After introducing Juliet to the other horses, I secured her in the stable and joined Barbara in the kitchen to prepare a picnic for our trip to the lake.

There wasn't much to it other than a few sandwiches, some ginger beer and a birthday cake that Barbara had made by saving up her sugar rations. I helped to pack the small wicker basket and fold up the frayed gingham blanket that would protect us from the grass. Jonathan grabbed a few towels from the linen cupboard as well and sat them on top of the basket which contained the picnic.

"Do we have everything?" Barbara asked, triple checking the basket.

"Yes, I believe so," Jonathan said. "Are you wearing your swimming costume, Sybil?"

"It's under my dress."

Barbara furrowed her eyebrows at me. "That cannot be comfortable."

"It's not, but it's practical." I shrugged.

"You're a strange one, Syb, you really are."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Jonathan laughed and grabbed the basket before Barbara could, causing her to frown a little. With the basket packed, Goose attached to her lead, and my swimming costume making my dress look a little odd, we set off towards the lake to meet the others.

Rather than take the tractor, Jonathan decided it would be better for us to walk and Goose was more than happy to comply. She sniffed everything she could get close to and tried to eat every blade of grass we came across. Several times she just stopped and I had to give her a light tug on her lead in order to get her moving again, although I couldn't blame her for being so curious. Neither of us had ever gone down to the lake before, although I had ventured a little further out than she had, but I understood the excitement. I had never been to a lake before.

We walked across open fields and rolling hills, the terrain changing constantly until the backs of my legs burned from the effort of climbing all the hills. Jonathan and Barbara didn't seem all too bothered by the hills but they had climbed them countless times in the past and I hadn't. The sun beat down on us and felt stronger due to the lack of cover from trees. Sweat dripped down my face and even down the back of my swimming costume which made an already uncomfortable situation that much worse. All I could do was hope the walk was worth it, just as Alec said it would be.

Eventually, the hills flattened out and we walked across the large, open patch of land with a few trees and bushes dotted about the area. I could hear loud voices as we moved across the open field and, eventually, a large lake came into view. By the edge of the lake, I could make out Eva, Enid and Mark playing around by the water with Mark on the verge of pushing them both in. Off to the side, and looking a little awkward, stood Alec. We were the last ones to arrive.

"We thought you might have forgotten, or gotten lost," Mr Thompson said when he saw us approaching.

"Not at all. Someone didn't want to get out of bed this morning." Jonathan looked at me.

"That's not true. He's lying."

Mr Thompson laughed. "Happy Birthday, Sybil."

"Thank you, Mr Thompson."

"Sybil! Finally!" I turned to see Mark, Enid and Eva tearing across the grass with menacing grins on their faces. "Time for your birthday present."

"Don't even think about it, Mark."

"Come on, Syb, birthday punches are a tradition!"

"A painful one. You're not coming anywhere near me." I slowly backed away and Goose stepped in front of me, almost trying to stare Mark down so he wouldn't get too close.

"Looks like Goose is trying to warn you off," Eva said with a laugh.

"I will get you," Mark muttered. "Just you wait."

"No, you won't."

Mark glared at me but didn't get the chance to say anything else as Barbara decided we should get settled by the lakeside. I let Goose off her lead and watched her approach the edge of the lake to have a sniff of the water and the plants that grew around the edge. She huffed and walked off, finding a bush to sniff instead. I helped Barbara to unfold and lay the blanket down on the grass and we put the basket down on one corner so it wouldn't try to escape were there to be a sudden gust of wind. Mark kept staring at me, no doubt trying to figure out a way to do my birthday punches without Goose getting in the way. He'd be trying for a while.

Once we were settled at the lake, Eva handed me a small wrapped parcel which I tore into immediately. Inside sat a small, framed photograph of the two of us when we were younger. I had my arm flung around Eva's shoulder, the sunlight glaring off my red hair even in black and white, whilst Eva stood beside me. She was laughing, exposing the gaps in her mouth from the teeth she had lost that year. Mud was plastered to her forehead and we both looked like we had been fighting. It had been taken when we were six years old, the two of us having been playing in a muddy puddle that had yet to dry up. Mum hadn't been too happy, but Eva's dad had taken the photograph to capture the two of us caked in mud.

"This was your birthday wasn't it?" I asked.

"The day after. It rained on my birthday so we couldn't go to the park. You dragged me out the next day and we both ended up covered in mud." She smiled. "I asked Mum to send it to me."

"Back when we saw each other all the time."

"Hm, before the stupid war got in the way."

Eva smiled a little and the conversation quickly moved on with Mark thrusting a hastily wrapped package into my hand with a grin. Even though I didn't want to spend my birthday dwelling on how different things were, Eva's gift forced me to do just that.

That photograph showed just how much time had changed since we'd been evacuated and I had a feeling that it would only get worse the longer we were gone for. Before, Eva and I spent almost every day together. We were either at school, playing in the street, or visiting each other's houses. Barely a day went by when we weren't in each other's company, but all of that changed when we were evacuated and were no longer living next door to one another. Since I was no longer going to school, and she lived in the village, it wasn't as easy to see her. The war had all but drawn a line down the centre of that photograph.

I tried to ignore the thought and instead focused on the other presents and the rest of our trip. Mark originally handed me a small jar of marmite, no doubt thinking it funny, before he quickly swapped it for a bar of chocolate. He said that he had stocked up just in case they decided to ration sweets and he admitted to not knowing what to get me. Enid, staying with a more well off couple, had managed to get me some new reins for Jigsaw, although I would probably use them for Juliet when I had the chance to ride her for the first time. Mr and Mrs Thompson gave me some sweets, which I didn't expect to be given.

"We might have to limit how many sweets you can have in a day or you'll be bouncing off the walls," Barbara said, looking at the sweets.

"If we locked her in a paddock she'd run the sugar out of her system in no time."

"I'm not a horse," I said, biting back my laughter.

"Speaking of horses,' Alec said, rather pleased with his navigation of the topic, "this is for you."

He reached into the basket his family had brought with them and pulled out a small, rectangular "object wrapped with brown paper and string. I furrowed my eyebrows and accepted the package, pulling on the string to loosen it. Once I tugged the string off, the paper fell away to reveal a small, wooden plaque with Juliet's name carved into it, although it took me a few seconds to read what it said. Alec grinned at me, but I just frowned. How did he know Jonathan and Barbara had decided to get me a horse?

"I know what you're thinking," he said when he saw my puzzled facial expression.

"I don't think you know what you're thinking most of the time," I said.

"Hm, I'll let that one side." He pulled a face and then laughed. "It was my idea to get you Juliet."

"Your idea?"

Alec nodded. "One of my more genius ones, if I do say so myself. I thought you might need something to do once we finished the treehouse since you don't like not doing something. It's not like we can build another tree house, so I was a little stumped. Until you took that spectacular fall from Jigsaw."

"So me being hurt was a good thing?" I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Well, sort of. It got me thinking that one of the reasons why you're not that comfortable jumping Jigsaw is less to do with being scared, especially since you've done it already, and more to do with you not really bonding with him. Riding a horse is all well and good, but you don't have the connection that most people build with horses when they're responsible for looking after them. I thought that looking after your own horse might be a good project, and get you a little more comfortable with riding them. "

"He approached me with the idea and after much discussion, I approached Mr Edwards about it. You can still ride Jigsaw, I reckon he'd be mad if you didn't, but you can work with Juliet and Alec has offered to help you with your riding and, yes, even your jumping."

"I was supposed to give you that this morning, but I overslept and there wasn't time." He grinned sheepishly.

I turned the plaque over in my hand and ran my fingers over the carved letters and the smoothed wood that Alec had coated in varnish. Never would I have thought the idea would come from Alec, especially one that although seemed mad at first, made a fair amount of sense the more I thought about it. Even though I enjoyed my time with Jigsaw, and the two of us had become friends, I still didn't feel overly confident riding him. I could canter, but I hadn't extended to galloping and the idea of jumping still terrified me. Working with Juliet on my own might help with that.

Or at least I hoped it would.

Once I had opened all the gifts and they had been tucked away in the basket, the adults were in a sudden rush to get rid of us all. Eva, Enid and I seized some towels and walked a good distance away to remove our dresses. The boys had no problems in removing their shirts and trousers before jumping into the lake without a second thought. We decided to preserve a bit of our modesty and hide behind the towels to change.

"First, Alec gets you a dog for Christmas, now a horse? You either have to be blind or really stupid to not see what is right in front of your face," Eva said the moment we were safely away from the others.

"It's my birthday, can we not do this now? Besides, Jonathan got the horse. It was Alec's idea," I said.

"Come on, Syb! A horse!"

"What exactly are you talking about?" Enid looked between the two of us and furrowed her eyebrows.

"Sybil won't admit that a certain someone likes her."

"Because it's not true."

"Or, you just don't want to admit it."

"Why would it be such a bad thing if he did, Sybil? He's nice enough and he seems to have taken a particular interest in you, from what I've seen anyway."

"Can we just not have this discussion now? We're supposed to be having fun."

I pulled my dress over my head, almost tore my stockings off and walked back over to Jonathan and Barbara to hand them my things. Any discussions or thoughts about whether or not Alec liked me would have to wait. I intended to enjoy my birthday.

~~~

A/N - We are back with Chapter Forty-Eight! We are nine chapters away from the end and I'm three chapters into the sequel (although ONC is taking priority right now xD)

Questions! Do you think Eva is right? Should Sybil admit that she likes Alec? Do you think she does?

Comment below!

First Published - February 9th, 2022