“You’re a fibber!” cried Tinker, losing his temper. “I’ll tell the police! I’ll tell my father! I’ll…”

“Don’t you talk to my old Grandad like that!” shouted the boy, standing beside the old man. “I’ll hit you if you do!”

“I’ll say what I like!” shouted Tinker, his temper now quite lost. “And just you shut up!”

The very next moment Tinker found himself flat on his back on the grass. The boy had shot out his fist and hit Tinker hard in the chest! He struggled to his feet, red in the face, quite furious.

The old man fended him away. “Don’t you be silly now, boy,” he said. “This youngster is a Tapper, like me, and he’ll never give in. You go home and be sensible. We ain’t going to take notice of a hot-headed little kid like you. Our circus is coming in this here field, just like it has for years and years!”

He turned and walked to the nearest caravan. It was drawn by horses, and he clicked to them. They strained forward and the caravan followed. Others behind began to move too. The circus boy put his tongue out at Tinker. “Sucks to you!” he said. “Nobody gets the better of my Grandad — or of me either! Still — it was plucky of you to go for him. I enjoyed it.”

“Shut up!” said Tinker, alarmed to find himself very near to tears. “You just wait till my Dad tells the police! You’ll all go out much quicker than you came in — and one of these days I’ll knock you down!”

He turned and ran back to the gate. He wondered what to do. He had so often heard his father say that the field behind their house belonged to him, and that he had let this or that farmer have the grazing rights for his horses or cattle. How DARE the Travelling Circus come into his father’s field?

“I’ll tell Dad,” he said to Anne, who was waiting at the gate. “He ought to turn them out! It’s our field and I love it, especially just now when it’s so green and beautiful, and the hedges are just going to be covered in white may. I’ll tell Dad that boy knocked me down — shot out his fist just like that — and down I went. I’d like to do the same to him!”

He went into the house, followed by a puzzled Anne.

He looked into the sitting-room and saw George there.

“Tinker! That boy knocked you down!” said Anne, in a horrified voice. “Why did he do that?”

“Oh — just because I told his Grandad to take his caravans away,” said Tinker, feeling rather grand. “He didn’t hurt me at all — just punched me on the chest. Still — I said what I had gone to say.”

“But will they take the caravans away out of the field?” asked Anne.