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you’ll see.’ He’s been more friendly since foot and mouth than he ever was before. He’s sent a card, and he’s rung up too,
offering to come over and give a hand. I told Mum and Dad about what Mr Bailey had said because I thought it might cheer them up a bit – I don’t think either of them even heard me.
Living with Mum and Dad is like living with ghosts – sad, silent ghosts. Mum doesn’t cry any more. Dad does, not in front of me, but I hear him in the bedroom. I can hear him now as
I’m writing this.

 
Sunday, March 25th
    The fire is out, and the people are gone. It’s done. It’s over. I talked to Jay on the phone again today. She’s been ringing a lot in the last few days.
It’s been really good to talk to her. She never talks about foot and mouth. She’s the only reminder I’ve got that there are other things happening out there. I’m still
quarantined, still not allowed out, not allowed back at school. This morning she told me that everyone in my class has written to me and that, if I liked, she could bring the letters to the farm
gate after school and hand them over.
    So we met up this afternoon at the end of the farm lane. She looked the same. I don’t know why, but I expected her to be different. We chatted for a long time. It was difficult at first,
like we were strangers almost – even though we’ve spoken often on the phone. She gave me all the hot gossip. Apparently Sally Burton’s boast­ing that she’s going out
with Peter Mitchum, who’s now got a Mohican haircut and fancies himself rotten, but Jay knows for a fact that Peter is already going out with Linda Morrish. I laughed, not just because she
laughed, but because it sounded like news from another planet. Then she handed me this huge brown envelope with all the letters from school. She told me that Mrs Merton had been in tears when she
heard about our farm, and that she’d written a letter to me too. It was great seeing Jay again, hearing her voice. For a short time I was part of the world again, the world outside. I watched
her cycle off until she disappeared round the corner, and then suddenly I felt very alone.
    I’ve been sitting on my bed reading the letters from school again and again. Some were written to all of us, to Mum and Dad and me, but most just to me.

    Mrs Merton wrote this: ‘It must all seem very grim and hopeless at the moment. But you mustn’t lose heart. You tell your family that we’re thinking of them, and that one day
soon all this misery will be over. There’ll be animals on the farm, and life will be as it was once again. There will be a life for you all after foot and mouth, and a good life
too.’
    The church bells are ringing. Someone else must be ringing Dad’s bell.

 
Wednesday, March 28th
    I’ve never been ill, not seriously ill, just colds and toothache. But I think this is like being really ill, so
ill you can’t forget it for a single moment. And the illness has changed everything. None of us can do what we used to do. Mum can’t go to work at her school, I still can’t go to
my school nor see my friends, Dad can’t milk his cows nor make his cheese.
    Our fire may be out, but when I looked out of the window first thing this morning I could see the smoke from three fires drifting down the valley. It’s like the whole
world is sick. And Dad is trying to wash it away. He’s out there from dawn to dusk working like a madman. Ever since the ministry told him that every building on the farm has to be cleared
out and disinfected, he hasn’t stopped. He’s out there now – and it’s nearly nine o’clock at night – cleaning off the rafters in the lambing shed. He’s
been at it all day. Mum has tried to stop him, to slow him down. But he won’t listen. I told Mum today how I’d heard him talking to Grandad in the cow barn. She looked very worried, but
then she told me something that explained it a bit. Apparently it was in the cow barn that Grandad had died