Read Little Foxes for Free Online Page B

her lips, took the cosy off the teapot and poured herself a cup of tea. She sat down opposite him and flicked the ash off her cigarette into the ashtray. ‘Did you hear about those fox cubs, Billy?’ she asked suddenly, but she did not wait for an answer. ‘Four of them there was – that’s what my friend Ivy told me, you know Ivy at number 38 – and she said Mrs Bootle told her and she’s on the Committee so she ought to know, shouldn’t she? Well, someone spotted one of them a few days ago just down by that old ruin, just outside the fence it was. You know the place, Billy? Then yesterday there was three of them seen from the school. Children came home full of it, Ivy said. You didn’t see them, Billy, did you? Don’t suppose you did – didn’t say anything about it, did you? Well anyway Mrs Bootle wasn’t going to have it. Vermin are vermin, like she says, and when they grow up they only breed, don’t they? And they’re into dustbins all the time, spreading litter and disease. And Ivy says she knows her tabby cat was eaten by a fox last year – couldn’t have been anything else, she says. And like Mrs Bootle says, they’re a danger to health. I mean did you smell that dead fox a few weeks back? And she says they’ve been known to attack children in their prams when they’re hungry enough. And they don’t wash, you know, they don’t ever wash. Well they wouldn’t, would they? Anyway, Mrs Bootle, she’s Chairman of the Committee now, you know, well she wasn’t having it, like I said. She rang up the Pest Control people last night and they came quick as lightning first thing this morning. Not surprising really – been a lot of complaints about vermin on the estate. What’s the matter, Billy? Don’t you like your baked beans? Told me you could eat like a horse. Something the matter with you? You eat up, there’s a good boy. Like I was saying, they went in and gassed them, just like that. Good thing too, I should say. Met Mrs Cole at the supermarket and her husband that works on the Council, he was there – he was one of them that did it. You won’t ever go near that place, will you, Billy? Mrs Cole told me, she said there’s been strange goings-on in there – you know, like rituals, witches and that. She said they found a cross of twigs stuck into the ground and a fresh grave with flowers on it. Don’t you ever go near that place, Billy, do you hear? Come on now Billy, eat your baked beans. I opened a big tin and you said you’d eat it. It’s not right to waste things, Billy, I’m not made of money you know.’
    ‘How many did you say they found?’ Billy asked, blinking back the tears that threatened to engulf him, wiping them away from the corners of his eyes.
    ‘One cross is quite enough, Billy,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette. ‘People get up to all sorts in places like that, Black Magic, Voodoo. You keep away, like I said.’
    ‘Foxes,’ said Billy patiently. ‘How many foxes did they find?’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know. Think it was four. Do wish you’d stop playing with those beans and eat up, Billy. They’ll be all cold if you leave them much longer. No, perhaps it was three they killed. Maybe it was four, I don’t know. Three, four, what’s the difference? Anyway, Mrs Cole said they’d be going back in to flush out any more if there are any. Are you crying, Billy? Are you all right, dear? Oh Billy, there’s no need for that. You don’t have to eat the baked beans if you don’t want to. I can keep them back for tomorrow. There’s no need to cry, Billy.’ Billy wept silently, his tears falling from his cheeks onto the baked beans. ‘All this fuss over beans, Billy,’ said Aunty May. ‘I’ve never known you cry before, and now this and all because of baked beans. You’ll spoil them, Billy. I don’t understand you at all, Billy, I’ve never understood you. I don’t like to see boys who cry, Billy. You’re a big boy now. Crying’s for babies, Billy, not big