09:45
Huffy says three times that the carrying rope is frayed and is told not to spoil the day. Huffy does dragon breath, then holds the worn part out in silence until everybody looks. Nobody apologises. Huffy cuts the rope into short lengths, three lanterns to a length, so that if one goes only three go.
3 fluffs tell this minute. None of them saw the same one.
Huffy was on the wall cutting rope into short lengths and being cross about it, and said, without looking up: "You're going to break it."
"I am FIXING it."
"You're fixing it very hard," said Huffy.
Which is an annoying thing to hear and a considerably more annoying thing to be right about.
The rope was no good and I said so.
I said it three times, and the third time I said it loudly, because the first two had gone into the yard and come out the other side as nothing at all.
"Huffy. Not today. Please."
That is the bit I would like somebody to sit with for a minute. Not show me. Not where. Not today, please — as though I were weather. As though the rope were fine and I was the problem, and the problem was my personality.
Then there was the rope, at about a quarter to ten, and I did not come out of that one well either.
Huffy said three times that it was frayed and the yard told Huffy not to spoil the day — and I did not say that, but I did not say anything else either, and I was standing right there. Then Huffy held the worn part out without a word and we all came and looked at it.
"Oh," I said.
Nine lanterns. Over the bridge. Onto the stones. That is what my "oh" was worth.
