The Chilbury Ladies' Choir(37)

“I’m Tom,” he said, still smiling, his mouth open as he panted, hands on hips as he appraised his dam.

“How do you do,” I said, unsure whether to shake hands. “My name is Kitty and this is Silvie.” Silvie actually smiled. Did she like him?

“What are you children doing ’round ’ere?” Tom said.

“We are not children!” I corrected.

“She is,” he said, jabbing his head toward Silvie and laughing.

“Yes,” I relented, infuriated by his rudeness. “I suppose she is. But I’m not.”

“How old are you? Twelve?”

“Fourteen,” I smarted, my hand nudging against Silvie to stop her from calling me a liar. I am almost fourteen, after all. Well, almost-almost. “But more to the point, what are you doing here?” I asked crossly. The land belongs to the farm. As do the bees.

“We’re here for the hop picking.” He jerked his head behind to the hop pickers’ huts by the barn. Every year Dawkins Farm gets about fifty Londoners to come and help out with farm work, then pick the hops when they’re ready. They live in rows of huts. It all seems frightfully squalid to me, but apparently it’s exactly how they live in London—better even.

“How long have you been here?” I demanded, my eyes narrowing with distrust. I was still miffed he’d called me a child.

“I only came last week with me aunty. Me mum had to go help out in a factory, and no one knew what to do with me. I told them I wanted to fight.” He thrust a few tidy punches into the air. “But they said I’m too young.”

“How old are you?”

“Nearly fourteen. Strong as any man—probably stronger.” He showed us his biceps, which were puny, but we didn’t say anything. I felt sorry for him. His face was so open and funny that you couldn’t possibly think he was up to no good.

“Come and help me with the dam,” he ordered. “Get that branch there and bring it along.”

Fortunately, the dam was stable enough for us to totter to the halfway point.

Unfortunately, we’d quite forgotten about the bees, which suddenly surrounded us, buzzing furiously at Silvie.

“Tom to the rescue,” Tom cried, flailing his arms around like a deranged orangutan.

“No, not like that,” I cried. This city idiot clearly hadn’t got a clue about bees. “Keep still. Keep still, and they’ll go away.”

I trotted as fast as I could back to the bank, almost falling in once, picked up a long, narrow branch, and held it out to Silvie for her to make her way back without panicking too much—although I must say she was the calmest of us all, an amused little smile on her lips like the Mona Lisa having some kind of private joke.

Once on land, I opened our basket, found a jam sandwich, and as the bees headed straight for it, I flung it as far as I could up the bank, in the direction of the beehives. It did the trick all right, luring the bees away, although one of them stung me on the elbow as he went past, the monster.

I screamed, and Tom came bounding over, grabbing my arm in a most ungentlemanly way. We all looked down at the growing mound of pink.

“You’ll need some vinegar on that,” he said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said sharply. Didn’t this boy know anything? “We need honey.”

“If you want honey, I know where to get some.”

“Do you?” I asked warily. Honey wasn’t easy to get these days. He brushed down his rather tatty shorts and then pointed out his arm. “Step this way, young ladies.”

We collected our things and followed him up the bank, giving the basket to him to carry since my arm hurt and Silvie is too small. He led us back along the side of the orchard to Peasepotter Wood, and at the cusp of the wood, he turned, glanced around furtively, then headed in. We hurried in after him.

After a short walk, he pushed his way into a massive bush, the type that is hollow on the inside and packed with tiny close leaves around the edge. After a minute or so of rummaging in the shrubbery, he reversed back out.

In his hand was a jar of honey. It must have been home produced as it had a blue gingham cover and a white label saying Allicot Farm—I couldn’t help wondering where I’d heard that name before. He took off the top and stuck a grubby finger in, stuffing the yellow fingerful in his mouth. I wanted to stop him. He was tainting all that honey. It was disgusting!

“It’s honey all right.” He chomped his mouth about, savoring the flavor. “Try some.”

Silvie stuck her finger in and tentatively put it in her mouth, and the look of pleasure on her face finally made me give in and try it, too.

It was the most divine honey I’d ever tasted, all rose petals and syrupy sweetness. We all took another fingerful, and I smeared a little on my sting.

“What’s it doing in the bush?”

“I’ve seen Old George put it there,” Tom said. “He’s an old crook who stays in one of the hop huts. We don’t bother him much.” He bit his lip awkwardly. “He’s got a knife and things. Threatened our Charlie, so we leave him well alone.”

“Should we be taking his things?”

“S’pose not,” Tom said, with a small lilt of a skinny shoulder. “It’s black market, of course. I only take a few bits at a time. Nothing he would notice.”