around the cricket and spins it in silk. Then she mends her web again. It goes very fast. We watch her finish all her jobs and go back to the middle of her web. She will catch lots of crickets and she will wrap them all up. I know because we have watched her now for three days. She is never hungry in the morning. Then, when the sun drops behind the trees on the banks of the stream, sending their shadows rolling out across the low meadow, we will pass her on our way home, and she will be eating her supper.
If we are lucky, when we get home, Maman will have had some sleep and we can have our supper too. Most nights the baby in Maman’s tummy does not sleep, but does somersaults instead. This means Maman is awake too, because how could you sleep with someone doing their exercises inside you? In the mornings Maman is usually cross about everything. This morning she was in such a mood. She came downstairs at breakfast time and made coffee without saying a word. She took it back to her bedroom with a piece of toast. She will eat it in bed, with four pillows behind her, waiting for the baby to get tired, and then, I hope, she will sleep too.
Further down into the meadow we find the perfect spot to play. There are lots of different paths to take and trees and bales of hay to hide behind.
OK, says Margot. I’m going to hide first.
That means I am counting. I can count to over one hundred but for this game I only count to eleven. When I have finished – and I do not peek through my fingers, not even slightly – I look around. I can’t see Margot, but I can hear her easily. She is hiding by the cherry tree in the corner of the meadow. There are no cherries on it now, but the rotten ones and lots of stones are scattered all around nearby. She is making too much noise because the grey donkey has followed her and is snuffling her for food. It tickles when they do that. I run over, laughing.
I found you! I sing, but she looks at me with her serious face as though she had never been hiding at all.
Welcome to the library, says Margot in a very important voice. Today we are only allowed to choose one book, and it was my turn. I have chosen this book. It is about skeletons.
She holds up the book. It is a pretend one, of course.
I know about skeletons. Once I went to a museum and saw dinosaur skeletons. They are like jigsaw puzzles for scientists. Scientists are people who do experiments, and jigsaws made of bones.
Are they dinosaur skeletons? I ask Margot.
The dinosaurs are dead, she says. They did used to exist, not like witches, but now they are all dead.
Why are they dead? I ask.
Please don’t interrupt, says Margot. Everybody will be dead one day, but for now it’s just the dinosaurs and Papa.
And the baby, I add.
Well, yes, and the baby, she says.
Did they have skeletons?
Yes, of course, everything has a skeleton, says Margot. Please concentrate.
So, she says, this is how you make a skeleton. When you get old you grow into a maman, and after that you get very old, with the wrinkles, then you die. Margot pauses.
Then what? I ask.
Then you stop talking and then you are a skeleton and then there is a big party with sandwiches, but not as much cake as at Christmas. And then you get born again like a baby and a policeman comes and pumps you up to be a grownup size.
I’m not sure if that is exactly right, but before I can ask Margot says, No more questions, thank you. And she shuts the book. I have to take the book back to the library before it closes, she says, looking at her watch.
Is it my turn to hide? I ask.
Oh, yes, that’s just what I was thinking, she says, but I think she had forgotten all about hide and seek.
I have thought of a new and very good place to hide, though, so I have been waiting for my turn. Margot puts her hands over her eyes and starts to count. She is counting in French today. Un, deux, trois . . .
I run back up the path, jumping over the spider, and then, instead of following