Sylvie followed Alex out to the garden where he lay a large check blanket underneath a low-hanging tree she recognized as a grey willow. The garden itself was beautiful, larger than she had imagined those belonging to these cottages would be. So close to the sea you could smell the salt and the seaweed in the air but it didn’t seem to have too much effect on the things growing.
Being September it was coming to the end of the season, but Sylvie could see the raspberry canes from the summer, next to a host of other fruit bushes. There were remnants of sweet peas that had clambered up trellises throughout the early summer months and now were ready to be cut down and composted.
A huge Cornish palm tree dominated the far corner of the garden where there was a large shed, painted a pale seaside blue, and a woodshed, with all the logs chopped and arranged in higgledy-piggledy rows ready for the coming winter.
She watched as Ellie and Sam came out through the wooden kitchen door, balancing pots of salad bits that Alex had instructed them to bring from the fridge, a green salad, beetroot and goat’s cheese, coleslaw.
Everything was placed in the centre of the blanket and then they all slowly munched their supper, content with the last of the day’s sunshine warming their skin.
Sylvie fell into her usual evening meal routine with Sam, without even thinking. It was a time the two liked to catch up on all that had been done in the day, and today had been so hectic that they hadn’t done so yet.
‘So, Sam, Ellie, have you had a good day? What did you do at school?’
Sometimes Sam would just murmurnothingand sometimes he would tell her in great detail, every possible second covered of what he had been up to. She never knew which it would be, but from his face this evening, it looked like it would be the latter.
‘Oh, we did a wishing tree, didn’t we, Ellie?’
Sam put his pizza down, unlike Ellie who nodded and made an uh-huh-yummmm noise as she gave him a thumbs-up and carried on eating her pizza at an alarming speed.
‘A wishing tree. Sounds cool. How does it work?’ Alex joined in.
‘We all think what we’d wish for most in the world and then we write it on a leaf, a leaf made of paper…’ Sam liked to be accurate, ‘…and hang it on our wishing tree. Miss Winter says mummies and daddies can come and see, so I can show you next school day. That’s not tomorrow, is it?’
‘No! Tomorrow is Sat-ur-day,’ Ellie was interested in that enough to pause eating, ‘and Daddy’s taking me to see Angileeena!’
‘That wasn’t a promise, that was a maybe,’ Alex clarified.
‘What if I make it a wish, then it has to come true.’
‘That’s not exactly how it works,’ Alex qualified and the children looked at him, horrified. As if he had kidnapped the tooth fairy and hidden her in a cupboard somewhere.
‘So, what did you both wish for?’ Sylvie tried to divert them.
‘I wished for an elephant.’
‘OK,’ grinned Sylvie. ‘To have for ever? To see one? What do you want your elephant for?’
‘I want an elephant ’cause we have the same name nearly so we’d have to be friends…’
‘That’s not tru…’ Sam interrupted only to stop, horrified by his own daring.
‘Go on, Sam, what were you going to say?’ Alex prodded gently. Sylvie tried to avoid scrunching her face up, her go-to reaction when she was worried about what might happen next. Sam did not like being put on the spot; he could retreat back into his shell so very easily.
But instead he looked at Alex, swiped a quick glance at Ellie and spoke.
‘Just that I know another Sam from gym club and I didn’t like him…’
Ellie scowled.
‘…but I ’spect your elephant will be different, Ellie.’
‘Of course it will. And we’re going to be friends, and it can sleep in the shed, and it will give me rides to school and then everyone will be like… Ellie, I want to be friends with you ’cause you’ve got an elephant and I’ll say I’m sorry, I might let you stroke him but he’s my elephant and he only likes me and Sam, so there.’ Finally, she stopped to take a breath, Alex looked like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do or say in this situation and Sylvie had to fight back the laughter, both at Ellie’s conviction that this was going to happen, and any day now; and at Alex’s fear that that might be the case!
‘That sounds great, I can see why you’d want an elephant, Ellie. Although it would be a long way from home if it came to Cornwall. He might get a bit chilly.’
Ellie narrowed her eyes at Sylvie. The child did not like to be challenged.
‘I’d give him a blanket.’
