Out of the Ashes (2 page)

Today I heard Mr Bailey’s first lambs bleating from across the river. We haven’t started lambing just yet. That’ll be in a couple of weeks’ time. Dad wins prizes for his
sheep – some Cotswolds, some Suffolks. We’ve got about a hundred and fifty in all. Like he does every year, he’s picked me out three sheep of my own, my own flock – all
Suffolks because he says they lamb easier. From now on I’ve got to look after them, and this year for the first time I’ve got to lamb them by myself when the time comes. I wrote out
twenty names beginning with ‘M’ and chose the best three – Molly, Mary and May. Molly’s the pushy one, and my favourite already.

I went back to school last week, last Monday. The heating broke down so we all froze. It was good seeing Jay and the others again, but I always find school strange at first. I’ll get used
to it. I always do. At the end of last term there were Christmas decorations up everywhere. Without them the school looks bare and empty, like the trees outside my window. They look like
skele­tons in winter. I’m fed up with this winter. It rains every day, which means the river’s flooded and I can’t cross over and go riding up in Mr Bailey’s woods, and
there’s mud everywhere too. Ruby hates mud, and so do I. We agree on every­thing, Ruby and me.

Mrs Kennedy’s away having her baby, so we’ve got a new English teacher, Mrs Merton. She told us all about herself. She’s thirty-five, married with two children and grew up on a
farm like me, and she smiles a lot. I like teachers who smile.

Ruby’s gone lame, and I’m sure it’s because of all the mud. I’ve been leaving her out too long, because she hates being stuck in her stable all the
time. Anyway, now she’ll have to stay in, whether she likes it or not. The vet said so. ‘Young MacDonald,’ Dad calls him. (He’s really good-looking, like Brad Pitt, and he
wears an Australian hat.) So I call him Brad – when I’m thinking about him, which I do, often. He gave Ruby an injection and told me it wasn’t my fault, but he was only saying
that. It
was
my fault, I know it was. He took a look at my sheep in the shippen and told me they could be lambing any day now. He thought Molly might possibly be having twins. She is so big,
so wide. ‘Fine looking animals,’ he said. ‘I like to see well-kept stock, and there’s no farmer round here that looks after his animals better than your dad.’ Dad was
right there behind him when he said it, and he was beaming all over his face.

‘I bet you say that to all the farmers, don’t you, young MacDonald?’

‘Yep,’ said Brad. And we all laughed then.

That was the moment I remember best today. I suddenly felt I wasn’t younger than them at all, that I was one of them. Bobs chased Brad’s car all the way up the road, as usual.
He’ll chase anything that moves, unless it’s a farm animal. Dad says he’s the laziest sheepdog he’s ever had. But I think he’s lovely – second only to Ruby in my
heart. Maybe third. It’s Ruby, then Brad, then Bobs. Sorry, Bobs.

At school Mrs Kennedy’s had her baby – well, not at school exactly. It’s a boy, and she’s sent in a picture of him which Mrs Merton pinned up in the classroom. He’s
all wrinkled up and pink with his eyes tightly closed and his fists clenched. Mrs Merton got us to write about what he might be thinking behind his closed eyes. Jay wrote a long poem called:
‘Thinking nothing’ which was really good. And I wrote this whole story about the baby, dreaming of the life he’d had the last time he was alive, but I didn’t have time to
finish it before the bell went. I’ll finish it another day.

Mum is thirty-eight today. We gave her her presents at breakfast as we always do on birth­days. I gave her a painting of Ruby I’d done at school with Bobs running along behind and she
was really happy with it. I know that because when she thanked me her eyes were smiling at me, and because she didn’t moan at me once all day.

They’ve gone out to dinner at The Duke to celebrate and Moody Trudy’s here to babysit. I’m thirteen and they
still
think I need a babysitter. She’s sitting on the
sofa right now, crying her eyes out. (Who’s babysitting who?) She’s broken up with her boyfriend again. Always the same boyfriend, Terry Bolan, up at Speke’s farm. She wants to
get married, but he doesn’t. I can’t say I blame him. Trudy
is
moody, and I mean
really
moody.

Bobs is in the kitchen with me as I’m writing this. He keeps sighing and groaning in his basket. Trudy’s still sniffling in the sitting room. I’ve had enough. I’m going
out to talk to Ruby.

All good news. I got an ‘A’ for that story about Mrs Kennedy’s baby’s previous life. Mrs Merton wrote that it was a strange story, but very imaginative.
I like her more and more. And better still, Ruby’s foot is fine again. The vet came today, not Brad (pity!), another one, the one with a posh accent and a ginger moustache. He said I
shouldn’t ride her out for a while, just to be safe.
And, and
– I had my first lambs. Molly gave birth this morning before breakfast. I went out with Dad to check the lambing
ewes – he’s had twenty or so lambs already from his flock. We found Molly lying there in the corner of the shippen trying to do it by herself. She’d already given birth to one,
but she was still struggling, still pushing. Brad had been right. There was a second one on the way. The head was already out. Dad didn’t interfere. He held Molly still and just told me to
get on with it. I’d helped him before and watched him dozens of times. I knelt down and pulled firmly, gently easing the lamb out.

It was hard at first because my hand kept slipping, and Molly seemed suddenly too tired to go on pushing. But then out came the lamb in one whoosh, and there he was lying on the straw. But he
wasn’t breathing. He was completely still. I panicked and wanted Dad to take over. But he just told me to keep calm, not to worry. Blow in his nostrils, he told me. So I did. Still the lamb
didn’t breathe. Then I had to hold him up by the back legs and give him a shake. ‘Now lie him down and rub him,’ Dad said. Suddenly the lamb began to splutter and cough and shake
his head. I’d done it. All on my own (sort of). I’d given birth to my first lamb (sort of), a ram lamb (I love saying that out loud!). Dad checked Molly had plenty of milk, which she
had.

Molly licked him all over and in half an hour he was up on his shaky legs, staggering around and nuzzling for his first drink. I’ve called him ‘Little Josh’ after Josh, my
little cousin, because he’s cute too, and because they have both got very short, curly black hair. So from now on I’d better call cousin Josh ‘Big Josh’, so I won’t
get the two of them muddled up.

I keep going out into the shippen to see if he’s all right. He’s learnt to walk, eat and talk, all in just a few hours. Amazing. He is so sweet and I’m so happy.

All my lambs are born now. May lambed by herself last night. So, including Little Josh, I’ve got four lambs and they’re all fine. Dad’s just about finished,
but what with all the milking and cheesemaking, as well as the lambing, he’s very tired and stressed out. So Mum’s helping, seeing to the sheep in the morning before she goes off to
school, and then in the evening when she gets back. She does some milking for him too, at the weekends, just to give him a break. I’m doing the pigs and poultry before and after school. So
we’re all tired and fed up. At mealtimes we just eat in silence. That’s the trouble with everyone being busy, it makes everyone very boring. No one even argues!

I can’t ride Ruby yet, so I spend lots of time with Little Josh in the shippen. That’s where I’m sitting writing this. Bobs isn’t allowed in, in case he upsets the ewes.
So he’s sitting outside whining and sulking. He’s just jealous. Here’s a drawing of what I think I look like to Little Josh.

Today I introduced Little Josh to Big Josh. Auntie Liz came for lunch along with all her family – first visitors we’ve had for a long time. I can’t help it. I
just look from Mum’s face to Auntie Liz’s and back again, looking for any differences. I’ve always done it. Identical twins, very identical. Identical to look at, but not in any
other way. Auntie Liz is so quiet, and easygoing. I’ve felt bad about it all my life, but ever since I can remember I’ve wanted her to be my mother.

Uncle Mark and Dad get on really well together, like a couple of kids. They always go off shooting together or fishing, or maybe just down to the pub. Shooting today. Crows. They got eight.
There’s thousands of crows on the farm, and I hate them. They kill lambs. They’ll even kill a sheep if they find one on its back. They peck out their eyes. No such thing as a nice
crow.

Big Josh is six years old and he makes me laugh because he adores me. He wants to be with me all the time, holding my hand, sitting on my lap. And he’s always asking if he can marry me. He
asked me why I’d called him Little Josh. So I told him it was because Little Josh was cute and had curly black hair just like he did. He squealed with laughter and then picked Little Josh up
in his arms and carried him everywhere. When Big Josh got tired he led him around on a piece of string like a puppy. Little Josh put up with it all, but he was as happy to see Molly again as Molly
was to see him. Big Josh is lovely, but I was quite relieved to have the place to ourselves again when they all went off after tea.

I decided I’d waited long enough for Ruby’s foot to heal, and that it was time to try her out again, gently. I had just about enough time to groom her, saddle her up, go for a short
ride and get back before dark. Bobs came along with us and we went down to the river and crossed over. The river was still high after all the rain but we managed. She went like a train up through
Mr Bailey’s woods and it was all I could do to rein her in at the top. She was puffing and blowing a bit, but I could tell there was nothing wrong with her foot. I was in amongst Mr
Bailey’s sheep and lambs before I knew it. They panicked and scattered everywhere. I just hoped Mr Bailey hadn’t seen us.

By the time I’d got home, rubbed her down and fed her, it was dark. I kicked off my boots and called out that I was back. But no one said anything, and I thought that was strange because I
knew they were in – I’d seen them through the window as I came past. When I went into the sitting room Mum and Dad were both sitting there just staring at a blank television screen.
Neither of them even turned to look at me. I knew they were upset about something. Then I thought that Mr Bailey must have rung up to complain about me scattering his sheep, that they were furious
with me. But they said nothing, just sat there. I asked what the matter was. Dad said it very quietly: ‘Foot and mouth disease. Some pig farmer up north has got foot and mouth on his farm. It
was on the news. They’ve had to kill thousands of pigs.’