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For Mark Martin, brilliant builder and dear friend

‘Close your eyes!’ said Dad. ‘Go on. All of you!’

‘Why?’ I said, ba ed. Dad had spent the last hour telling us to look out of the window to admire the rolling hills and the dense forests. Mum told us to count how many shades of green we could see. I knew lots of colours because she’d given me a huge set of Derwent coloured pencils when I was Aurora’s age and was getting fed up with clumsy wax crayons. I’d loved the greens most, especially the emerald and the lighter grass-green and the deep jade. They were stubby now, and often broken after Aurora scribbled with them, but I still treasured them.

Aurora wasn’t interested in looking at di erent shades of green. She’d kept herself busy counting animals.

‘Look, there’s a sheep! Lots of sheeps! And cows, a whole ﬂock of them in that ﬁeld!’ she said.

‘You call a lot of cows a herd, not a ﬂock,’ I said. ‘Birds ﬂock together.’

‘These are bird-cows,’ said Aurora. ‘They’ve all got little wings, see? And look, that one’s ﬂying right up in the sky! Oh, sweet!’

She was always making up stu like that. It sometimes got on my nerves, because she was only doing it to sound cute.

‘Stop being so silly. Cows can’t ﬂy,’ I said.

‘Yes they can! It’s in my book with the funny rhymes. The cow ﬂew over the moon in the sixpence song!’ Aurora protested.

She always had to have the last word.

‘Just close your eyes!’ Dad repeated, slowing the car down. ‘Luna, put your hands over Aurora’s eyes so she can’t cheat. You close your eyes too, Annie.’

Mum hates having such an everyday name. When she does a painting, she signs it Anastasia, saying it’s her professional name. I’d much sooner be called something ordinary. Luna’s

such a strange name. It means ‘moon’. Mum chose it because I was born on the night of a full moon. Still, it could have been worse, like Aurora. She was born at sunrise, so she was named after the Greek goddess of the dawn. She doesn’t mind though. She likes it that people exclaim over her name when they ﬁrst meet her. It’s Sleeping Beauty’s name too and Aurora’s very into princesses.

I put my hand over her eyes and shut my own obediently. I could feel Aurora’s eyelashes tickling my palm. Dad drove on, and then Mum gasped. She’d been cheating. I opened my eyes and let Aurora see too.

Dad had stopped the car at the foot of a hill.

‘Look up!’ he said.

We craned our necks to see a tower perched on the hilltop. It wasn’t part of a castle. It stood by itself, tall and narrow, with battlements on the roof. Ivy grew all the way round the tower, with deep purply-blue ﬂowers coiled upwards too.

‘Morning glories!’ Mum murmured. ‘Oh, it’s wonderful! I have to paint it!’

‘It’s amazing, Dad!’ I said. ‘It’s like Rapunzel’s tower!’

‘Are we going to live there?’ Aurora asked.

‘Don’t be silly,’ I said.

‘Actually, she’s spot on!’ said Dad, laughing in surprise. ‘Well done, Aurora!’

Aurora smiled triumphantly. Mum and I stared at him, astonished.

‘What do you mean, Greg?’ Mum asked. ‘Is it a holiday let?’ ‘Are we really going to have a holiday in a tower?’ I asked.

‘Nope. We’re living there, week after week, month after month, year after year,’ said Dad. ‘I’ve bought it!’

‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ said Mum. ‘You can’t have bought a house without saying a word to me.’

‘I wanted it to be the most glorious surprise,’ said Dad. Mum got out of the car and stood looking up at the tower. She had one hand over her mouth. She was shaking.

‘Is Mum crying?’ Aurora asked.

‘Of course not. She’s just . . . excited,’ said Dad. He got out of the car too. He went to put his arm round Mum, but she pulled away. They were talking, but we couldn’t quite hear what they were saying.

‘They’re quarrelling again, aren’t they?’ said Aurora. She looked frightened. I felt scared too, but I squeezed her hand.

‘No, they’re ﬁne,’ I said quickly. ‘They’re just talking.’

They’d been doing a lot of ‘talking’ since Dad had to sell his famous restaurant after the pandemic. We’d always lived above it, so we had to rent another ﬂ at instead. It wasn’t anywhere near as nice. He got a job as a chef in someone else’s restaurant, but they had an argument and Dad walked out. He didn’t get another job. Mum got a job instead in an art shop and we had the money from selling the restaurant, so we weren’t really desperate but it wasn’t the same as before.

Mum and Dad didn’t argue in front of us, but we often heard them at night. Aurora would climb into my bed and we’d huddle up together, the duvet over our heads. I’d try to be brave and make up stories to distract her, because I was the big sister and she was the little one, but it was hard. One time we heard the door slam and when we ran to our bedroom window we saw Dad walking down the road in the lamplight.

I promised Aurora that he was probably just going out for a drink but he didn’t come home, not even at breakfast time the next morning. Mum had red eyes and just said Dad had to go out but she wasn’t sure why. We were sure Dad had walked out altogether – but Dad came back that evening and acted as if nothing had happened.

Then he suddenly seemed more cheerful, and this Saturday morning he’d announced that he was taking us for a day out in the country. We were surprised but happy, because he was starting to sound almost like the old funny Dad who took us on all sorts of trips and treats.

‘Why is Mum unhappy?’ Aurora asked me now, looking up at the tower. ‘It’s lovely, lovely, lovely!’

‘Yes, but – well, we can’t really live here. How would I get to school?’ I said.

‘Who wants to go to boring old school?’ Aurora said scornfully.

She had been due to start last September but had argued so ﬁercely that Mum said she could delay it for a year. Aurora was perfectly happy pottering around at home, playing imaginary games and chatting to Dad when Mum was at work. I taught her how to read. She knew most of my old picture books by heart anyway so could have a good stab at the words.

I loved school myself. The teachers were kind and I liked most of the lessons – but most of all I loved being with my best friend, Erin. We’d been friends right from Reception. We made each other bead necklaces then and still wore them now, though they had needed to be rethreaded several times.

I wouldn’t see Erin if we moved! Mum wouldn’t be able to get to work. Dad could never open a restaurant again if we were way out here in the middle of nowhere. He had always done impulsive things, but now it seemed he’d really lost his mind. Mum had to stop him!

But he had his arm round her now, and she was snuggling into him. He could always win her over, no matter what.

‘It’s all right, they’re friends again!’ said Aurora, and jumped out of the car. ‘Is it OK now? Are we really, really going to live in the magic tower?’

‘Yes, we are, darling!’ said Dad, and he picked her up and whirled her round and round while she squealed excitedly. Then he put her down and reached into the car for me. ‘Come out, Luna! Come and join in the fun!’ he said. ‘Aren’t you thrilled?’

‘Well . . .’ I didn’t know what to say. It was lovely to see Dad so happy, as he’d been so sad and depressed since we lost the restaurant, but it was scary to see him so carried away.

‘You’ll love it here! You’ll have your own special room up at the top with bookshelves around the walls, and perhaps I can make you a slippery slide in the middle of the ﬂoor so you can whizz all the way down to the bottom of the tower,’ said Dad, pulling me out of the car and whirling me round too.

‘OK , let’s climb up to our very own tower!’ he said, starting up the narrow track, practically jogging.

Mum and I got out of breath quickly and had to go at our own pace. Dad hitched Aurora onto his back and strode upwards, singing, ‘Here we go marching up to the tower, up to the tower, up to the tower. Here we go marching up to the tower on a warm and sunny morning!’

Aurora sang along with him and Mum joined in as well. She gave me a nudge to start singing too but I felt silly. I lagged behind, staring up at the tower all the time. I couldn’t believe we were really going to live in it.

‘Turn round and look!’ Dad shouted. ‘Over the hills, way ahead!’

I looked. I saw a silvery-blue line far away.

‘It’s the sea!’ said Dad. ‘We have our very own sea view from our very own tower!’

I loved the sea. I loved the hills. It was beautiful – but the tower still looked threatening and eerie in spite of the bright ﬂowers growing around it.

‘It’s fantastic, isn’t it?’ Dad said, standing at the base of the tower and throwing out his arms dramatically. ‘You have to admit, it’s the most fantastic tower in the whole world. And it’s

ours, all ours, and we can come and live here just as soon as we’ve packed up our stu !’

‘But surely we’ve got to wait for the contracts to be signed – if we actually go ahead with it,’ said Mum, standing beside him.

‘I bought it at an auction for an absolute song! It’s ours, I tell you. No going back! Why on earth would we want to? Just think of all the wonderful paintings you’ll do, Annie!’ said Dad.

‘But I need light to paint!’ Mum muttered, staring up at the narrow windows.

Dad wasn’t listening. He delved in his jeans pocket and brought out a bunch of keys, large old-fashioned iron ones.

‘Let’s go inside and see what it’s like,’ he said.

‘You mean you bought it without even looking at it?’ Mum asked incredulously.

‘I daresay it’s going to need a bit more than a coat of paint. But can’t you see that’s the whole point? It’s going to be my project to bring it back to its former ancient glory,’ said Dad.

‘Is it really, really old?’ I asked.

‘Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s Victorian, Edwardian, whatever? You can’t tell with a tower, can you?’ Dad said airily.

‘It certainly looks hundreds of years old to me.’ He took hold of Mum by the elbows. ‘I was ﬂicking through stu online, quirky old properties, just for something to do. And I came across this. And do you know what it’s called? You’ll never guess. Stark’s Folly! Practically my name!’

‘What’s a folly?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t it something foolish?’

‘No, it’s an amazing building made by someone eccentric,’ said Dad.

‘So it’s your folly, Dad, because you’re Greg Starky,’ said Aurora.

‘It’s our folly, because we’re all Starkys,’ said Dad. ‘And we’re going to live here, happily ever after, just like a fairy tale.’

It took Dad a while to unlock the ancient door, easing the key this way and that.

‘It doesn’t look as if we’re ever going to get into it!’ said Mum. ‘Maybe that’s why it’s called a folly. It’s just a pretend building without any proper rooms inside.’

‘I’ve seen the rooms online,’ said Dad. ‘They’re partly furnished too, so we shouldn’t have to buy too much. Don’t worry about the key. The lock just needs a squirt of WD- 40.’

While he was struggling with it, Aurora set o to run all the way round the tower. I followed her, because the grass was long and tufty. She had no caution whatsoever and was

likely to jump into a clump of stinging nettles or put her foot down a rabbit hole. She skipped round safely in less than a minute because Stark’s Folly was much smaller than it seemed. There were narrow leaded windows so I could peer in. They didn’t look as if they’d ever been cleaned properly and it was quite dark inside, but I could make out various shapes in the gloom. Somehow they looked menacing, as if someone was hiding in a cupboard or crouching underneath the table.

I could feel the sunlight warm on my back and yet I shivered.

‘I’m not sure I like it here,’ I whispered to Aurora.

‘I do!’ she said. ‘I think it’s the best place ever.’

We heard a cry of triumph from Dad and then a weird creaking sound as the heavy door opened at last. There was a powerful smell inside that made us breathe shallowly. It wasn’t a totally disgusting, rotting sort of smell, just very old and musty, as if the door hadn’t been opened for a hundred years or more. It was dark too, but we could see it was a round room with a small wooden table and rickety chairs, plus a sink and cupboards and a weird sort of stove. There was a little sofa too, with tufts of coarse hair poking out of its worn velvet.

‘Is it a kitchen or is it a living room?’ Aurora asked.

‘I suppose it’s both,’ said Mum, looking horriﬁed.

Aurora danced round the room. She reached up to a tap on the sink and tried to turn it on. Nothing happened.

‘The tap won’t work, Mum,’ she said.

‘Oh God, isn’t there even running water?’ Mum said faintly, but Dad reached round Aurora and tried the tap himself. He had to twist it till his knuckles went white, but there was a strange popping sound and water suddenly burst out of the tap.

‘Hurray, I’m thirsty,’ said Aurora, scooping up a handful. It was a rusty brown colour.

‘Don’t drink it!’ said Mum, knocking my sister’s hands so the water spilled out through her ﬁngers.

‘I’m sure it’s OK . It’ll be spring water,’ said Dad, but he didn’t argue further.

Aurora ran about, trying all the chairs and pretending to eat a meal at the table. Her chin rested on the top of the big scrubbed pine table at home, but she could put her elbows comfortably on this table, and her legs reached the ﬂoor sitting in the chair.

‘Everything’s the right size for me!’ she said.

‘How weird,’ said Mum. She sat down gingerly on the old sofa, trying it out for size. She’s small, but even so it was a snug ﬁt. Dad plumped himself down next to her and looked comical, his knees splayed.

‘I can see I’m going to have to buy myself a proper big father-size chair!’ he said, laughing.

‘It’s like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”. This house is heaps of fairy tales rolled into one,’ said Aurora.

I’d read her our old book of fairy tales over and over again. She was far keener on them than I was. I’d always felt they were so unfair. If you were old or ugly you were nearly always the baddie. The pictures in the book were often scary too, big warty giants and wicked wolves slavering greedily. Even the trees had leering faces and long grasping branches. Aurora just laughed at them, but they give me nightmares even now.

‘Let’s look upstairs!’ she said, jumping up and dashing to the steep wooden staircase.

‘Careful!’ Mum called. ‘Aurora, wait! Let Dad or me go ﬁrst. It could be dangerous! Do see reason.’

Aurora just laughed and took no notice.

‘She’ll be ﬁne. The stairs look really sturdy,’ said Dad, but he hurried after her all the same.

I caught hold of Mum’s arm. ‘Mum! Is this just one of Dad’s games?’ I whispered. ‘How can we really live here? I mean, it might be exciting for a holiday but it’s not like a proper house,’ I said.

‘I know. It’s the daftest idea ever,’ Mum admitted.

‘Can’t you say we’re not going to come here?’ I said. ‘I know Dad’s bought it, but couldn’t he just sell it again?’

‘I can’t do it to him. It’s as if he’s come alive again. He’s been so down since Starky’s went bust. I’ve been so worried about him. But look at him now! He’s so happy! I tried to tell him it was crazy when he stopped the car. It was awful. His whole face crumpled. I couldn’t bear it. It obviously means so much to him,’ Mum whispered into my hair.

We heard Aurora crying out delightedly upstairs.

‘And Aurora obviously loves it,’ Mum said.

‘Yes, but we don’t. It’s two against two. Why do we always have to do what they want?’ I asked. ‘It’s not fair!’

‘I know,’ said Mum. ‘But it’s the way it is. We can’t seem to help it. We just love your dad so.’

I don’t! I said inside my head. And he’s not my dad!

I couldn’t say it out loud. I knew it would hurt Mum terribly. She never ever talks about my real dad. She thinks

I don’t remember him properly, but I’m sure I do. There were just the three of us then, Mum and me and my real dad. I think he was quiet and gentle, and when I sat on his lap, he sang to me. Not rock or rap or any of the loud music my now dad likes. Little children’s songs like ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ and ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands’.

I always clapped my hands until the day Mum packed our bags and said we were going on a great big adventure. Then we got on a bus with the wheels going round and then a train. I deﬁnitely remember that because it was the ﬁrst time I’d been on a train, and I found it a bit scary. We ended up somewhere entirely new – without Dad.

I cried for him and begged to go back home, but Mum said we had a new home now, and there was a brand-new dad there. He was lovely to me right from the start and gave me a blue princess dress and a baby doll with many di erent outﬁts and a giant teddy bear bigger than me, and Mum was so happy when I called him Dad. I couldn’t help loving my new presents – but I wasn’t sure about this new parent.

I did love my new baby sister when she arrived. I abandoned my doll and played with my warm wriggly sister instead. Mum was tired out helping Dad run his restaurant,

so I often fed Aurora her bottle and changed her and bathed her and put her in her cot, even though I was only little myself. We were a family now, whether I liked it or not: Mum and me and Aurora and the new dad who had become the only dad I had.

I gave Mum a little nod, pretending that I loved Dad almost as much as she did. I’d come to love Aurora most of all. She was my little sister, almost like my own baby daughter, and my best friend too, even more than Erin.

Aurora was laughing in delight upstairs. We found her and Dad in an old-fashioned bathroom. The bath itself was very large, with big tarnished silver taps and weird feet like lion’s claws. If the downstairs furniture was small, this bath was enormous. Aurora had jumped into it and was pretending to swim to the end and back.

‘Can we turn on the taps, Dad?’ she begged.

‘Not yet, princess. We need to clean up the bath ﬁrst, and the water would be stone cold anyway. But don’t you worry. Your old dad is Mr Fix It. I’m going to make it ﬁt for my princess,’ said Dad. ‘My two princesses,’ he added, looking at me.

It wasn’t just a bathroom. A faded ﬂoor-length velvet curtain hung down at one side of the round room, and when

Mum opened it we saw it was hiding an ancient toilet with a wooden seat and a willow pattern inside the lavatory pan.

‘It’s even up three steps, like a little throne!’ Mum marvelled.

‘Let me sit on it!’ Aurora cried, clambering out of the bath.

‘But you mustn’t have a wee, because I’ve got to check out all the plumbing ﬁrst,’ said Dad. He was rolling up his sleeves as he spoke, as if he was going to get started straight away. His deep blue eyes were shining. Aurora has inherited them, and his startling red hair. Mum and I have blue eyes too, but not as

dark and intense, and our hair colour is called dirty blonde, though it’s as clean as anything.

‘Let’s see what’s up the next stairs!’ said Aurora.

‘Hang on, let me go ﬁ rst this time. We don’t want you stepping on a dodgy stair and tumbling down,’ said Dad. He checked the narrow handrail and the steps themselves.

‘Though they seem in reasonable nick.’ He gave Mum a nod. ‘There, Annie Doubtful! You thought it would be falling to bits with cobwebs everywhere, didn’t you? It’s just a bit faded, that’s all. Wait till I’ve spruced everything up! We’re going to be so happy here.’

The room upstairs was a bedroom. It had a full-size bed with brass bedposts. There was a chamber pot underneath. Aurora peered at it.

‘What’s that funny china thing?’ she asked.

‘It’s a potty,’ said Mum. ‘Remember, you had one when you were little?’

Aurora laughed. ‘But this is big enough for a great big puddle of wee-wee!’ she shrieked. She pulled it out and went to sit on it.

‘Don’t you dare!’ said Mum, pulling her up.

Aurora ran away and bounced on the bed instead.

Pu s of dust rose from the faded pink eiderdown and a yellowy-white sheet dangled down to the ﬂoor.

‘Get o that bed!’ Mum cried, horriﬁed. ‘You don’t know who’s been sleeping there. Those bedcovers are ﬁlthy!’

‘No they’re not! They just smell a bit old, that’s all,’ said Aurora, picking up the pillow and sni ng it. ‘Oh, look!’

There was a scrap of white material edged with lace underneath the pillow, scrunched into a little ball.

‘It’s someone’s hankie!’ said Aurora.

‘Put it down! Ugh!’ said Mum, prising the handkerchief out of her hand and pulling Aurora o the bed.

‘This is our bed now, isn’t it, Luna?’ said Aurora.

We had shared a bed ever since Aurora had grown out of her baby cot. I didn’t mind. In fact, I loved cuddling up with her. We told each other stories, whispering long into the night. Mum was worried and said it wasn’t really fair on me, but I found it deeply comforting to be able to clutch Aurora when I woke up from a horrible nightmare.

I had bad dreams a lot, though it was hard to remember them properly in the morning. I just knew I’d been lost and couldn’t ﬁnd my way through dark woods like the ones in my picture books, and I had to ﬁnd someone, or something

terrible would happen. I’d wake with a thumping heart, damp with sweat.

The dreams got worse when Dad had to sell the restaurant, and my teacher, Mrs Owolade, was worried because I sometimes fell asleep in class. I had to see a child therapist once a week. I was a bit scared at ﬁrst, thinking she might be very ﬁerce and strict, but she was very kind. She let me play with little dolls in a special dolls’ house which I liked because I’d always wanted one. Sometimes I just drew pictures and coloured them in carefully while the therapist asked me questions.

I chatted a bit but I never once said anything about my ﬁrst dad, and I didn’t say much about my second dad either. I admitted I had bad dreams but said I couldn’t really remember them.

After a few weeks I didn’t have to go any more. The dreams had started to fade away but I had a horrible feeling they might come back now.

The next room up was another bedroom, but water had dribbled in through a big crack in the ceiling and the bed itself had grown a coverlet of greeny-black mould. There was a tarnished brass ball on three of the bedposts, but the fourth had a white wooden cat carved on top, with its tail curled round the post. There was a dressing table too, but the wood was swollen and rotten. There were books, but their bindings were stained and the pages so rippled with damp they wouldn’t turn.

‘I love this room, even if it’s a bit dirty!’ said Aurora. ‘I especially love the cat!’ She stroked it lovingly, even though it left a stain on her hand.

‘Please don’t touch it, Aurora!’ Mum begged.

‘It just needs a little wash. I love it! Luna and I will have this bed when it’s clean, won’t we?’ she said to me.

I pulled a face, horriﬁed.

‘Obviously we’re going to have to do a bit of work here,’ Dad said, refusing to be deterred. ‘OK , folks, last ﬂoor. Going up!’

He ran up the stairs, but then stopped, his legs visible, the rest of him up in the top room.

‘Mmm. Maybe not,’ he said.

Aurora was climbing up after him, but he stopped her.

‘No, darling. The ﬂoorboards are in a bit of a mess,’ he said. ‘Down we go.’

‘But I want to see! What’s that funny smell?’

‘Just a little bit of rot,’ said Dad.

‘Rot?’ said Mum. ‘Aurora, come here!’

‘But I want to seeee!’ Aurora wailed.

‘Just one peep then,’ said Dad.

‘No!’ said Mum.

‘Yes!’ said Aurora.

Dad bent, clutched her under the arms and swung her up for a split second. Then he planted her back on the stairs.

‘I didn’t see properly! What was that in the corner, under the cover?’ she protested.

‘I don’t know. But if we go up and look, we’ll fall right through those ﬂoorboards, little sweetheart. We don’t want to end up in hospital, do we?’ said Dad.

‘Come down, both of you!’ Mum cried, panicking.

Dad helped Aurora down, though she was still protesting.

‘Is it really rotten, Greg?’ Mum asked shakily. ‘Let’s get right out of here!’

‘It’s OK , it’s OK . I knew I’d have to patch up a few things because the tower was so cheap. We’ve still got heaps of cash to renovate the place. It’ll all be ﬁxed, I promise,’ said Dad.

‘Can’t I have just one more peep?’ Aurora begged. ‘I won’t hurt the ﬂoorboards. You always say I’m light as a fairy, Dad.’

‘Better do as Mum says,’ said Dad, ﬁrm for once.

We made our way down the stairs, Mum making us go slowly and carefully in case we slipped. We sat down on the sofa on the ground ﬂoor. Then Dad leaned back, blowing up his nostrils, his hands cradling the back of his head. He’d lost a little of his bounce.

‘Are you all right, Greg?’ Mum asked anxiously.

‘You will mend everything, won’t you, Dad?’ Aurora demanded.

‘Course I will, darling,’ said Dad, pulling her onto his lap. His legs were too long for the sofa, so his knees were up by his ears.

‘You’re too big for it, Dad!’ said Aurora. ‘I think it should be my sofa.’

‘You’re quite right, pet,’ said Dad, rubbing his cheek against Aurora’s wild curls.

‘Greg! ’ said Mum. ‘Tell me exactly what’s wrong with the room up at the top.’

‘Nothing’s wrong. Well, nothing I can’t ﬁx. OK , a lot of rot has set in. The wood’s gone spongy, but it should be easy enough to bung in some new ﬂoorboards,’ said Dad.

‘Do you know how to do it?’ Mum asked weakly.

‘It’ll be on YouTube. And I’ll ﬁnd a builder to give me a hand,’ said Dad.

‘And pay wages? It’s going to be so expensive,’ she said.

‘I keep telling you, we’ve still got heaps of money from selling Starky’s,’ said Dad.

‘Not enough!’ Mum said anxiously.

‘Is that true, Mum?’ I asked.

‘No, it’s not,’ Dad snapped. ‘There now, Annie, don’t get the kids upset. It’ll be ﬁne, I tell you. We’re going to live happily ever after in Stark’s Folly. Aren’t we, Aurora?’

‘You bet we are, Dad! This is the best house ever! Isn’t it, Luna?’

Her dark blue eyes were shining. Her face was radiant in the gloom. I’d never seen her look so happy in her life. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to spoil things for her. I didn’t want Dad to get upset, but I thought this was the craziest idea ever. How on earth could we live here when it was like this? Mum was worried too, but she loved Dad so much, and this was something he wanted so badly. What was I going to do?

I ran to the big door, heaved it open and rushed outside. I ran down the hill, but it was so steep I couldn’t control my feet. I fell over and lay there, stunned. I didn’t pick myself up again. I stayed where I was, my head in the grass, wishing myself backwards in time.

After a while I heard someone walking down the hill towards me. It wasn’t Aurora’s skip or Mum’s light step. It was Dad, plodding downwards, not so lively now. He’d always been a big man, but since the restaurant closed he’d got much bigger.

‘Phew!’ he said, plumping himself down beside me. ‘I’m going to have to get myself ﬁtter for this lark. Still, plenty of work to keep myself busy.’

I said nothing. I didn’t even look up at him.

‘Luna?’ he said gently, resting his hand on my shoulders. ‘What’s up, pet?’

I wriggled away from him.

‘I don’t get it,’ said Dad. ‘Aurora’s over the moon. I thought you would be too. The folly’s even better than I hoped. Surely it’s every kid’s dream to live somewhere like this?’

He lay down and started stroking my hair. It was the way you’d stroke a fearful dog to stop it quivering. Well, I was shaking, but with anger now. Why couldn’t he see this was a totally crackpot idea?

‘We can’t live here,’ I mumbled.

‘Don’t you think the countryside’s lovely? Don’t you think it would be magical to live at the top of a hill with a wonderful view of the sea? Don’t you want to live in a fairy-tale tower and sleep in a fantastic bed with a carved cat smiling down at you?’ Dad persisted.

‘But it’s wet and slimy,’ I said. ‘None of this is safe! You haven’t got a job and Mum will have to leave hers and then

what are we going to live on if you’re not earning any money?’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, stop acting like a little old woman!’ Dad said, exasperated. ‘You’re only nine years old, for God’s sake.’

‘Ten and three quarters!’ I protested, furious that he couldn’t even remember how old I was.

‘Stop obsessing about money! We’ll have heaps of money now we don’t have to live in that dreary ﬂat and pay a fortune in rent. And I’m going to start my own vegetable plot, plant fruit trees, keep chickens – maybe even keep our own cow for milk!’

He was making it up as he went along. He’d never grown as much as a pot plant, and he always said animals were too much trouble. He’d never let me have a puppy, though I’d begged and begged. I suddenly sat up.

‘Could I have a puppy now?’ I asked.

He stared at me and then burst out laughing. ‘You artful little monkey! All right, of course you can have a puppy, as long as you house-train it properly.’

‘I trained Aurora!’ I said.

‘True enough,’ he said. ‘You’re like a second little mother

to her. She’s so excited now, but I think she’s worrying about you. Don’t spoil it for her, Luna.’

Dad was being the artful one now. He wasn’t fair. He expected Mum and me to go along with every crazy scheme he thought up. He could always win Mum over, but I wasn’t going to let him do that to me. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about a puppy. I could almost see it running across the grass, one of those curly-haired, teddy-bear type puppies with big brown eyes. It was leaping up at me excitedly now, licking my face. I could almost feel its wriggly little body in my arms.

‘Do you promise I can have a puppy, Dad?’ I asked.

‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ said Dad solemnly, like a child.

That was the trouble. He might be a great big man but inside he was just a little boy. He loved us, but he was hopeless at looking after us.

I stared up at the tower with its tangle of ivy and ﬂowers, and its castle turret open to the sky.

‘If it’s stormy will the rain come right through the roof?’ I said, imagining a deluge swirling down the stairs, ﬂooding every room.

‘It’s not going to be stormy,’ said Dad.

I stared at him, screwing my face up. How could it possibly stay sunny all the time?

‘We won’t have any storms until the autumn,’ Dad corrected himself. ‘I’ll have ﬁxed it up by then. We’ll light the ﬁre and roast chestnuts and make toast and keep dry and warm and cosy in our magic tower. Mum and me and Aurora and you – and your little puppy.’

I imagined the puppy jumping up at me, making little snu ing noises, then nestling into my arms. I felt my hands curving as if I was actually holding it close. Dad went on, telling me about the fun we’d have together. I wanted to believe it now.

Dad pulled me close and kissed the top of my head. We went back into the tower hand in hand, the pretend puppy leaping about my heels. Aurora was bustling about in the ground-ﬂoor room, pretending to cook us a meal. She turned on the tap but it made a loud groaning noise that alarmed her.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll get the water ﬁxed by the time we come back,’ said Dad. ‘You come with me, Aurora, and we’ll magic up a meal together.’

I thought this was going to be another pretend game, but they walked all the way down the hill towards the car.

Aurora lay on the grass and rolled herself downwards, shrieking with laughter.

‘Be careful, Aurora!’ Mum called, but she took no notice. Mum shook her head. ‘She’s as reckless as her father,’ she muttered, sighing. ‘I can’t stop either of them.’

Dad produced a wicker basket from the car with a superb picnic packed inside. He’d made little savoury tarts and chicken legs with a peanut sauce and frittatas and a tomato salad and a new potato salad and then an elderﬂower cream sponge and tiny iced gingerbread hearts. He must have been awake half the night cooking everything. He’d made tangy lemonade too, still cold in its bottle cooler.

We ate and drank with relish while Dad grinned at us happily. He’d practically given up on cooking after the restaurant closed, scarcely bothering to heat a tin of beans. It was a treat to eat his food again. We lay down in the grass afterwards, in the shade of the tower so the sun wasn’t on our faces. I stared upwards at its tall and narrow shape, counting the brilliant blue ﬂowers until my eyes closed.

When I woke up, Mum and Dad were cuddled up together, and Aurora was curled beside me, sucking her thumb. I imagined the puppy nestling in too.

‘Dad says we can have a puppy,’ I whispered to Aurora.

‘Brilliant!’ she murmured sleepily. ‘This is my best day ever.’

We had some more lemonade and then went for a walk, the four of us, ﬁve if you counted the invisible puppy leaping about beside us. Down the other side of the hill we saw a round lake at the bottom.

‘I think it’s a dew pond. They used to make them for cattle to drink out of,’ said Dad. ‘Maybe it can be our very own swimming pool!’

It still wasn’t much more than a big pond, but it was beautiful, with rushes all around, and wild ducks, moorhens and a pair of swans.

‘Yay, let’s go swimming,’ Aurora begged, though she could only do a few strokes of doggy-paddle.

Mum put her ﬁngers in the water and then took them out immediately. ‘No! The water’s freezing, even though it’s so sunny. And we haven’t brought any towels with us,’ she said.

‘We can run about in the sun to get dry. Come on!’ said Dad, starting to strip o .

‘Greg!’ said Mum, but she was half laughing.

‘I’ve always wanted my very own swimming pool!’ said Dad.

‘What if someone comes?’ said Mum.

‘We’ll tell them to get lost, because this is our tower, so this is our land, and this lake belongs to us!’ said Dad, and he jumped straight into the water in his pants.

The birds squawked in protest and swam furiously to the other side of the lake while Dad dived down and then came up spouting water like a dolphin.

‘You are a fool,’ said Mum, but she was removing her sandals.

In thirty seconds we were all in the water. It really was freezing but we warmed up quickly jumping around. I stayed in the shallow part, clutching Aurora’s hand while she pranced about, but then Mum took over and I could swim out properly by myself.

Dad couldn’t actually swim and just splashed happily, and Mum did too many strokes that didn’t really get her far, but I’d had lessons at school and could do a smooth, even breaststroke. I swam round and round, scarcely making a ripple. I was wary of the swans, but didn’t mind bobbing about with the ducks and moorhens, and they didn’t make a fuss, taking me for some strange new beakless bird.