Yeah, he’d anticipated the annoying one going there next. ‘Donotsay it!’
‘No, I think you’re right—full moon, howling—wolf. But it can’t be a common-or-garden wolf, cus this is you and your weird brain. So—oh, my God! I think we havewerewolveson Dartmoor!’
There was nothing else to be done.
He shoved hard. Again.
Ben fell back into the deep drift, and he was on him, a frantic, flailing snow angel forming around them as they wrestled and laughed, and when they could laugh no more, kissing, as the freezing wet soaked their clothes so that, shivering, their lips were the only warm places under the implacable white of the moon.
* * *
Ben’s enthusiasm for an early-morning run was entirely absent the following day, Aleksey noted with considerable amusement. By the time they’d trudged, soaked and shivering, back to their bedroom, showered, and actually climbed into bed, it had hardly seemed a blissful moment of actual sleep had been achieved before Ben’s phone buzzed on the bedside table. Aleksey assumed it was being reached for and read—he kept his head under the covers, hoping it, whatever it was, wasn’t going to involve him—for he heard a muttered, ‘Fuck. School’s shut—snow day. Fuck!’ The mattress then depressed and realigned as, presumably, Ben got up for daddy duty.
The next thing he felt was bouncing. Assuming it wasn’t Ben, he groaned quietly and hoped she might take pity on him. She didn’t. ‘Papa! Papa! Daddy says you have to get up as well. We’re goingtobobboning! Papa! Come on!’
He edged the sheet higher, going for out of sight, out of mind.
‘Papa! Daddy said you have to come too!’
‘This activity does not require me.’
‘Papa?
‘Papa?
‘Papa!
‘Papa!’
‘What!’
‘What doesask Papa where the werewolves weremean? Is it a riddle?’
She had picked up the Devon habit of saying were and where exactly the same, and so all Aleksey heard was wair, wair, wair, a little like a siren of annoyance in one ear. Just as he was thinking this, she appeared to hear it as well and began to sing, ‘Wair, wair, wair,’ up and down an imaginary and entirely tuneless scale. He grit his teeth. He’d outlasted more annoying things. She improved on her offering.
‘The wairs on the wair go wair and wair, wair and wair, wair and wair, the wairs on the wair go wair and wair all wair long. The—’
* * *
It was a perfect day for sledging.
For once, English snow had not melted by morning and disappointed everyone, but lay hard and crisp on the tor. There was not enough slope for Emilia or Miles to get much enjoyment out of it, but Molly was in her element. She had a slave, however, and she screamed with delight as Ben tore her up or down on her little toboggan regardless of natural gravity. PB was giving chase and either trying to nip the runners to stop this foul activity, or to climb on, over-stimulated perhaps by being in his natural element and fighting some genetic memory of sleighs.
Radulf was sitting withhimin the lea of the rocks. The old dog still had his snow issues, which he had a perfect right to, and so wasn’t seduced by the fun. He was keeping a close (if slightly murky) eye out for librarians.
They’d been discussing the wolves. Radulf had clearly heard them the previous night, as his protest at such transgression on an elderly wolfhound’s sleep had been audible from the graveyard. In his opinion, they were definitely wolves, not dogs as Ben had suggested, and therefore wasn’t it good they all had a…hello!...wolfhound! Andeverybodyknew that wolfhounds guarded against wolves better after some chocolate. Aleksey had countered this very well-presented argument by pointing out that, according to Miles, chocolate was poisonous to dogs. He and Radulf were happily debating this evil fallacy as he tossed him some biscuits.
It was inevitable that Molly would eventually want Emilia to be pulled around, and then Miles, and so Ben had his work cut out for him, and by the time the rest of them were all cold and talking about heading home, Ben was bending over, hands on his knees, sweating and panting. Aleksey considered he’d been punished enough for six rounds of The Wairs on the Wair and therefore graciously offered to carry Molly through the snow. If this left Ben with three toboggans, two dogs, and two other humans to corral home, it did. Thems were the rules of trying to annoy him.
As it was a snow day, and therefore no school for Miles or Molly, Ben offered to make everyone lunch, and so once more their kitchen became a riot of wet coats and boots. He took himself to his study for some peace. Feet up on his desk, eyes closed, he was pondering important things when Ben woke him up with a mug of tea and a sandwich. Ben perched on the desk, one hand onhisshin, idly rubbing it under his trouser leg. ‘Squeezy’s dug them out. They’re going to see if they can get through on the lanes.’
‘Deep joy. This day continues to improve from its impressive start.’
Ben smirked, clearly knowing full well how his littlego wake Papa upamusement had been received.
‘We’re all going to watch a movie. Wanna come?’
‘A film that I would enjoy equally with a four-year-old has not yet been made.’
