The Binding by Jenny Alexander Page B

tell him off. In fact, she got up to clear the table, so Tressa and me had to wolf down our last few mouthfuls.
    â€˜Can I leave the washing up to you two?’ asked Mum.
    â€˜Of course,’ said Tressa.
    â€˜Who are you, and what have you done with my daughter?’ said Mum, with a smile.
    After we’d done the washing up, Tressa went upstairs and I was about to follow, when I heard Mum and Matt talking in the living room. I felt bad about eavesdropping, but I told myself it wasn’t really listening behind the door so much as overhearing something and not moving away.
    Mum was saying, ‘I shouldn’t have said that about the children missing their father.’
    â€˜No, it was a fair point,’ said Matt. ‘I should have thought about it myself. This is all a bit new to me.’
    Mum said whether it was a fair point or not, she still wished she hadn’t said it. It was just that she’d thought her wanting to go home would be enough to persuade him to come too, and when it wasn’t, well. . .
    I couldn’t catch the next bit, so I moved up really close and put my ear to the door.
    â€˜I didn’t want to say anything in front of the children,’ said Mum, ‘but I’m feeling uncomfortable about them going off on their own all the time. I know it’s irrational because what harm can they come to, but it just feels odd.’
    â€˜You’re used to being more in control,’ said Matt.
    â€˜I’m supposed to be—I’m their mother.’
    They were talking much more quietly now, and I had to really press my ear against the wood.
    â€˜I think something’s going on,’ Mum said. ‘I just can’t put my finger on it.’
    Matt said he had to bow to her greater knowledge, what with him not even being a parent, let alone our parent. He hadn’t spotted anything different, except that Tressa seemed to be warming to him, which was actually another reason he quite wanted to stay.
    â€˜So, what are we going to do?’ asked Mum. ‘Let’s either both stay here or both go home.’
    I started breathing again, then stopped, in case they heard me.
    â€˜You love being here so much and you’re right, the children do seem to be having a wonderful time. . .’
    â€˜Yes, but you know your children better than I do. . .’
    They went even quieter, and I tried to move closer to the door, but then everything went fuzzy like it does when you hold a seashell over your ear, you just hear a whooshing of waves. I suddenly realised they’d actually stopped talking, which meant they might beon the move any minute. I backed away and slipped upstairs to my bedroom.
    I know you shouldn’t earwig a private conversation, but I wasn’t sorry I did. It was a big relief to know that Mum and Matt wanted to stick together, either staying or leaving early, so now it was simply a case of which one was going to back down. I might not know Matt very well, but knowing Mum, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be her.
    So this feast might be one of the last times we went to the Binding, and I wanted it to be nice. It was a shame, but I couldn’t take the cake because there was no way I could have smuggled a whole cake out without Mum knowing; everyone would know I’d asked instead of stealing, and then things could get nasty again.
    Tressa might still tell on me, of course, but Milo couldn’t because he didn’t even know I’d told Mum about the feast, being as how he was busy sampling all the stuff in the cupboards at the time.
    So I put the cake in a Tupperware box and hid it in one of the sheds, in the grass-box of an old lawn-mower. Later, when Tressa gave me her and Milo’s stash to put in Matt’s day-sack, neither of us mentioned it.
    We found Duncan and the others sitting on the grass outside the bothy. It wasn’t raining, and there were little patches of clear sky between