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boy’s figure appeared as he strode onto the lawn. Only next to Uncle Kurt, who was so obviously a man, did his leadership falter. Kurt would have played, I was sure, but he was still in bed, recovering from the hunting expedition, which, according to Uncle Cedric, had been tiring for all concerned. That hadn’t stopped either Cedric or Frank from being present at the opening of the grand tournament, but, in typical fashion, they said they would sit by the sidelines and produced lawn chairs to carry out this plan.
    “Lemonade for our parched throats, sun hats for our balding heads, lawn chairs for our tired legs—it’s all we need,” Uncle Frank declared.
    “Anyone would think you were two twittering old aunties,” Francesca said.
    “I don’t believe any child coming from the Hatfield family should describe an aunt as a twitterer,” Cedric replied. He had a dry monotone that perfectly set off his careful jokes.
    Francesca laughed and turned around to demand the first mallet.
    “There are only six,” Tom said.
    “Play in pairs,” my mother suggested. “We often did that.”
    “We don’t want to play,” the Delias said. They spoke in unison with uncanny frequency, standing next to each other, pale and dark, stocky and skinny, straight-haired and curly-haired, and each grinning the same Cheshire-cat grin, as if between the two of them they were hiding a raft of secrets.
    “That’s fine. Caroline and I will play,” Aunt Rose announced.
    “And me?” Aunt Margery asked. “What will I do?”
    “Sit with the uncles,” Rose said, nodding over at them.
    “That’s all right. Margery can play for me,” my mother said.
    “But you’re much better than Margery,” Rose objected, frowning.
    “We’ll switch off,” said my mother. “There’s nothing wrong with three to a mallet.”
    Aunt Edie appeared at the door, and Isabella said at once, a smile twitching her lips, “Here comes Aunt Edie. She’s a mean hand at croquet, you know. Back in her glory days, she would play in the nationals. They used to call her Edie the Invincible. But sometimes they called her Edie the Skunk.”
    “Be careful,” Aunt Margery said. “You’re closer to the truth than you know. Edie used to beat us every time we played. Even Kurt—he used to be absolutely furious when she skunked him across the lawn. He would dedicate the game to getting his revenge, and so, of course, he always lost.”
    “Croquet, is it?” Edie asked, sweeping over the lawn. She wore a blue skirt and a strange green jacket, short and old-fashioned. Her nose traveled well before the rest of her body. “Is there a free mallet?”
    “The older generation can battle it out over the blue mallet,” Tom said. “But the rest go to us. Who wants green?”
    We paired off: Francesca with Charlie, Tom with Isabella, Philip with Fisher. Yvette was given a mallet to herself, which indicated not so much that the other cousins were being generous as that no one wanted to put up with her acerbic comments. Pamela and I got stuck with the crooked yellow mallet, identified by Tom as the runt of the litter. The wood of its handle had warped, and whenever you hit a stroke with it, the ball inevitably curved left.
    “But we’ll lose!” I protested.
    “Just take the warp into account,” said Tom, dismissing me.
    “What does it matter?” said Pamela. “We would have lost anyway. This way we have an excuse.”
    Just as we were beginning to play, Uncle Frank asked, “Shouldn’t Kurt have made an appearance by now? It’s unlike him to miss something like this.” From that point on, though Isabella had only just made the first stroke, my interest in the game was overshadowed by a stronger interest in Uncle Kurt’s whereabouts. When would he come? I played with one eye on the door leading into the kitchen and flubbed my shots even more than I would have because of the warp.
    “We’ll never get anywhere if you play like that,” Pamela pointed out, her serenity