Her mother nodded and smiled and waved, as long as she could see the van. Then the smile faded from her face, as if a hard hand had wiped it off. She took the boy by the hand and started walking slowly back to the house.

A Nice Boy

The forest warden’s son squeezed between the other customers in the bakery shop. He stood on his toes to be seen, and he kept a close eye on who came in after him. He was in a hurry. He almost always was. He needed a bottle of milk for his little brother. His mother was suddenly unable to nurse him anymore, because she had a tumor in her breast, and a fever.

He craned his neck trying to catch the eye of the baker, who was really taking his time. The mother of one of his classmates came into the store, and he quickly removed his hat, like a recruit to an officer. ‘Hello,’ he said.

She was grappling with a shopping bag in front of her, from which the ends of leeks stuck out and tickled his neck.

‘Hello, John. Congratulations on your new little brother. Isn’t it wonderful?’

‘Yep,’ he said, blushing bright red in his effort to express overwhelming joy.

They all turned to stare at him. Was he really happy?

‘No one was expecting that, were they?’ said the baker, smiling at a customer. ‘Got it in just under the wire.’

Then he turned to the boy.

‘And what do you need today?’

John lifted his basket up onto the counter and handed him the note his mother had written. ‘Otherwise you’ll forget half of it,’ she had said. He had never forgotten anything yet, but she always said things like that. He took the filled basket from the baker, with the change wrapped in the note.

‘Is he a cute little one?’ asked the baker, stroking his beard.

The boy nodded. ‘I guess,’ he said, ‘but he screams a lot.’

They all laughed, like adults always do when you don’t just say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. He thought he saw them looking at one another and winking as he hurried out the door.

Outside, the cold greeted him and made him sneeze. The woods rose like a huge mountain in front of him, and the house at the bottom was like a tiny dot. If he ran across the fields, he could be home in fifteen minutes; on the road it took half an hour. But it was too light out to trespass.