Buddy's Day

"Right. Bridge to orchard. Two of you. Off you go."

Sorting fifty-five fluffs into pairs sounds like a small job and is not. It went well for about ten minutes, and then it did the thing it always does — the pairs form up fast at the front, quickly, cheerfully, friend to friend, and at the back it gets slower, and then there are the ones left standing.

Peeky, looking hard at the ground. And a little further off, Lonny, looking hard at a fence post, being extremely careful not to appear to be waiting.

I have seen that exact shape in a yard a hundred times.

Here is the thing about it that nobody who has not been in it understands. The worst part is not being last. The worst part is the counting — standing there while everybody works out, out loud, with numbers, that you are what is left over.

So I did not announce anything. I did not say "right, who hasn't got a partner". I just walked over, before the numbers got that far.

"Peeky. You and Lonny have got the orchard stretch. It's the long one. I gave it to you two because it needs somebody who'll actually count the hooks instead of guessing."

Which was true, as it happens. It was also not the reason.

"Oh — with me?" said Lonny, and Peeky said nothing at all but went noticeably less small.

They went up the lane and by the bend they were talking and by the orchard they were laughing at something, and neither of them ever knew they had been got out of the way of a thing.

Pinky did the jobs and I did the pairs and between us the land got sorted by about half past ten. After that I had a strange sort of day, because my work was done at the beginning and everybody else's was all afternoon.

So I walked about. That is not idling. I am quite serious about this: somebody has to walk about.

I found the fluff on the bank job who had said yes because everybody was watching, before Chatty's message got round, and stayed with them until it did. I found two fluffs at the ladder who both thought it was their turn and sorted it in about nine words. I took a cup of something up to Jelly in the orchard at eleven, which Jelly has never mentioned and which I am only writing down here.

At half past twelve I went to the Bun Shop with Lonny and Peeky, because they went and I like buns and, if I am honest, because a pair I have just made is worth watching for an hour to see whether it holds.

It held. Newby came too and had one bite of the green bun and hated it very cheerfully.

I said almost nothing for that hour. It was the best hour of my day.

Winky's was full by eight and I did my rounds.

I am aware that sounds like a joke. It is not really a joke. I went round that room about four times over the evening, and each time I was looking for the same thing: one fluff standing slightly outside the shape of a group, doing the fence-post face.

There were three. I am not going to say who, because two of them would be embarrassed and the third would argue.

Then Beamy got up with the envelope and read the whole day out, and somewhere in the middle: Buddy — pairs, nobody left over.

Nobody left over. Four words. Beamy had noticed the thing I do, which I have never described out loud to a living fluff, and had put it on a list and read it to fifty-five of them.

I went and stood in the kitchen for a minute after that. Sparkly found me out there and did not ask why, and said something ridiculous about the cheering, and we came back in together.