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crash. I shoved my face in front of his to make him pay attention. ‘If Morning Glory isn’t used to powerful cars, Mum would be furious if you let her take me out with her on her very first time.’
    He rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, all right! ’ Moving a winsome little china owlet into her battle position on the dado rail, he made one last weak stab at sending us off without him. ‘What is your mother’s line on hitchhiking?’
    â€˜She is one hundred per cent against it,’ I explained to him. ‘If she found out, she’d kill me. Then she would kill you.’
    â€˜That rather robs the safety aspect of forbidding it of some of its punch,’ said Uncle Tristram. ‘But I do take your point. Either we all three go, or Morning Glory hitches alone.’
    â€˜What?’ I said. ‘Wearing that ?’
    Uncle Tristram turned from his knick-knacks. ‘Isn’t she even dressed yet?’
    â€˜Yes,’ Morning Glory said. ‘This is a day dress.’
    â€˜Sorry,’ I said. ‘But it is very thin and airy, isn’t it? I thought it was another of your nighties.’
    Uncle Tristram sighed. ‘Whatever she calls it, it’s still an invitation to being pestered by strange men in beards. I suppose that means we’ll all three have to go.’
    â€˜Goody!’ said Morning Glory. ‘I’ll go and drag those filthy old pieces of tarpaulin off your nice car.’
    Uncle Tristram looked anxious. ‘There will be seagulls. Shouldn’t we leave them on?’
    Morning Glory’s face fell. ‘It seems a shame,’ she said, ‘to have a beautiful yellow car and drive around looking more like a moving haystack.’
    â€˜Better than having to spend the week chiselling off seagull poo,’ said Uncle Tristram. He went to rope the pieces of tarpaulin even more firmly over his Maverati while Morning Glory and I packed up some dandelion fritters and a few pork pies.
    Then we were off. The helicopters were all over again.
    â€˜Somebody lost at sea, I expect,’ said Uncle Tristram.
    â€˜Then why are they buzzing about all over the island?’
    â€˜Are they?’ He poked his head out of the open window and craned upwards. ‘So they are. Maybe they’re after bank robbers.’
    â€˜There are no banks on the island,’ Morning Glory said.
    â€˜Car thieves, then?’ Uncle Tristram suggested.
    â€˜They won’t want this one,’ I assured him. ‘With these tarpaulins draped all over it, it looks like a corporation tip on wheels.’

    â€˜Still,’ Morning Glory said wistfully, ‘it would be nice to have a little go at driving it . . .’
    Now he’d been dragged away from all his owls and pigs, it seemed that Uncle Tristram was far less keen to hand over the wheel to someone who had so far only trundled down a few cart tracks in a meals-on-wheels van, and used a rusty old squad car to fetch chips.
    â€˜As you so rightly said,’ he started pontificating, ‘this is a very powerful car. I’m not at all sure that it would be safe.’
    â€˜Please?’ Morning Glory pleaded. ‘One really quick burst? ’
    He winced. ‘No, no. I know that Harry’s mother wouldn’t like it.’
    How two-faced can you get? He had been keen enough to let her loose when it was only my life on the line.
    To spite him, I said, ‘I could always get out,’ and added mischievously, ‘After all, fair is fair! Morning Glory did take us all the way up the hill to look for angels.’
    â€˜Oh, all right,’ he rather surprised me by agreeing. ‘You get out of the car. That’ll be safer. Indeed, I think your mother would insist on it. We’ll drive back down the road the way we’ve come, just for a while, then turn round and meet you’ – taking revenge, he pointed to a sheep pen about a hundred miles away – ‘over