When I was mid-hiddly, I noticed Matilda had got caught in the umbrella stand. Umbrellas were crashing around her. She looked up, blinking at us.

Ruby said, “What? What? Why are you blinking at me?”

Then Matilda looked at the door and back at Ruby.

Ruby said, “No, I’m not taking you out now. It’s quiet time.”

Matilda started making a snuffling noise that sounded a bit like crying. Ruby gave in and picked her up.

“Oh, bloody hell, all right, Matilda, you daft ninny. Come on, I’ll tek you out, even though it’s going to be a tornado out there. C’mon, Lullah.”

She rammed a hat and coat on and dragged me outside with her.

Big black clouds were tumbling in again from Grimbottom and in the distance we could see lightning crackling. Ruby says you can tell how far away the storm is by counting the seconds in between thunder rolls. There was a rumble as we set off up the back path and then another one halfway up the track.

We reached the old tree with its branch that we used to sit on. Ruby pulled her jacket round her and shouted above the gathering wind. “It’ll start pouring down in abaht five minutes, so go fetch, Matilda!” And Ruby flung a stick for Matilda to chase.

Matilda looked up at Ruby and then lay down like a splayed chicken.

Ruby said, “Oh, you!!! That’s not ‘go fetch,’ is it? That’s lying down and dying for England!!!”

Ruby went running off into the bracken to get the stick, shouting, “And then you can start telling me abaht snogging and stuff, Lullah!”

She was waving a stick at Matilda, trying to get her to run. But I don’t think Matilda can run; she can only fast toddle. And she can’t do that without falling over. She’s not interested in stick fetching. She knows a stick is not a biscuit, so why would she want to fetch it? Ruby would have to throw a biscuit.

Gosh, it was wild up there with the lowering sky and the trees bending in the wind and the moors stretching off. It was getting murky and chilly.

I sat down on the branch and snuggled into my anorak and put my hood up. I was sitting on the branch that HE had sat on.

I could feel his warm presence even through my corduroys.

Alex the Good.

I was sitting where Alex the Good had sat.

In a way, I was sitting on his knee.

If he had been there.

On the branch.

Alex, Alex the Good. Ruby’s gorgey older brother.

I’ve got a bit of a crush on him. Even though he thinks I’m just a schoolgirl, he’s always nice to me. Really specially nice to me.

He’s not like the Hinchcliff brothers, Seth, Ruben, and the other brother. Whose name I will never mention again. But the one who waved with a dead rabbit’s paw. That one.

Yes, Alex is always nice to me, encouraging me to fill my tights. And not like Dr. Lightowler, the drama tutor, who fails to see my talent and says, “Seeing you onstage makes me feel physically sick.”