Chapter 4
Ten years ago
Jacob and I seemed to pick each other out of the group almost immediately. Even back then, we clicked right away. It was as if we’d known each other in a past life and finally had the chance to catch up on lost time – we understood one another from the get go.
Mum always went back to London the day after dropping us off, and that’s when Granny and Grandad’s true spoiling began.
We had a second breakfast of pastries and hot chocolate as soon as her car left the driveway, and we didn’t have to change out of our pyjamas if we didn’t want to.
Usually, this was the start of a carefree summer.
But that day, I was jittery in my seat, desperate to head back to the treehouse and see if Jacob had seen my note.
‘Do you think they got our note?’ Callum leaned across the table with his mouth smeared in chocolate spread.
‘Give them time,’ I said, though my knee bounced under the table, rattling the silverware. ‘It’s only nine. I bet they haven’t even got out of bed yet.’
Once breakfast was done for the second time, I couldn’t mask my anticipation.
Thumping up the stairs to my room, I tore through my suitcase looking for some clothes I could wear to play in.
Just as I dragged a t-shirt over my head, the sound of a horn startled me into banging my head against the bedframe.
Leaping to my feet, I looked out of the window for the source of the noise, rubbing the pain out of the lump forming on my head.
There, at varying heights of the willow tree in the back field, were three boys.
Jacob was sitting in the highest branch he could reach.
I knew he wasn’t a ghost! One of his brothers hung out of the window of the treehouse, a plastic cone still pressed to his lips like a trumpet.
The smallest boy stood at the roots, waving ferociously.
‘Callum!’ I shouted as I flew down the stairs. ‘They got our note! Come on, let’s go!’
My brother stumbled through the kitchen, dragging on his trainers, not bothering to lace them as he followed me out the door.
‘Make sure you’re back for your dinner!’ I heard Granny call after us.
‘We will!’ Callum replied, still with his mouth full, still wearing his Spider-Man pyjama top.
We raced out the back garden, my anticipation so potent that I could feel my legs wobble under me as I ran.
‘Welcome to Fort Thorogood,’ the trumpeter announced as we arrived.
He was an older version of Jacob, though this brother’s dark hair wasn’t so wild, and he had no mud smeared across his cheeks.
‘I am King William. This is Sir Alfred.’ He pointed to the smallest brother in front of us.
He had a long stick, almost as tall as him, that he was holding like a spear.
Clearly, he’d been tasked to guard the fort, but I reckoned I could beat him in a fight if I had to.
‘Alfred’ folded his arms over his chest with a huff.
‘It’s Alfie,’ he corrected. Then he addressed Callum with wide eyes.
‘Cool shirt.’ Callum’s cheeks flushed red, and the excitement at the prospect of three new boys to play with was evident on his face.
I wasn’t too sure yet – was I really going to have to spend the whole summer as the only girl?
It didn’t bother me much, I knew I could keep up with them, but I worried that the boys might not think the same and I’d end up side-lined, as I often did with some of Callum’s friends back home.
‘You remembered your shoes today,’ Jacob said gruffly from his branch. He was wearing shorts, his scabby and grazed knees out on full display, and already his shins were splattered with mud.
‘I didn’t forget them yesterday. I just didn’t want to wear them,’ I retorted. The truth was, Granny made sure I was wearing shoes that day, after she’d slathered my foot with cream and given me a new plaster.
Jacob raised his eyebrows in surprise.
‘I see you’ve already met Sir Jacob,’ William called down.
‘Now, I have been informed that we had a couple of intruders here at Fort Thorogood yesterday. They left behind this bit of evidence.’ He held up my note that had been torn from the nail before tossing it from the parapet where it floated down like a falling leaf.
‘You wish to be Knights of my realm, eh, trespassers?’
I folded my arms over my chest in defiance. ‘We weren’t trespassing!’
But my brother wasn’t so confident, and he said at the same time: ‘Um, yes, please!’
William paused for a minute, and looked back into the treehouse like he was consulting someone. After a moment, his head popped back out of the window with a grin. ‘Well, to become my Knights, you must carry out a series of tasks and challenges set to test you.’
‘You take this a bit seriously, don’t you?’ I asked as I saw Callum’s eyes widen again.
‘Look, you wanna play with us or not?’ William said, putting aside his kingly voice.
I shrugged. ‘Depends.’
‘Depends on what?’
I shrugged again, much to William’s annoyance. Jacob almost cracked a smile.
‘I want to play! What’s the first task?’ Callum said, eagerness overtaking his anxiety briefly.
William ducked back inside for a second.
When he came out, he said, ‘You must battle one of my knights … to the death!’ He dragged a stick from where it was tucked into his belt and thrust it through the window of the treehouse.
He hesitated for a moment and murmured into the treehouse, ‘Are you sure? To the death feels a bit dramatic.’
‘Dramatic?’ A new voice reached us as a girl shoved Will out of the way of the window, a helmet covering her hair as she waved her own ‘sword’ toward us.
‘If you aren’t cut out to be King, William, then I shall have to find someone else.
’ She pointed her stick towards Callum, who practically vibrated with excitement.
She dropped the act for just a moment to stare down her cousin.
‘You know Auntie Sian will tell you off if you’re not playing with me. ’
Will harrumphed and dropped the stick before sliding down the branch to meet us on the ground. ‘You always ruin the fun,’ he grumbled, as though being scolded by his mum, despite the fact that the girl looked like the youngest of all of us here. She followed him down.
‘I’m Lizzie, or Sir Elizabeth. Their cousin and your challenger.’
I shook Lizzie’s outstretched hand.
‘Ava.’ I smiled, excited at the prospect of having at least one other girl to play with. ‘This is my brother, Callum.’ He smiled too and offered a hand, but they both had a little awkward dance as they tried to figure out which hands to shake.
‘Ignore Will,’ she declared. ‘He’s nearly ten and thinks that makes him the boss. But I’m seven, and I actually am the boss. Nice to meet you.’ I liked her already. Will cowered moodily by the trunk. Callum could only stare at her in awe.
‘Come on, we need to do something, Liz. I’m bored,’ Alfie moaned, and a sly smile crossed her face.
‘Well, I didn’t come all the way down here just to make friends.
I came … for a duel!’ Lizzie turned to me first but she was met with my wide eyes and shaking head.
Without missing a beat, she turned to Callum, her eyebrow raised, ‘You, Sir! Will you have the gall to fight for the crown, or die trying?’
Callum nodded his head so enthusiastically you’d have thought she’d just asked him to swim in a chocolate river, or pet a new-born puppy. I couldn’t believe we were actually twins in that moment.
But I watched as Callum and Sir Elizabeth jabbed their sticks at each other, getting further and further away from the willow in their excitement.
Every time Callum would get a little too close, he’d mumble an apology quickly, before Lizzie would use his moment of chivalric hesitation to strike harder and faster than before.
With every clash of branch, I cringed, waiting for it all to be over.
That was, until Jacob climbed down from his perch to stand beside me.
‘Thank you, by the way,’ I said to him.
‘You already said that.’ When he saw my confused expression, he clarified, ‘In your letter.’
‘Well, my toe is much better.’ An awkwardness settled over us for a second.
‘You don’t want to join the joust?’ he asked.
‘Don’t you?’
He shrugged. He was standing closer to me now and I could see each freckle that decorated his nose and cheeks.
‘Why have you already got mud on your face?’ I asked, leaning forward to rub it off, like Granny did to me when we stood at the sink washing our hands before teatime.
Jacob dodged my fingers. ‘Why don’t you already have mud on your face?’ He smiled properly now, his eyes nearly disappearing behind the creases of his skin.
He bolted behind the curtain of willow leaves, re-emerging a moment later with both hands caked in soil as though he’d just washed them in a mole hill. He paced towards me slowly, intention clear on his smirking face.
‘Don’t you dare.’ I narrowed my eyes at him, suspiciously backing away.
‘What?’ His face softened into a look of innocence, but still he continued walking towards me, one slow step at a time.
‘You know … a lot of animals use mud as a sort of sun cream. Our pigs splash in the mud every summer. It keeps them cool.’ He rubbed his hands together conspiratorially, folding the mud over his palms until it clung together in one great glob.
Dodging away from him, I attempted to hide behind the thickest part of the trunk, but we paced around it, stalking each other like predator and prey, the threat of muddy t-shirts looming.
Deciding I wasn’t going to be the first to fall, I scooped up a fistful of mud, feeling it slot under my nails, and tossed it around the tree.
I missed, but it splattered across his feet as it hit the ground.
‘That’s it!’ He laughed as he chased me around the trunk.
I screamed and ran, but he was faster, and soon he had one of my arms in his grip.
He hugged me close as I wriggled to try and free myself.
When he finally held me still, I squeezed my eyes close and prepared for defeat, expecting a big splatter of mud everywhere.
Instead, a soft hand presses against my cheek, and a cold smudge covered my face as he branded me softly with a muddy handprint. When I opened my eyes again, he had released me to take a step back and admire his work.
‘Go on, then,’ Jacob said, gesturing to his face.
‘My turn.’ He pushed his chin out before me and I smeared my own muddy hand on his opposite cheek.
‘Now we have our own secret group.’ He grinned, caked in soil, before running back to the stick fight.
I followed him, hoping my brother hadn’t been impaled, my face so warm I could feel the mud of his print drying out and cracking already.
By the time we reached the others, the ‘fight to the death’ had been resolved. Callum had lost, but because he put up such worthy fight, King William had accepted him as a knight for his bravery.
‘To the swing?’ Jacob suggested, not letting any more knightly squabbles test whether or not I could join.
‘Race you there!’ Alfie screamed, already running towards a treeline.
We all ran, and by the time we reached the edge of a stream, it didn’t matter who had won.
Will and Lizzie were arguing between themselves while Callum watched on, amused, and Alfie was kicking at the grass, already bored.
Lizzie held a knot of rope in her hands that she kept pushing towards her eldest cousin.
‘Go on. You go first, you’re the biggest,’ she said.
Will pushed her hand away. ‘You’re the champion knight, so you should go first.’
I surveyed the rope from afar. It was tied around a thick branch that reached over the stream. I was pretty sure I could leap across with a good enough run up.
‘How about guests first?’ Lizzie turned to Cal, who flushed once again.
‘Absolutely not,’ he declared.
‘Jake?’ Will addressed his brother, who eyed me nervously before reluctantly reaching for the rope.
‘You bunch of babies!’ I pushed him aside and grabbed it myself. ‘Clear out!’ I said, and everyone shuffled aside to give me a path. When I was far enough away from the stream, I held on tight, ran, and sprang onto the rope.
I swang across the stream, once, twice, three times—
‘Erm, I think you should have let go by now,’ Alfie called, finally paying attention.
Realising that I no longer had enough momentum to reach the other side, I plunged down into the muddy bed. Cold but giggling, I emerged from the water, dripping like a swamp monster, surrounded by the sound of rapturous laughter from my new friends.