outside, below her open window.
‘Thank you so much, John, it’s been a perfect evening,’ said one voice.
‘Thank you for coming, Jessica,’ said the other voice.
Then, after a little pause, Harriet heard a car door shut and an engine start. The noise of it fell away as the car went down the hill, and Harriet fell asleep.
When she woke next morning, there was the hare, sitting beside the bed.
‘How did you get here?’ she said.
‘Sparrow again,’ said Wiz. ‘I couldn’t be bothered with anything fancy. Just called to see how your supper party went.’
‘How did you know?’ Harriet said. ‘You’re worse than Mrs Wisker.’
‘I know lots of things that you don’t know I know,’ said Wiz. ‘Like what’s going to happen next Thursday, for example.’
‘What is going to happen?’
‘A surprise. I told you there’d be surprises.’
Harriet looked at the calendar hanging on the wall by her bed.
‘Next Thursday’s the twenty-sixth,’ she said, but she found she was talking to a sparrow that cheeped at her and flew out of the window.
Later that morning the phone rang.
‘Longhanger Farm,’ said Harriet.
‘Oh Harriet, it’s Jessica. Is your father there?’
‘No, he’s out in the yard somewhere.’
‘Doesn’t matter, you can ask him later. The thing is, I’ve got to go up to London to see my publishers this week, and I wondered if you’d like to come with me? We could go and see some of the sights and generally have a day out, if you’d like to.’
‘I’d love to, Jessica!’ said Harriet. ‘I’ll ask Dad if I can. What day?’
‘Thursday. That’s the twenty-sixth.’
‘D’you want to go?’ Harriet’s father said when she asked him.
‘Oh yes, please!’
‘You like Jessica, don’t you?’
‘Of course. Don’t you?’
John Butler smiled.
‘You give her a ring,’ he said, ‘and tell her it’s OK by me. I’m sure you’ll have a lovely day.’
And they did.
On the twenty-sixth, Jessica collected Harriet really early in the morning. They drove to the station and got on the train, something Harriet had hardly ever done before. Then, when they reached London, Harriet was taken into the publishers’ offices where they made a fuss of her. And then they saw the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, and had a lovely lunch, and went to Madame Tussauds, and, last of all, to the Planetarium where Harriet looked in vain for the planet Pars.
It’s too far away, she said to herself. They haven’t discovered it yet. I’m the only person who knows about it.
By the time they arrived back at Longhanger Farm, the afternoon milking was finished and the herd was coming down the trackway, Bluebell at the head, Bran and his master behind.
They waited until the cows had gone past and then they got out of the car and crossed the lane to join the farmer and lean on the gate, watching the big black-and-white animals fanning out across the sunlit meadow.
‘Good day, Hat?’ asked Harriet’s father.
‘It was smashing, Daddy,’ said Harriet, and she told him all the things they’d done.
‘How about you, Jessica?’ said John Butler. ‘How were things at your publishers?’
‘Well, they seem to like my latest story.’
‘What’s it about, Jessica?’ asked Harriet.
‘A hare. Doing that little picture for you gave me some ideas.’
‘Talk of the devil!’ said the farmer, and he pointed out into the field.
There, they saw, was a hare, leaping round and round in a circle, kicking up its heels.
‘I wonder why it’s behaving like that,’ said Jessica.
‘I don’t know,’ said John.
‘I do,’ said Harriet. ‘It’s joie de vivre.’
