The Wild Boy and Queen Moon by K M Peyton Page A

best chairs and the television. Even the dogs left them and joined the family in the sitting-room.
    ‘Roll on summer,’ Mary said hopefully.
    ‘She’ll go then, won’t she?’
    ‘I’m working on it.’
    On Saturday morning, Sandy rode over to visit Josie. She thought Josie might be good for her. Josie and Glynn were always short of money: perhaps they would take Gertie? Gertie gave all her pension money to her hosts and, in fact, ate very little. It must be profitable. Sandy knew her mother didn’t do it for the money but because she was kind, but other people might do it for the money.
    It was a cheerful day, the sun slanting brightly across the marshes and the wild ducks mating noisily on the river. George went with gusto and Sandy forgot about what she didn’t have and decided that what she did have wasn’t bad at all. Moods swung for no reason. There was no cause for her to feel miserable. She could ask Josie what she should do about her missing thirty pounds. Josie always had an answer for everything. Her whole life had appeared to be in ruins when she got pregnant, but she had weathered the storm like a lifeboat. Josie never went under.
    Sandy had hoped she might meet Jonas, but she didn’t. However, when she left the sea-wall and turned up the track that led to the Elizabethan tower, she saw Queen Moon grazing at the side of Josie’s garden. Her rope halter was tied round her neck, but she was loose. When she saw George she lifted her head and gave a soft whinny.
    ‘Whatever are you doing here?’
    Sandy pulled up and stared at her. She was a dream horse, shining like a silvery ghost in the shadows under the gnarled oaks; she was so fine and delicate compared with George. Yet Sandy knew she was as hard as nails. She had long, shapely ears and her forelock blew up in the morning breeze as she turned her head.
    ‘Oh, you are so beautiful!’
    To Sandy at that moment, Queen Moon was the essence of the unattainable; Queen Moon was perfection. Queen Moon was all her dreams rolled into one tangible thing, standing there looking at her with her huge, kind eyes. George stopped and gave a snort.
    ‘Oh, get on, pig,’ Sandy said, snappishly.
    Then she was sorry and gave him a pat, and he walked past Queen Moon to the gate of Josie’s garden. Sandy slipped off. She suddenly realized that Jonas might be visiting. Did he know Josie? Why else was Queen Moon there?
    ‘He’s gone with Glynn to give him a hand with some timber. Two-man job. Glynn met him down by the river and they got talking. Now he comes up to help sometimes,’ Josie explained.
    Sandy, having tied George up inside the fence, sat in Josie’s kitchen. It was the bottom room in the tower, round in shape like a lighthouse, with a stone staircase running up one wall to disappear through a hole in the ceiling. The ceiling was very high. Glynn had fixed a stove against the wall opposite the door, which had a wire-netting fence round it to keep the now crawling baby at bay, and there was a large table in the middle and a long sofa to sprawl on, colourful rag mats on the stone floor and a great forest of greenery growing out of pots. It didn’t look like anyone else’s kitchen that Sandy knew. The windows were made of Tudor glass in tiny leaded squares and gave a yellow, squinting view of the outside, so that nothing looked quite real. No wonder Josie was happy. Sandy wished she came more often: it was enchanting. But the livery yard took all her spare time.
    ‘Here, have a biscuit.’ Josie took a great tray of shortbread out of her Calor gas oven. She was always cooking or sewing or potting or producing something – a very creative girl. She never stopped. She flashed Sandy her quick, dark smile. She wore red dungarees and a navy shirt and her hair was a black cloud round her head. No wonder she had been snapped up before she was twenty. She was very like Ian in looks, Sandy noticed suddenly: they were both like their mother. She was like her father