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listening.
    ‘Us guessed she was here.’ Lumas was belligerent. ‘Little varmint! Sneakin’ off.’
    ‘Why shouldn’t she? It’s her horse.’
    ‘Hers?’ shouted Lumas.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Kids don’t own hosses.’
    ‘This one does. Old Mrs Lovell’s possessions will go to her next of kin. That’s the child, Lumas, not you.’
    ‘What about my expenses?’ said Lumas in the ingratiating whine every traveller can adopt. ‘Payin’ for the funeral an’ all.’
    ‘Mrs Lovell paid for her own funeral,’ the Admiral said crisply. ‘I happen to know because she left the money with me and I paid it to Uncle Jess Smith.’
    ‘But we come over at once,’ pleaded Lumas. ‘Us and the Smiths. Up sticks and come. That costs something with petrol and all.’
    ‘Not the thirty pounds you would have got from the knackers. You were doing the child out of that. Well, let’s say you had a certain amount of trouble and you did the job well, so I
shall give you twenty pounds. Take it and keep clear of the horse.’
    ‘Twenty!’ Lumas was outraged.
    ‘Twenty.’
    ‘Make it twenty-five.’ Lumas tried to make his whine more ingratiating.
    ‘Twenty and you’re lucky.’ Her eye to the door, Kizzy saw Admiral Twiss take out his wallet. At the sight of the notes and the sound of their paper crackle, Lumas’s whole
face changed, as Kizzy had known it would.
    He put out his hand, then stopped. A gleam had come into his eye. Unlike Mr Smith, Lumas Doe liked horses – young ones he would have said. ‘You wouldn’ trade with that roan
colt, sir?’
    ‘I would not,’ and the Admiral said to Peters, ‘Get his receipt, then give him the money.’
    Admiral Twiss came back to Kizzy. ‘That is settled,’ he said. ‘We’ll put Joe in the small meadow. It has buttercups in summer and he’ll be under Nat’s eye. No
one can get him there.’
    ‘Sir Admir . . .’ but Kizzy did not finish saying it. The book-lined walls that had seemed to swim, the fire that blazed up and down, blurred together in front of her eyes; she
tottered in the camel hair dressing gown. ‘I . . . don’t feel . . . very w-well,’ gasped Kizzy.
    ‘Pneumonia,’ said Doctor Harwell. ‘Strange. I have never known a gypsy child get it before.’
    ‘She’s been through bad distress,’ said Admiral Twiss.
    ‘And up all night,’ said Peters.
    ‘I’ll call the ambulance.’ Doctor Harwell shut his case. ‘Though I don’t like moving her in this weather.’
    ‘It’s not only that.’ The Admiral said it slowly. ‘For a traveller child to go into hospital is harder than for most. They’re not used to central heating, bright
lights, modern clatter. She . . .’ and Admiral Twiss took the plunge, ‘she had better stay here.’
    ‘You would have to get a nurse.’
    The Admiral and Peters exchanged glances of consternation. ‘But she would be a woman,’ said Peters.
    ‘Naturally.’ Doctor Harwell could not help smiling at their faces.
    ‘We needn’t have a nurse,’ said the Admiral. ‘If you will give us your instructions, I can get Mrs Doe or Mrs Smith up to see to her,’ but when Doctor Harwell had
left and Admiral Twiss walked down to the orchard, it was empty; the Does and Smiths had gone. ‘Taken your twenty pounds and moved out,’ said Peters. All that was left were droppings of
Joe’s, the small ash of the fire and a bigger pile, still smoking, of the wagon with, lying in it, the bent and blackened iron hoops of the wheels. ‘In any case, they wouldn’t
stay on a site where there had been a death,’ said the Admiral, but the Does and Smiths had not kept the orchard rules: tins and rubbish lay about and, ‘I can guess we shan’t see
them again,’ said Admiral Twiss.

Chapter Three
    In Mrs Blount’s classroom Kizzy’s place stayed empty. ‘I suppose those other travellers have taken her away,’ said Mrs Blount.
    ‘That is what I’m afraid has happened.’ Mr Blount was discouraged. ‘It’s not much use