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Just the boys in the dorm – a quick look—”
    A slight, anxious frown crossed Dad’s face.
    Ralph added hastily, “Most of the boys won’t be there till Sunday night. I’ll send her back today. I promise.”
    “Tomorrow morning,” said Dad. “That’s a better time. I’ll give you some feed for tonight. Give her a drink just before you release her, but no food, mind, else you’ll never get rid of her. And no handling. She’s not one of my best birds, but if any harm was to come to her…”
    “I’ll take care,” promised Ralph.
    Dad moved to the nest boxes. “Get a small basket, Lennie.” He caught the blue chequer hen and put her in. Blue Cloud cooed and shifted about.
    Lennie and Ralph took the basket and went out to the passage.
    “Lennie,” said Ralph, “when you get her back you must write and tell me. Tell me what time she arrives.”
    “And you send a message. Tuck it under her ring.”
    “Yes! Yes, I will. I’d better go now, before they miss me. I don’t want my father to see the pigeon.”
    “He’ll hear it in the car. It’ll coo.”
    “Oh, he won’t take me. Cartwright will drive me there – the chauffeur. Cartwright’s my friend; he won’t say anything. Bye! See you next hols.”
    He went off, the pigeon basket bumping against his leg.
    When Lennie returned to the yard he found Mum and Dad there, talking. Dad was holding the King Arthur book, which Lennie had put down in the loft when he went to fetch the basket.
    “Did Ralph give you this?” asked Dad.
    “Lent it.”
    Dad turned the pages reverently. “You’d better take good care of it.”
    “I don’t like him having that,” said Mum. “Suppose it got damaged?”
    “I’ll be careful,” said Lennie. “Ralph wanted to lend it to me.”
    Dad said cautiously, “Ralph seems a nice lad.”
    “You should have brought him in,” said Mum. “I’d have made tea.”
    “He was in a hurry.”
    “But it seems rude—”
    “Now, Lina, don’t fuss,” said Dad. He turned to Lennie. “That’s a posh-sounding school he goes to in Cheltenham. Boarding school. You’d need money to go there.”
    “They’ve got a big house,” said Lennie.
    “What’s his name? Surname, I mean.”
    Lennie took a breath. “Wilding.”
    Both parents stared.
    Lennie stammered, “I… I think. I mean, it might not be…”
    “Wilding’s son!”
    Lennie’s stomach tightened, ready for anger. But Dad let out a gust of laughter, then started to wheeze.
    “Oh, Tom, don’t get excited,” warned Mum.
    Dad wheezed some more, laughing still. “And there’s me nagging the child to be careful of my pigeon – Wilding’s son! I’ll say one thing for your friend, Lennie – he’s got a lot more charm than his father.”
    “He’s not a bit like his father!” Lennie retorted. “He can’t help it if he’s George Wilding’s son, can he?”
    “No, of course he can’t,” said Mum. “And there’s good and bad in everyone. Even you’ve said, Tom, that Wilding’s fair in his dealings.”
    “Aye, he’s fair. What he says he’ll do, he’ll do. Stickler for the letter. But he’s a hard man. Expects everyone to come up to his standards.” He laughed, shortly. “I wouldn’t like to be his son. His only son. Wilding must take some living up to.”
    Mum said, “How’s he going to feel about Lennie going round there? He’s got no time for you, has he?”
    Lennie knew Mum was thinking of Dad’s Union activities and his claim for compensation for the dust disease. The colliery were denying liability and saying Dad had bronchitis.
    “Oh, he wouldn’t take it out on the child,” Dad assured her.
    “But he won’t like it…”
    She regarded Lennie anxiously.
    Lennie felt angry and miserable. He said, “Well, it doesn’t matter, any road, because Ralph has gone back to school now and he won’t be home till Christmas and that’s ages and ages away.”
    And on Monday, he was thinking,
he’d
be back at school too. And Bert Haines