Newby's Day

There was a hole in the bank, half behind a root, and Wondy saw it about a second before I did.

"Ooh," said Wondy. "What's that?"

And I want to be fair here, because Wondy did the good thing. Wondy stopped. Looked. Listened. All of it, properly, the whole routine, standing at the mouth of that hole absolutely vibrating with wanting to go in.

But I still did not like it, and I said so.

"We should get somebody."

"We should find out first," said Wondy.

"Those are different things."

We were both right, which is the tiresome part, and I have been thinking about it on and off ever since.

So Wondy lay down flat at the mouth of it and called "hello? is anything in there?" instead of climbing in, and we listened, and there was nothing but a drip.

Then Puzzly came along and asked the question neither of us had thought to ask, which was dripping what.

Oil. The can had gone over the edge that morning with everything else, wedged itself under the root, and had been quietly emptying into the bank for four hours. About a third of it was left, which was a third more than anybody in the yard believed we had.

We got it out with a stick and my scarf. My scarf has not recovered.

"If you'd gone in head first," I said, "you'd have put your paw straight through it."

"Ooh," said Wondy, thoughtfully. "Yes."

I had a perfectly ordinary middle of the day and then two things happened that I would not have chosen.

The first was the green bun.

We went down to the Bun Shop at half past twelve, the four of us — Lonny and Peeky had finished the orchard, and Buddy came because Buddy always comes. And there was a green one in the window. Nobody knew what was in it. The fluff behind the counter said "it's very popular" in the voice fluffs use when a thing is not.

One bite. That is my arrangement with the world and it has served me well. You do not have to like it. You do not have to finish it. You have to have one small bit of it.

I did not like it. It was extremely green and faintly like grass.

And I sat there afterwards in the sun feeling genuinely pleased, which I know is a strange thing to feel about a bun you did not enjoy — but I know now. I have spent years not knowing what was in the green one, and now I do, and the not-knowing was much heavier than the bun.

The second thing was the ladder.

There were four posts on the long bend taller than the rest, and by six o'clock they were the only empty hooks left on the whole path, and you need somebody light with long arms at the top of a ladder.

Everybody looked at me, because I am exactly that shape.

"I don't do ladders," I said. Which is true, and is also the sentence I say about a great many things, and which I have got rather good at hearing come out of my own mouth.

"One rung," I said. "I'll do one rung and then I'll say."

Shivvy held the bottom, which was funny in a way we both noticed and neither of us mentioned.

One rung was fine. I said so out loud. Then another, and I said so again. It took eleven minutes to get to the top with a report from every single rung, and Wondy stood at the bottom shouting unhelpful facts about how tall the posts were.

I did all four. Then I came down shaking and sat on the grass.

"I still don't do ladders," I said.

"You've just done four," said Wondy.

"I've just done four. I still don't like them. Both things are allowed."

I told the green bun story about six times at Winky's and it got better each time, which I am aware is not how facts work.

The fourth telling was to Lonny and Peeky, who had actually been there, and who let me tell it anyway.

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.