Cuckoo by Julia Crouch Page A

far as Rose knew, Polly hadn’t eaten a thing all day. She was really going to have to keep an eye on her.
     
    At seven, Gareth came in from the studio and they all sat down to supper without Polly. The boys tucked into their lasagne like hungry animals, taking second helpings and licking their plates clean.
     
    They had spent their first day at school as rather glamorous exotica: their accented English and olive skins were a novelty at the village school.
     
    ‘Me and Yannis decided we wanted to run round the playground, so we did, and soon everyone in the school was charging round after us,’ Nico said.
     
    ‘The whole school!’ Anna hammered it home for Gareth.
     
    ‘Like a crocodile,’ Yannis said, and Anna and the boys beamed at one another. Anna had spent the day basking in the reflected glory of being associated with the boys, and Rose saw that she liked it. A lot.
     
    ‘Like a bunch of idiots,’ Nico added. Then the laughter died down and he yawned and shivered. ‘I’m cold,’ he said.
     
    ‘Ah, you’re not used to our nights yet. It can get pretty chilly,’ said Rose. ‘Now, finish up, and we’ll get you to bed. It’s really late.’
     
    ‘At home, we stay up as long as we like,’ Nico said.
     
    ‘Well, we do things differently here,’ said Gareth. ‘And while you’re with us, you’ll do them like we do.’
     
    ‘And you must be exhausted anyway, after your journey and going straight to school and all that,’ Rose said.
     
    ‘Come on Anna banana,’ Gareth said, taking her and Flossie up for their bath.
     
    Rose found blankets and wrapped them round the boys. She walked them up the garden towards the Annexe. The sky was clear now, and the air still. A touch of frost was biting into the air and the stars were like tiny stabs in backlit silk.
     
    ‘Look,’ she said, pointing up. ‘The Plough, see?’
     
    ‘We’ve got that back home,’ Nico said. ‘We see it from our terrace every night. But it’s over there.’ And, with an astronomical rationale all of his own, he pointed further south.
     
    She bundled them both up the Annexe stairs to the darkened room above, and they tiptoed past Polly, who lay huddled asleep on the big bed. Rose took them into the bathroom, and switched on the light. Polly had taken a shower, Rose noticed. The floor was covered in water, there were damp towels bundled in a corner, and talcum powder covered the surfaces.
     
    ‘Where are your toothbrushes?’ Rose asked the boys.
     
    They both shrugged.
     
    ‘Well, your toilet bags then?’
     
    ‘Toilet bag? Ewww ,’ Yannis giggled.
     
    ‘Your washbags, I mean.’
     
    Both boys looked blank. So Rose made them use their fingers with the toothpaste she had put out before they had arrived. Tomorrow she would buy them warmer clothes and toothbrushes. And pyjamas, because it turned out that they didn’t have any of them, either.
     
    She tucked them into the bunk beds in the little bedroom – which, she noted, was very small indeed once there were two boys in it. There was also a faint whiff of damp, which she had never noticed before.
     
    She went to turn the light out, looking back to smile at the two brown faces peering out from identical striped duvets.
     
    ‘Rose?’ Yannis said from his nest, in a small voice.
     
    ‘Yes, Yannis?’
     
    ‘Do you know any stories?’ he said. ‘Not scary ones, though.’
     
    ‘Let me see now,’ said Rose, curling up on the end of his bed. She could hear Nico sigh and turn noisily to face the wall. ‘It won’t be long, Nico, just to get Yannis settled.’
     
    ‘Whatever,’ Nico said.
     
    ‘Do you want to hear how me and your mum met?’
     
    ‘All right,’ Yannis said.
     
    ‘Well, it was a very rainy day by the seaside where we lived, and we were at school – our primary school, which was just near the beach.’
     
    ‘Ours is too, back home,’ Yannis said.
     
    ‘Yours opened right onto the beach, didn’t it? So at lunchtime you