“Now be very, very quiet, Graham, or I’ll have to pinch you again.” Kristy pulled her knees tightly against her chest and locked her hands around them while she listened for Fergus.
“Do you think he’s lost?” Graham whispered.
“Shhh!” Kirsty shoved her fingers in front of his face and made pinching gestures.
His golden eyes grew wide. He clamped a grubby hand over his mouth and watched her like a dog that had something treed.
On the days when the fog was thick and wet and cold and they had to stay inside, Fergus set them near a toasty fire and told them of Scotland, of the Highlands and the places where their ancestors grew up and fought, lived and died.
He taught them so many things, better things than they learned at Harrington Hall. He taught them that the seventh child of a seventh child has the sight, that the Devil Himself once kept school in Scotland and taught the lairds and the chieftains to fight.
From Fergus they heard tales of the Picts and the Celtic tribes that painted their faces blue before they went into battle; and they found out that any Scot worth his salt knew the MacCodrums were descended from seals.
There were lessons like how to find a kelpie. Kirsty and Graham learned you have to be clever and look in cool streams and rivers; you have to remember that kelpies like to take on the shape of a beautiful horse. They found out that ghosts and witches, goblins and beasties can be warded off with even the smallest piece of rowan bark.
So when Graham had walked around waving a chunk of tree bark in front of his face whenever he saw Kirsty, she had gotten even by pinching him when he least expected it.
She figured she had trained him well over the days when they’d had to stay indoors, because now he couldn’t tell when she would really pinch him and when she wouldn’t.
Fergus came tramping up the hillside trail. He stopped at the crest. Kirsty and Graham were huddled so close together they were like pages in a book.
Kirsty could see Fergus’s big feet. Once when she had asked him why his feet were so big, he had said they were big so he could scare off the wee fairies that came to steal the tongues of little lassies who asked too many questions.
She peered up from beneath the twisted brambles and branches. With his long white hair and his big shoulders, Fergus looked like a giant against the big blue sky. He was almost as big as her father.
“Och! Come out with ye. I canna see ye wee rascals, but I ken ye’re in there.”
Silly old Graham started to move, so Kirsty socked him in the arm and raised a finger to her lips. She gave him her most ferocious frown.
Boys were so dumb!
Fergus was bluffing. He didn’t know where they were. Next time she would hide alone. No silly old boys, not even her silly old brother.
“Ouch!” Kirsty’s mouth dropped open. She scowled at Graham. “You pinched me!”
He crossed his arms just like Fergus and their father did, then he gave her a belligerent look and a nod. “Aye.”
“You can’t pinchme.”
“I just did.”
Two huge and tanned hands parted the bushes. Fergus squinted down at them. “Come out now, ye two. Quit yer arguing.”
Graham crawled out before she could, another first. But she was still trying to understand how she had gotten pinched. What was the matter with Graham? If she couldn’t bully him anymore, who was left to bully?
Did boys suddenly grow brains? She didn’t think so. Most of the boys she knew acted like they didn’t have a brain in their heads.
She got on her hands and knees and crawled out of the bushes, straightened, and dusted herself off.
“Weel, there ye be, lassie. Let’s get going, now.” Fergus patted her head like you would an old dog, and he turned and walked down the path.
Graham ran ahead of him so he could be first to “roll down the hill like a boulder.” As if she wanted to roll down the hillside.
Instead she skipped along and caught up with Fergus. “Are we going back home? Did Father finally send for us?”
She knew the answer when Fergus didn’t look at her, but stared straight ahead.
“No, lassie.”
