They’re all getting hoarse. We hide our water bottles among the barley stalks, and if I get too hot I take off my boots and stand on them. No one can see my feet, after all.

Oooh. Just seen the bomb shuddering and letting off steam. It’s very impressive and really quite scary. This is a very difficult bit to shoot. We have to do all the scenes out of order so that we only squash the right bits of the barley at the right time and in the right order. Eeek. It’s taken them the entire week off to work out the shot lists, so all I can say is thank God Rhys broke his foot.

Gaia is now on set and working as a Runner. She’s very efficient. Last night we went back to the hotel and had room service and watched penguins on the telly.

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The Story 20

Cyril was feeling perfectly dreadful. Now his sulk was over, he was able to think about his own behaviour in relation to this nice family who had taken him in, and he wasn’t enjoying it at all. Why had he been so awful on that first day? He’d been feeling very sick because of the journey and all the chocolate he’d eaten – and come to that, why had he eaten all the chocolate? He decided it was because it made him feel better while it was in his mouth but worse when it reached his tummy. And then he’d broken the jam they’d made for their father, and now he was dead, and Cyril’s conscience was giving Cyril a very hard time of it. He knew he had to do something, he just didn’t know what. He’d followed Norman instinctively, but had no idea what he would do when he found him. He searched the house but Norman wasn’t there. Then Cyril realised where he’d be. He walked into the barn and sure enough, there was Norman, sitting on the Scratch-O-Matic with his back to him. Cyril stopped and thought. What do you say when someone’s just found out that their dad isn’t going to come home ever? What if he was crying? Then Cyril remembered what Prongwithers Minor had come up with when Cyril’s grandmother had died last term.

‘Rotten luck,’ he said.

Norman turned and looked at him briefly, then turned back, not rudely but as if he were concentrating on something.

Cyril saw that he wasn’t crying and also that he wasn’t angry with Cyril – so he decided to try something more difficult. He tried to apologise.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘about the way I’ve been – I don’t know why I . . . anyway, I’m sorry.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Forget it,’ said Norman, and Cyril knew he meant it.

Cyril felt a bit better and walked around to look at the levers of the wonderful machine Mr Green had invented. Tactfully he concentrated on the machine and not on Norman.

‘This is a great idea,’ he said. ‘He’s . . . He must’ve been a brilliant designer, your dad –’

Norman interrupted him. ‘He’s not dead,’ he said.

Cyril was so surprised that he turned to look straight at Norman.

‘What?’ he said.

‘He’s not dead. I know it. For sure.’ And Norman did look very sure.

‘Norman, how do you know?’ said Cyril, worried that Norman might have gone temporarily insane, like his Aunt Jemima when she’d found a weevil in the pistachios.

Norman looked at Cyril for a long time, rather intensely, as though trying to make a decision. It was starting to make Cyril feel very uncomfortable when suddenly Norman spoke again, as if he’d decided to trust Cyril somehow.

‘My dad’s more than just a farmer. My dad’s what they call a natural. That means that he knows when things are going to happen – he knows when the cow’s going to calve or when a lamb’s in trouble on the hill. He says it’s because he feels things in his bones. And he’s always right. Always. Well, I can feel it in my bones that he’s alive. I just know it.’

Cyril was silent for a bit. He was thinking furiously. Norman seemed utterly certain of what he’d just said. Cyril could see from the firm, clear gaze in Norman’s eyes that he was sure his father was alive. What did one do in such a situation? Nothing in cadet school had prepared him for this.

Very gently, he started to speak, ‘Norman, are you sure you don’t feel like this because – well –