Page 15 of The Fall I Fell

I sat up so quickly, the rustling sent the family racing back into their set. I grimaced at the thought of disturbing them, but turned back to what had concerned me first. ‘What do you mean? How can anyone not like you, Wolfie?’

‘I get in trouble a lot,’ he muttered, picking up a fallen leaf and tearing it into tiny pieces.

‘What kind of trouble?’ The Jacob I knew was never told off, apart from when he walked through the house with his muddy wellies on.

He shrugged. ‘I have to stay behind most lunchtimes to finish my work, and then I just get in more trouble in the afternoon.’ A little anger flashed across his face. ‘I don’t get it. I hate it. I just sit in the same chair all day and I feel like my head is going to explode. I just can’t pay attention. I want to be outside; I want to run around. The classroom is so stuffy! It feels like the room gets smaller and smaller every time I go back. It’s like I’m trapped in there.’

Picking up a stray conker, he threw it back at the horse chestnut tree it came from. It bounced off the trunk with such force we had to dodge it on its way back towards us. I didn’t know what to say, but my silence didn’t deter him, so he continued.

‘I don’t get why I have to do all of that stuff. Those badgers don’t go to school. They roam this bit of woodland for as long as they like. Just like the foxes, or the muntjacs, or the mice. And they’re happy, aren’t they? I wish I actually was a wolf, Kitty. They can go wherever they like and they don’t get told off for tapping their pencil on the desk.’

‘Maybe one day we can run away and live in the woods too,’ I said, thrusting my hand into the pile of leaves.

‘You’d come with me?’ He looked at me, the pleading look of a dog in his eyes.

‘Of course I would, Wolfie. I’d follow you into sets, dens, hives, anywhere you took me. I’d be happy as long as it was you and me.’

He smiled without looking at me, then spun around to lie back on his belly and we waited side by side for the badgers once more.

When the autumn breeze began to make the fallen leaves tremble around us, I tried my best to mask my shivers, but nothing could ever get past Jacob. Getting to his feet, he dusted off his shorts and offered me a hand up before I could protest.

We walked together in silence back through the woods. I wasn’t sure whether Jacob was deep in thought like I was, or whether he just didn’t want to disturb the other creatures as they began to stir in the evening air, but it was comfortable.

‘Do you want to come with me to do my jobs?’ Jacob turned to me once we had cleared the treeline.

‘Your jobs?’ I replied, and he nodded, with a little excitement.

‘Mum and Dad think that now I’ve started secondary, that I should have some responsibilities on the farm. They put me in charge of sweeping the barn, checking on the chickens, feeding the pony, things like that. They’re not big jobs, but it makes me feel like I’m actually useful somewhere.’ He shrugged. ‘Plus, Hope will probably be in the barn this time of night too …’ he added, as though I needed tempting.

‘Yeah, sure, I’ll come with you.’ He clenched his fists in excitement, then tried to pass it off as a stretch, but the gesture was already enough to make me a little giddy.

We reached the barn in no time. Jacob could hardly keep up as I moved even faster at the promise of seeing Hope again. And there she was, pacing the concrete as if she had been waiting for us to arrive, like my mother paced the kitchen if I was late home for dinner. As soon as we stepped past her threshold, she weaved in an out of my legs, pressing her face against my trousers with a loud rumbling purr.

‘Will tried to pick her up the other day and she took a swipe at him,’ Jacob said as she hopped happily into my arms to continue her fussing. This time, she pressed herself against my cheek. ‘He was so mad; pretty sure she drew blood.’

‘You’d never do such a thing would you.’ I pressed myself into her fur, knowing full well she could take down a full-grown man if she so desired.

Whilst I busied myself catching up with my furry friend, Jacob got to work sweeping the barn until he broke out into a sweat. Setting Hope back down on her bed, I found another brush and set to work beside him.

‘You don’t have to do that, Kitty.’ He shook his head, a smile playing on his lips.

‘Of course, I do. We’re a team.’ And with two of us on the task, it was soon spotless and we fell against a bale of hay, both out of breath and panting.

‘You’re coming to the Halloween party, right? Since you’re here.’ Jacob always had a funny way of asking – as if he was trying to be casual, slipping it in to conversation, as though he wasn’t too bothered about the answer. But I always knew he was.

‘Halloween party?’ I asked, genuinely unaware of any such event.

‘Has no one told you?’ His eyes lit up. ‘Halloween at Hope Farm is the best thing in the world. It’s mum’s favourite holiday and she goes all out. Costumes, buffet, party games, everything. Well, Will thinks he’s too cool for a costume, but we all wear one, even Dad.’

‘What costume are you wearing?’

He shrugs, ‘I have a couple to choose from but they’re mostly all of Will’s old superhero costumes. I wanted to be a wolf, but we don’t have any like that.’

‘Well, if Mum does let me come, I don’t have a costume either,’ I said with a sad hum, and a small silence settled between us before the idea hit me, ‘Why don’t we make our own?’

‘We could do that?’ his face lit up once more.

‘Yes! My granny has a sewing machine. I’m sure if I asked her, she’d show me how to use it. She taught me to sew by hand a few summers ago, but that takes me ages. It’s really fun though, making your own clothes. Granny makes most of mine.’ I had been trying my hand at sewing back in London, mostly just patching the holes in my trousers that I’d made in the summer. Holes in your trousers may be a common occurrence on a farm, but you do get a few funny looks on the London Underground.