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how they were.
    Danny went to his room and opened his envelope to remind himself why that could never ever be so.
    ~
    Saturday mid-morning and the phone went again. They didn’t get many calls here. Their friends were mostly within Hope Springs, and they didn’t need to use the telephone to talk to them.
    Danny answered. He half-expected it to be his father again, with the latest developments, although it was unlikely anything would have happened at the weekend.
    “Yuh?”
    “Hello, could I speak to Danny Smith, please?”
    “Speaking.”
    “Danny. You sound different on the phone. It’s me, Cassie Lomax.”
    Danny’s mother was mouthing Who is it? He put a hand over the phone and said, “A friend.” She raised an eyebrow, and returned to cleaning Josh.
    Danny went into the living room with the phone. “What was that?” he said, as Cassie had carried on talking during his exchange with Val.
    “I said , I’m out in the village right now and it’s lovely and sunny and I’m like, let’s call Danny and see what he’s doing. You want to come out? I mean, not go out . I’m not asking you on a date or anything. I mean, it’s nice and I thought you might want some fresh air, and I can talk too much and you can do your strong silent bit and all that. A right pair, we are. I’m down in the church car park right now. What do you reckon?”
    He was smiling. He’d held the phone away from his ear while she talked, listening to her from a distance. He’d never known anyone like Cassie Lomax.
    “Okay,” he said. “Five minutes.”
    “Okay. Five minutes.”
    He pressed the disconnect button on the phone’s handset, and leaned back in his chair. A few minutes later he was heading out down the main driveway, under the lime trees, the bluebells now fully out in bloom.

7 What Parents Do
    The church was right next to Hope Springs. The community’s grounds were enclosed by a two metre high wall, which formed one side of the triangular church car park. The road formed the second side and the vicarage railings the third. The entrance to the churchyard was at the top of the triangle, and Cassie was sitting on one of the benches inside the lychgate, in the shade of its roof.
    “Just as well it’s not a date, ’cos I haven’t made much effort,” she said, coming out into the sunlight. She was wearing a baggy green tee-shirt, and jeans that were faded down the front and dark on either side. “So, where are we going, then?”
    Danny stood there, mouth part-open. “I...”
    She laughed. “Come on,” she said. “Take me through the grounds of the school. I’ve never been there. I want to see if it’s like they say.”
    When she said “school” she meant Hope Springs. Villagers still called it Wishbourne Hall School, even though it had been run by HoST for something like ten years now.
    “What do they say it’s like?”
    She was past him already, so Danny turned and trotted to catch up.
    “You’re all naturists,” said Cassie. “And devil worshippers, of course. You dance naked under the full moon and sacrifice babies to The Dark One Below. You grow pot in the greenhouses, too. And there’s lots of brainwashing going on all the time, of course. That’s what you’re like. It’s what everyone says so it has to be true, doesn’t it?”
    “Through here,” Danny pointed to a small trail through the trees, cutting away from the main driveway.
    “So what’s it like, then? Living in a commune. Does everyone wear sandals and have long beards and things?”
    “Only the women,” said Danny. “It’s not a commune, really. It’s an experiment in sustainable living. We recycle everything we can. We grow a lot of our own food. We treat our own sewage and generate our own electricity. People come from all over the world to learn from Hope Springs.”
    They passed some houses. “These are all private homes,” Danny told her. “Nothing to do with Hope Springs. When the school closed down they sold off some of