Every day I waited for a letter from Dad, but one didn't come.

I hoped that with Anthony home and news of the successful evacuation from Dunkirk covering the papers, he might finally write to tell me he would be coming home, but he didn't. Deep down I knew there would be a logical reason for him not being able to write, no doubt the Navy had decided to keep some ships in the English channel to prevent a potential sea invasion, but that didn't stop the thoughts that something bad had happened to him. All I wanted was to know that he was alive. That wasn't too much to ask.

Rather than think about it, I threw myself into work on the treehouse which Alec had been right about being a good distraction. Neither of us talked about the war or our families and instead just focused on the task at hand and tried not to fall out of the tree. Mr Thompson had borrowed an extra ladder from a neighbouring farm so that Alec and I could both work on the treehouse at the same time. We had started to make decent headway because of it.

"Move it a little to the left," I said, my speech slightly garbled by the nails I had between my teeth.

"Like this?" Alec moved the piece of wood to the right.

"Wrong way."

"You said left and that would usually mean my right or your left."

"Not this time. When I say left, I mean your left."

"That's just confusing. Why can't you do it the same way everyone else does?"

"Because it's funny. Now move the wood to your left."

Alec huffed and shifted the plank of wood in the right direction. I grinned and removed one of the nails from my mouth, hammering it into the wood and the support beam underneath. Once the nail was in, I did the same thing a few inches away from it to ensure it wouldn't move before handing the hammer and some nails over to Alec who pulled a face when I gave him some of the nails I had kept between my teeth.

I took a swig from a bottle of water we kept in the tree with us and tried to remove the metallic taste from my mouth, although it didn't work. Alec hammered the nails in on his side of the plank of wood and then wiggled the whole thing to ensure that it wasn't going to go anywhere no matter what happened. The nails held which was a welcomed relief since we would have to sit on that bit of wood in order to put the next one in. Luckily, it gave us something decent to sit on rather than a branch or the top rung of a ladder.

We grabbed one of the other boards that we had precariously placed to one side so we wouldn't have to keep climbing up and down the tree. It worked to some extent, but it did mean we risked damaging a piece of material if it fell and crashed to the ground. Alec and I followed the same actions that we had with the first piece and laid it out on the support beams already attached to the tree. Once in the right place, we hammered the nails in and checked it's stability by shaking it a few times.

"What are you two doing?" a voice called from below us. Startled, Alec almost dropped the hammer through a gap in the trees which would have rendered anyone below us either unconscious or dead. I glanced down through the branches and saw Mark's face smiling up at us.

"Yelling at someone in a tree who is also holding a hammer is a terrible idea," I said, accepting the hammer from Alec and tucking it into my tool belt.

"How was I to know you have a hammer? You could be doing anything!"

"We're building a treehouse, Mark. Tools are part of that unless we hammer the nails in with our heads. Although come to think of it, Alec's head might work as a great hammer."

"Hey!"

"Joking. Maybe."

I laughed and swung my legs over the start of the treehouse, finding the top rung of the ladder closest to me and scaling the rungs. When I reached the ground, I dusted my hands off and made sure there weren't any splinters hiding under my skin. Alec followed, frowning like a child.

Mark stood at the base of the tree, his hair tousled a little from the climb up to the Thompson farm and he appeared several inches taller than the last time I saw him. Our plans to try and meet up more regularly became impossible to uphold with everyone far too busy and even my meetings with Eva had become significantly less. When we first set out for the country, I never imagined it affecting my relationships with some of my best friends.

He wasn't on his own. Enid stood off to the side, eyeing the tree cautiously and I knew she wouldn't be a fan of me being in the tree or working on one. She held the same values my grandmother did. Eva had also joined them, a smile having returned to her face since receiving the letter from Anthony and the spark in her eye had returned.

"What are you all doing here?" I asked, wiping more dust off on my slacks.

"Eva told us about the treehouse project and we wanted to see how it was coming along. None of us ever had gardens, let alone a treehouse. This is something new," Mark said.

"Did you really get permission for this? It doesn't seem very safe."

"One of Barbara's conditions is that the project comes to an end the moment someone gets hurt. With Alec, it's a hard condition to follow."

"I haven't hurt myself yet."

"Yet being the important word."

"You're so mean to me."

"It keeps things interesting." I grinned at him, but Alec just pouted. "Come on, let's get away from this tree. The pieces of wood that aren't nailed down aren't exactly safe up there."

We moved away from the tree and a little further down the farm to where Jigsaw and Duchess were grazing in an empty paddock. The two of them appeared to enjoy spending time with each other, or they enjoyed spending most of their time grazing in a field rather than in their stalls.

They both ignored us when we entered, focusing their attention on the grass rather than what we were doing. We walked a little way into the paddock and sat down on the grass just beside one of the fences, watching the horses and listening to the birds chirping away in nearby trees. Despite how long I had been with the Goodwin's, the stillness of the country continued to amaze me. Had we been in London, our moment in silence would have been punctured by cars and the clean air would have been obscured by the smoke billowing from chimneys and the smog that came from the Thames. London would always be home, but nothing could beat the stillness of the city.

Once the war was over, I knew it would be a tough task to return to city life after so long in the country. Even after a few months, I didn't think I could stand the smoke and smog of London. Mum would never accept the idea of leaving the city, though, especially as everything is in convenient reach for her and the country is far too spread out. She always thought the city to be far too unclean even though the city was worse as far as I was concerned.

"So, why a treehouse? Out of everything?" Mark asked, turning back towards the tree where we could just make out the beginnings of the treehouse amongst the branches.

"I've always wanted one," Alec said. "Dad was always too busy to build it and since Syb's handy with tools, I thought now would be as good a time as ever. It's our summer project if we can get it done in time."

"Why'd you agree?" Mark nudged me with his elbow.

I shrugged. "Something to do. It gets me off the farm for a bit. Plus. Jigsaw gets a decent amount of exercise going from the farm to here which he seems pleased about."

At the mention of his name, Jigsaw's eyes perked up and he trotted over to us, bending low and nudging my cheek with his nose so I would stroke him. He could be a really clingy horse when he wanted to be.

"Horses freak me out," Enid said, shivering a little.

"Jigsaw's a sweetheart; he wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Still, they're dangerous. I once read a newspaper article about a man who died after he got kicked by his own horse."

"He probably scared it. Horses aren't big fans of people creeping up behind them. At least in my experience." Alec shrugged.

"What experience would that be?"

"When I was younger, I snuck up on my dad's horse, Lightning, and almost got kicked in the face. It was a learning experience."

"So you've always been an idiot?"

"Rude."

I laughed and peered around Mark to talk to Enid. The five of us discussed what we had been doing recently, our host families, and everything else that we could think of. We had a lot to catch up on, although most of Enid's conversation topics were about schoolwork or just school and I didn't think it could be classed as riveting conversation. Still, it was nice to catch up with the four of them after so long and for our conversations to not be about the war. I didn't really want to tell them that I still hadn't heard from Dad.

Jigsaw continued to get in the way for the time we spoke, clearly annoyed that I had stopped paying him any attention. He even walked down to Eva to try and get her attention; she stroked him, albeit a little tentatively. Enid refused to even look at him so Alec had to get his attention. Not even Goose was that clingy and she liked to walk right behind me at all times to make sure she didn't miss anything. Jigsaw had his own level of clinginess.

"What do you want, Jigsaw? Go and eat some grass," I said, trying to push his nose off my shoulder.

"I think he wants to show off your skills," Alec said.

"Or he's just being annoying."

"When was the last time you jumped him?"

"On purpose? Not recently. I don't think I've jumped him since that one time."

"There you go! He's bored!"

"You know how to jump?" Mark asked, looking a little stunned.

"I did it once."

"And you were great." Alec jumped to his feet. "Come on, you can show off. What's the worst that can happen?"

"You want me to answer that?"

I knew Alec wasn't going to give in and I had to do something with Jigsaw or he would start to get on my nerves a little too much, so I stood up. Alec grabbed the saddle, which we had removed from Jigsaw so he could get a break, and tacked him up for me. Mark, Enid and Eva left the paddock and Alec walked Duchess a little way away to another fence where he secured her reins just so she was out of the way.

With Jigsaw tacked up, and Duchess out of the way, Alec started to construct several jumps around the paddock. He started with some smaller ones, ones that I would just have to trot over rather than actually jump. From there, they got higher and higher until we reached the highest jump I had managed back when we had done it the first time. Since then, I had had no reason to make any jumps and usually went around any obstacles I found in the woods. I knew it was going to be a terrible idea.

Alec cleared out the paddock and I climbed onto the saddle, gripping the reins lightly in my hands and relaxing my shoulders as best I could. I remember the instructions Alec had given me before about making sure I looked where we would be landing rather than at the ground and started the course.

Just like before, the lower jumps were the easiest, but when I went over the slightly higher ones, I remembered just how it felt last time. It may have been a little while, but the motion was the same and Jigsaw did pretty much all the work while I just had to hold on to the reins. When we reached the final jump, my throat dropped to my stomach as I lined Jigsaw up to clear it. I had only ever made this jump once and that had been terrifying. Somehow, this felt even worse.

I lined him up with the jump and we approached it at a speed that seemed reasonable. Whether Jigsaw sensed my fear or just didn't want to jump, I wasn't sure, but moments before we should have jumped, Jigsaw skidded on the floor.

My feet slipped out of the stirrups and Jigsaw pitched himself forward, causing me to roll forwards and over the top of him. I managed to let go of the reins before I went crashing to the ground on the other side of the jump.

~~~

A/N - Chapter Forty-One is here! There are still a few chapters to come so we might make it a few weeks or months in 2022 before I start posting the sequel (and writing it).

Questions! Do you think the treehouse will be a success? Was Alec right to Sybil to try jumping again? Do you think she's hurt?

Comment below!

First Published - December 22nd, 2021