“To be sure, Lullah, you are the dark horse now, aren’t you? All this kissing the boys! And the naughty boys!”

I tried Numbers 1 and 3 on my Northern grit list. I straightened my shoulders and said, “This cold’s quite bracing, isn’t it?”

Vaisey and I are planning to rehearse every lunchtime in any space we can find for our duet performance. I thought if I plunged myself into work I could forget about Charlie. And about my new reputation at Dother Hall as a sort of groupie for The Jones.

At our first rehearsal, Vaisey said, “Even though Jack will never see this piece, I want to do what he said. You know, show my true self to the world.”

So we trotted around in the dance studio working out our moves. As we trotted, Vaisey said, “I think Black Beauty and Merrylegs are symbolic of my feelings as a child about friendship and loss. I loved my pony Goldie, but then I got too big for her and she got sold and I cried for two weeks.”

I didn’t say anything.

Vaisey said, “Do you know what I mean, Lulles?”

Oh yes, I knew all about the crying game.

The shame game.

The pain game.

It’s all the same game.

But, as Sidone says, the show must go on.

Vaisey was trying out some dressage moves for Black Beauty when I reminded her of the rap I’d written about the owlets. She said, “Wow, that’s a brilliant idea. A rap. You could do a rap in this piece. Do you think you could make one up now?”

I said, “I’ll have a go. I’ll just improvise . . .”

I grabbed the false horsey legs and banged one of the hoofs against the radiator. It made a nice clunky sound. So I started stalking around, using the hoofs to bang things as I rapped.

Yeah, me know about the crying game,

The crying game is my game.

And me know about shame.

And the blame

It’s my middle name

Aye

Peace.

Vaisey said, “Wow, that’s really cool, isn’t it? It’s brilliant. Merrylegs could sing it right at the end as he dies. Honestly, Lulles, I don’t think there’s going to be a dry eye in the house.”

I didn’t say, but personally I think that a horse doing a rap song would mean there wouldn’t be a dry seat in the house.

Oh noooo, I can feel another enormous embarrassing incident coming on.

It happened even sooner than I thought. As Vaisey was prancing about neighing, she said, “This is the bit where we’re happy and free in our field playing together. I’ll do the cross hoof thing and you do high prancing and whinnying.”

Just then, Dr. Lightowler popped her beak round the door and began to watch.

At the end she said, “Excellent, Vaisey. Your performance has depth and pathos and your singing is a delight. And Tallulah . . . well, what can I say that I haven’t said before?”