Improvising

It was a lovely day, despite the winter cold. The sun was bright and the roads had been cleaned and salted at last. It really was a fine Saturday. Lucy and Rupert had a lot of plans for Saturdays and a handful more for Sundays. The main one being together, the others... well, the others sometimes got forgotten in favour of some improvisation.
As each weekend since her boarding sentence started, Lucy sat down on the window-seat of her bedroom waiting for Rupert to appear, walking keenly, with his umbrella tapping the road.
She smiled when she saw him, carrying a basket in his other hand. Lucy took her coat and ran downstairs.
They ate the contents of the basket in the deserted swimming-pool hut. They hid there, their need to find Bubble Land imperative. At tea time they ate kisses and bites and flesh and the moon and the stars.
The bell calling the visitors startled them.
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Advice from a caterpillar

"You have to talk, my dear, it's the only way."
Lucy stirred her tea with the teaspoon, even smiled, but said nothing.
The nice nurse chuckled softly and drank a sip of her own tea.
"You see," she said, "this is a school and you can't learn without listening and talking. When you come to this place it means you have failed at all the others. It's time to stop trying all by yourself and accept there's help available."
Lucy kept her sad smile firmly in place while the nurse's words floated around her, filling the room, seeping out through the windows.
She thought about the escape, the days hiding, the proverbial sword above her head, the new opportunities that had new duties... She thought how simple life was when there was just Rupert and her in it.
"You'll have to talk, dear,"
"I want to sleep", she announced. Then left the room and the nurse.
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The rabbit sends in a little bill

Lucy was lucky, always had been, but in bizarre things. Her sentence had been changed and so she had to serve it in the Meestake Preparatory School instead of going into exile.
The morning after Bonfire Night, Lucy had spoken to Rupert. "I've made my mind up", she told him. She had decided to give herself up and he resolved to accompany her. A trial was set and three old men in black suits and black beaver hats sentenced her to boarding school. The school itself was outside F. Land.
Two days later, Rupert rented a house near the hill, from where he could see the school grounds and, on a good day, Lucy. At the top of the highest tree of the back garden, Rupert raised a flag. Two crossed joints under a steaming cup of tea.
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Meestake Prep School

El prado se extendía en el horizonte hasta el linde del bosque. Aquí y allá brotaban asientos, bancos y balancines. Hacia el este, la fachada principal del edificio y la calzada que conducía hasta las magníficas escalinatas. Entre Bentleys, Daimlers y Aston Martins, Rupert y Lucy caminaban. La estación de ferrocarril estaba apenas a una milla y el paseo había sido muy agradable.
Atrás quedaba el cruce de fronteras, la tapia, las barreras, los pasaportes. El tren había sido registrado concienzudamente.
Era fácilmente discernible quién iba y quién acompañaba. Lucy tenía la mirada baja, Rupert la tenía triste.
Era un día soleado, cálido para la estación. El poste señalaba su destino: "Meestake Preparatory School".
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Remember, remember

A penny loaf to feed the Pope
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah hoorah!

Rupert ignored all the chants and the fireworks, he had his own fugitive to catch. And when he did, he was going to tell her clearly that leaving town didn't mean leaving him.
He found her sleeping in the open, pale face and soft snores. It had stoped raining a few hours after dark, the half moon was already high and clear in the sky.
It was sunrise and Rupert was still looking at her.
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The day before Bonfire Night

She was regretting how hard the path is, how lonely. She said "I won't cry, I won't!" and she didn't. It was raining.
It was cold. She was shivering. No fireplace, no tea, no biscuits.
She wondered when missing F.Land came to mean missing Rupert.
Lucy was sad.

After the harvest

Lucy dreamed about the afternoon after the harvest. Some bats were flying over her. Lucy woke up and ran away from the creepy shack where she had slept. Bloody dark side of F. Land!
The sun was high in the sky when Lucy crossed a river with a picnic table on the bank. She remembered the dream and decided to honour it. So, she made an early stop and set the fire. Some potatoes and one onion she got from the land, a piece of butter she stole from a farm the day before and pumpkins, lots of pumpkins. She added some water and let it boil for hours. At night she had a hot meal for the first time since her escape. A wonderful, tasty pumpkin soup.
Then, she remembered. Rupert loved pumpkin soup.
The taste was sour in her mouth.
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