Time didn't slow down.

Eva received another letter from Anthony just days after Dad's visit telling her he would be deployed in just a few days time. By the time the letter arrived, he had already left for France. I did my best to make her feel better, but it was hard because Dad hadn't been deployed yet and I had been able to see him before he was. She didn't get that luxury.

Planes continued to pass overhead and Alec had made some offhanded comments about potential plans for the Germans to try and invade. Of course, it was more of a rumour than anything else since his brothers had written explaining that they were going out on more drills than normal. They assumed the worst and I couldn't really blame them. In truth, I didn't like the direction the war had started to take and knew it would be a matter of time until Dad was deployed too.

Still, even if time didn't appear to slow down, work on the farm continued as usual. The sheep added to our workload and our first lambing season had started to approach so we were getting ready for a lot of added work. Jonathan said he would teach me the art of shearing the sheep when it came up, although I didn't think I would have the strength to hold the sheep down to stop it from hurting me.

"Can you go down to the stables and feed Jigsaw and Romeo for me? I need to check on the sheep for a second, they were creating a lot of noise in the early hours of the morning," Jonathan said as we finished up breakfast.

"Of course, do you think something's wrong with them?"

"I don't know, I doubt it, but I'm going to check just to be on the safe side. It's been a long time since we've had animals other than chickens and horses on this farm so I want to make sure that everything is as it should be."

"Right."

"You know what you're doing when it comes to feeding the horses?"

"I've seen you do it enough times."

"True enough, but you have to get the amounts just right."

"Leave her alone, Jonathan. I'm sure Sybil will be fine with the horses," Barbara said, shaking her head a little.

"Alright, alright." Jonathan held his hands up in mock defeat. "You don't have to gang up on me."

Barbara laughed and turned back to her breakfast without saying another word, although I could see the slight trace of a smile on her lips. She had definitely warmed to me and we even teamed up to annoy Jonathan on multiple occasions. I couldn't say we were friends, more friendly acquaintances which was more than enough for me. It would be weird if we became real friends, she was definitely more of a mother figure than a friend.

After breakfast, Jonathan headed up towards the sheep pen and I went down to the stable to feed the horses. Jigsaw and I were firm friends, but I still had my doubts about Romeo since he was such a big horse. I still didn't like to get too close to him if I could help it and spent all of my Jigsaw so I didn't have much knowledge or experience with Romeo. He still scared me, and I expect he always would.

Jigsaw whinnied when he saw me coming, although I think that was more to do with the promise of food than actually seeing me. I could hear him stomp his foot inside the stall which showed just how impatient he really was when it came to food.

"I'm coming," I said, laughing slightly.

I reached the stable and opened up Jigsaw's stall, taking his food bowl out of it and tucking it under my arm. Jigsaw watched me wall out of his stall with the bowl, lightly stroking his nose as I went, and moved towards Romeo's stall. The other horse watched me without making a noise, his eyes following me as I unlocked the stall to step inside.

Both Alec and Jonathan had said that horses had a way of telling whether or not someone was scared and I think Romeo knew I was terrified. He watched me move around him and stretch out to reach his food bowl which was only just in my reach. It unnerved me the way his eyes followed me as I walked around the stall, his head barely moving but his eyes still managing to watch me. The sooner I was out of the stall the better.

With both food bowls tucked under my arms, I shuffled out of Romeo's stall by trying to make as little eye contact with him as possible. Romeo would always be an intimidating horse to me and the less I spent around him, the better. I moved down the track and towards a small barn where we kept the straw for cleaning the stables and the hay that we gave them as a treat. Having watched Jonathan fill the bowls multiple times over the past few months, I followed his actions and filled the bowls from the feed bag.

I took the two bowls back to the stable, sliding into Romeo's stall first and putting the bowl back before leaving. The last thing I wanted to do was get in the way of his food. Jigsaw whinnied and I walked into his stall with his bowl in hand. I set it down in the corner of the room and paused beside it as Jigsaw turned around to start eating. As he ate, I lightly stroked his nose and back.

"Hi!" a voice said behind me. I jumped and spun around, my heart slamming against my rib cage.

"Alec! That wasn't funny!" I reached my hand into Jigsaw's food and pulled out a handful of horse feed, throwing it at Alec and watching it bounce off his glasses.

"I thought it was." He grinned. "What are you doing?"

"Feeding the horses, what does it look like?"

He shrugged. "That you were just visiting."

"What are you doing here?" I walked around Jigsaw and opened the stall, stepping out and closing the door behind me.

"Mable has some friends from school over and I don't want to be stuck in the house with a bunch of screaming girls, so I thought I would come and annoy you."

"Don't you have any friends of your own? Other people you can annoy?"

"You sound like you don't enjoy my company. Syb, you wound me. It hurts to hear you speak in such a way."

I shook my head and tried to suppress a smile. "My point has been proven."

"I'm here now, you can hardly send me away."

He was right. Alec had made the journey to the farm, apparently on foot, and I could hardly turn him away. Still, my question still stood. In all the time I had been in the country, I had never seen Alex with anyone other than his family and me. He never spoke of his time at school other than not enjoying it and I had never heard him mention another name of a local child. I couldn't help but wonder if he even had any other friends.

With the horses fed, we walked back up the track and towards the sheep pen where Jonathan stood inside counting the sheep. Goose stood at the gate to the pen wagging her tail and looked set to jump in the pen and start chasing the sheep, something she had already tried once. When Alec stood on a fallen twig, her attention shifted from the sheep and towards him since he was someone knew she could beg fusses from.

I walked past her as she jumped up at Alec and splattered his trousers with mud and instead went to stand behind the fence. Jonathan stood in the centre of the pen with the sheep moving around him or simply sitting on the ground, none of them appeared all that bothered by his appearance. I leant my arms against the top beam of the fence and watched him.

Even though Jonathan was a great teacher - he had helped me an awful lot with my reading lessons - he always seemed in his element on the farm. I thought it to be the place he really belonged and he knew almost everything there was to know about farm work, even the most obscure of things.

"One of the sheep didn't get out, did it?" Alec asked, finally pushing Goose off him and joining me at the fence.

"Not that I can tell," Jonathan said. "I just wanted to check that none of the ewes had given birth overnight."

"Dad thought it might be towards the end of the month."

"I'll keep that in mind." Jonathan made his way through the pen to join us. "To what do we owe the social visit?"

"Mabel has some friends over and they're having a tea party, I didn't want to get dragged into that one again."

"Again?" I asked.

"Hm, the last time I had to drink fake tea from a cup and talk to her stuffed animals. Never again."

I laughed. "That's something I'd like to see."

"Trust me, you really don't."

"Do you have any plans for the day? Either of you?"

"Not really, sir. Other than annoying Sybil."

"Then perhaps you can do me a favour. I was down at the vegetable patch yesterday and noticed a fox-sized hole in the fencing. Could you take some of the spare wood and fix it for me? I need to get Romeo a new set of shoes."

"'Course we can, right Syb?" Alec said. I nodded.

"Excellent. The wood is behind the house."

Alec grabbed me lightly by the forearm and dragged me away from the pen and around the back of the house where the extra wood was kept. Whilst Alec collected a few scraps that he thought would do the job for the fence, I returned to the house to grab my hammer and a few nails which I slipped into my slacks pocket so I would be able to find them. Once we had everything, we set off in the direction of the vegetable patch.

The patch we had was still small with some of the large fields needing ploughing before we could plant food to sell. Mr Thompson said he would plough it for us, but needed to get his own fields in order first so we used the small vegetable patch around the back of the house. The vegetable patch meant we weren't spending money on things like carrots since they were behind the house and we would have easy access to them were they rationed. It certainly made life easier.

I found the hole at the very pack of the fence that encased the vegetables. Wire covered them from above so that a fox wouldn't be able to get in, but the foxes had found another way through.

"What are you thinking?" Alec asked as I inspected the hole.

"One plank of wood should do it. It looks like the stuff we used was rotting on the inside and we didn't notice."

"Unusual for you."

"I thought the wood was new." I shrugged.

"Right. You hammer, I'll hold the wood in place. Just don't hit my fingers."

"I'm careful, unlike you."

"Now you've jinxed it. You're going to hit me."

"I don't think so."

"Want to put a wager on that?"

"And what would I have to wager? My pocket money is meagre at best."

"A picnic. If you hit me, we go back to the clearing for a real picnic. If you don't hit me, we won't go."

"Alright, fine."

He smiled and grabbed one of the planks of wood, lining it up with the hole so that it covered it completely. I fished around in my pocket until I found the nails and grabbed on, placing it against the wood and hitting it with the hammer until it sat comfortably against the beams already in place. Alec looked at me and raised an eyebrow, but he had a slight smirk on his face.

I had never been a winner when it came to bets, but I had the feeling that this could be a successful one since I had never injured myself or someone else when I used a hammer, at least not on purpose. Alec looked determined that he would win and I looked forward to crushing his hopes of a picnic.

A picnic would only push the rumours from Eva and Jonathan. I didn't want to do that.

~~~

A/N - We are back with Chapter Thirty-One! Still working my way through the rest of the story, but I'm approaching the end offline!

Questions! Do you think Sybil and Alec will go on the picnic? 

Comment below!

First Published - October 13th, 2021