Ivy Lane: Spring: by Cathy Bramley

down in protest. Other children trailed behind, several on the verge of tears.
    Nigel and Peter appeared hastily with mugs and mouthfuls of food.
    ‘What? You can’t give up that easily,’ said Nigel. ‘If it was too easy it wouldn’t be a hunt, would it?’
    Liz materialized beside me. ‘It’s true,’ she said, chewing on her lip. ‘I don’t want to be a nuisance but—’
    ‘Fix!’ shouted one of the older girls.
    The hippy family returned too. ‘Might be a bit of a mix-up with the clues,’ said the dad, raising his hand.
    ‘And we’re desperate for chocolate,’ said his wife. ‘We gave up sugar for Lent.’
    ‘That’s Helen and Graham and baby Honey,’ whispered Gemma.
Vegetarians
, she mouthed, raising her eyebrows knowingly as if that explained everything.
    Peter and Nigel put their heads together, muttering in strained tones. There seemed to be a lot of finger-pointing at each other going on and the children were getting mutinous.
    I sensed a busman’s holiday coming on . . .
    ‘Who’s ready for a drink of orange juice?’ I cried, jumping from my seat, unbalancing the bench and sending Gemma lurching backwards.
    Yells of ‘Me please!’ filled the air and the men, shooting me looks of pure gratitude, disappeared behind the pavilion, presumably to solve The Case of the Missing Clues.
    Between us, we managed to cobble together some refreshments for the children: I had the remains of my Betty’s biscuits, Liz (randomly) had half a Victoria sponge and Dougie, who I’d found asleep in the pavilion, ransacked the cupboard in the kitchenette for the committee’s emergency stash of custard creams.
    By the time the men came back, Peter’s comb-over now dangling in long sections over his ear and Nigel running a frantic finger round his collar, I had the situation under control.
    Nigel held his hands up to attract the children’s attention. ‘Er, there seems to be a cross-mogrification in the clues.’
    ‘What?’ said Brenda’s eldest, looking like he wished he’d stayed at home with his Xbox.
    ‘It means, they’ve cocked it up,’ cried Dougie from the pavilion steps, hooting with laughter.
    ‘Right,’ I said, turning to a clean page in Peter’s flipchart. ‘Who wants to play name the kitten? The winning name gets a massive Easter egg.’
    I left Dougie in charge of the marker pen and the children taking it in turns to write down kitten names while I organized the rest of the assembled adults. ‘Has anyone got a basket?’
    A motley assortment of bowls, buckets, baskets and trugs was assembled in minutes and distributed amongst the children, while Nigel, Peter and Gemma ran round the entire allotment site hiding all the small chocolate eggs.
    ‘Play nicely, help the younger ones and don’t eat too much chocolate,’ I said, declaring the Easter Egg Hunt back on. ‘Don’t come back until you’ve found them all!’ I added.
    The children charged off and we all sighed with relief. Gemma and I resumed our seats.
    ‘Now, where were we?’ I said, closing my eyes and tilting my face up to the sun. ‘This is nice.’
    ‘You were amazing,’ said Gemma. Even with closed eyes I could sense she was staring at me. ‘You came from nowhere and just . . . Mia will love the name Jake for the kitten. She’s mad about Jake Bugg.’
    ‘Good.’
    ‘You remind me of an onion,’ she said.
    I opened one eye and snorted at her. ‘I’m listening. This is going to be a compliment, I take it?’
    ‘Just when I think I’ve got to know you, another layer peels off and I learn something new. There are still more layers, though, aren’t there, Tilly Parker.’
    ‘Do I make your eyes water?’ I said, trying to make light of her observations. Gemma’s probing was making me uncomfortable. I was happy to listen, not so happy to reveal my own secrets. I hoped that that would be enough for her for now.
    ‘Mmm,’ said Gemma and presumably closed her eyes too because she went quiet for a few