on Winky's bucket

I read it out at twenty past nine, standing on Winky's bucket, and it took eleven minutes.

Eleven minutes is a very long time to hold a room. I was about four names in when I realised that it was not going to be a nice moment — that it was going to be a big one — because of what I could see happening on the faces.

Lonny found out that Buddy had put him with Peeky on purpose, before the counting got as far as the end of the line. Lonny went and stood in the kitchen for a minute.

Mello found out that an hour and forty minutes of a queue not falling apart counts as an event.

Beamy read the envelope out and my line was Bravo — took the bank, said it was frightening first. Then Rainbow did the counting-off, and there was a bit in it about the ones who felt the scared and went anyway, and I looked at Shivvy instead of at Rainbow, because Shivvy had walked the hedge tunnel that night without holding on to anything.

And then Beamy read the envelope out.

Dinky — stopped the row, and then made Jelly say the real thing.

And then.

Nobody in that room noticed those two words except me and, I suspect, Tipsy. It is a small thing. It is a joining word.

The bit I keep coming back to is Beamy reading out Yetty — the knot, one hour, and the whole room making the noise it made.

One hour. On a knot. While I was three feet away telling him to cut it.

I found Yetty later, by the window, and said so — that I had been wrong twice and loudly — and Yetty went pink and said it had mostly been boring, which is the most honest description of heroism I have ever heard.

Beamy read it off the envelope — Gladly — said the other number — and Pouty shouted something from the window seat.

Then Beamy got up on the bucket with that envelope and read out the whole day, and the first name on it was mine — Huffy, rope — and there was a noise in the room that I was not expecting and did not know what to do with.

Nobody had said thank you at half past nine that morning. I had decided that was fine, and I had meant it. It turns out you can be entirely fine about a thing and still go completely still when somebody says it out loud twelve hours later in front of fifty-five fluffs.

At Winky's, Beamy read it all out again off the envelope, and my forty were in there, and it was lovely — and it was honestly not as good as the shouting had been.

At the party I sat with Oopsy, who is good company once he has stopped apologising, and we watched Beamy read the whole day off an envelope. My name was on it. So was Oopsy's, for the eleven minutes of finding out.

Beamy read the envelope out and there were two lines with me in them — the tall posts, and the oil, which I had not expected at all, because I did not do anything at the oil except be unhelpful about a hole.

Newby — said we should get somebody, and was right.

I sat with that for a while. It is not the sort of thing anybody has ever put on a list about me.

Found out first. On an envelope. In front of everybody.

The first was Beamy's envelope, and my name coming off it, and the words said it twice — which was a strange thing to hear out loud, because the second time is the one everybody saw and the first time is the one that cost me something.

The second was Sparkly, up on the gatepost earlier and flat against the wall by eleven o'clock at night, having cheered for fifty-four fluffs all evening and not once for Sparkly.

"Say one for you, then," I said.

Sparkly did, eventually, and went red doing it.

And then Beamy climbed on a bucket with an envelope and read out the entire day. Eleven minutes. Every name.

That is when I found out what had actually happened.

A box went over on a doorstep before the birds and nobody saw it. Zenny heard it and remembered the direction. Mossy found the first one in the wet grass and never mentioned it. Muddle got lost going to the shed and fell over the rest of it at the bottom of a bank. Huffy said the rope was frayed and was told off for saying so and was right. Wondy stopped at a hole instead of climbing into it, which is the only reason there was any oil. Puzzly asked what time the sun went down, at two o'clock, when everybody still thought they had until seven. Neaty counted fifty-four and was disbelieved. Peeky said it out loud, and was lost in the noise, and walked into the middle of the yard and said it again.

I stood up at the end of it, which took me a moment.

Beamy read the board out as one of the day's items — Tidy, the plan, far end back — and Humdy, who had coloured in a dot for every filled hook, shouted something rude and affectionate from the window seat.

Then Beamy got up on my bucket with an envelope and read out the whole day, every name, for eleven minutes.

And somewhere around the fourth minute I started doing a sum I did not want to do.

Mossy found a lantern in the long grass by my gate at ten to six in the morning, with a flattened trail behind it much too long to have been made by one. Zenny heard something go over at Winky's, before the birds, and remembered the direction. Muddle went the wrong way to the shed and found the box at the bottom of the bank with twenty-two of them spilled in the ditch.

By my gate. Before the birds. At about twenty past five.

Beamy read the envelope out and my four things were on it, all four, listed as four separate items — lean, scorch, soft ground, soft ground — which made somebody laugh, and I did not mind, because they were on the list.

Beamy read out the envelope and the oil was in it, under my name, and I did not entirely feel it was mine.

Then Beamy got up on the bucket with that envelope and read out what everybody had done, all of it, for eleven minutes — and somewhere in the middle I heard my own name, for hearing a box go over in the dark.

I had not expected to be on a list. I did not do anything. I sat down and listened, which is what I do every morning of my life whether there is a box or not.

Apparently that counts.