A day for two
Millie woke before anyone called her.
For a moment she lay under the blanket, listening. A cupboard door clicked downstairs. Then came the kettle, and Dad singing a song he only knew half the words to.
Today was her turn.
Her older sisters, Evie and Grace, had each had a day in the mountains with Dad. Just the two of them, a backpack, and nobody else deciding when to stop. Millie had heard about those days so often that she could almost remember being there.
Now her walking boots stood beside the bed.
At breakfast, Dad danced from the kettle to the table. Mum moved her cup out of his way.
“Do you have to do that?” Millie asked.
“The dancing?”
“The singing.”
“Afraid so. It’s included.”
She smiled, then looked down at her toast.
“What if I can’t get all the way up?”
Dad stopped singing.
“We’ll see how we get on. We can rest whenever we need to.”
“And if I want to come back?”
“Then we’ll come back.”
Evie said the path wasn’t very steep. Grace said it was, in places. They began arguing about a rock that one remembered and the other didn’t.
“I could come and show you,” Grace offered.
Dad shook his head, smiling. “You’ve had your turn. This one’s Millie’s.”
Millie ate the rest of her toast.
Before they left, she asked if she could bring her little camera.
“Of course. Let’s keep it in the backpack while we’re walking.”
He made room beside the sandwiches. Millie checked that he hadn’t forgotten the biscuits.
He hadn’t.
The mushroom by the path
The woods were cool, even though the sun was already warm on the road behind them. Millie stepped over roots and looked under leaves. Dad carried an empty basket.
They had come to look for mushrooms as well as climb the hill, and Millie was determined to find the first one.
She found it beside a fallen branch.
“Dad! Here!”
He crouched beside her.
“Well spotted. That one stays where it is.”
“Why?”
“It isn’t one we can eat.”
Millie pulled back her hand. “Should we get rid of it, then?”
“No. We’re only collecting the ones I know are safe. The rest can stay in the woods.”
She considered this, then found a crooked stick and laid it beside the branch.
“So we can see it on the way back.”
Dad stood up and held out his hand.
For a while, Millie talked about school. Then she asked whether snails knew where they were going. Dad said he hoped so, because it took them such a long time to get there.
She laughed, but a little farther on she grew quiet.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“The wolf in Little Red Riding Hood.”
“Ah.”
“And the grandmother.”
“Yes. That was a bad day for the grandmother.”
Millie squeezed his hand.
Dad squeezed back. “We’re staying together, and I know this path. You can tell me if something worries you.”
She walked close to him for a bit. Then a beetle crossed the path, and she let go to watch it find its way over a twig.
Sandwiches halfway up
The path began to climb.
Millie’s boots, which had felt splendid in the kitchen, became rather heavy. She stopped asking questions. Dad slowed down.
“Do your legs need a break?”
“Both of them.”
They found a patch of grass where the trees opened onto the hillside. Dad unfolded a cloth and took out the sandwiches. Millie sat down before he’d finished.
Below them, the roofs of the village showed through the trees. Farther away, the hills overlapped, each one a little paler than the last.
“Is that our house?” she asked, pointing.
“Possibly. Or someone else’s house with a very similar roof.”
She took a photograph so they could argue about it properly at home.
Dad handed her a sandwich.
“How much farther?”
He pointed to a rounded rise above them, with a large grey rock near the top.
“There. That’s where I thought we might sit.”
Millie chewed slowly. From here, it didn’t look very far. From here, she also didn’t have to move.
“Are you tired?” she asked.
“A bit.”
She looked at him. “You didn’t say.”
“I’m saying now.”
They finished their sandwiches. Dad tried to name a bird calling from the trees, got it wrong, and admitted that he didn’t know.
When Millie stood up, her legs felt like hers again.
“I think I can get to the rock.”
“All right.”
She took his hand for the first steep bit. After that, she walked just ahead, turning now and then to make sure he was still coming.
The grey rock grew larger. The trees grew shorter. Then there was sky where there had been more hill, and Millie stepped onto the top.
She turned around.
“Oh.”
Dad sat beside her on the grass. He didn’t say anything for a while.
The village was tiny now. She could see the bend in the road where they’d started, and the woods they’d walked through, though she couldn’t find their path.
“We came all that way?”
“We did.”
She looked down at her boots. There was mud on one toe and a grass seed caught in the lace.
Then she looked up at Dad.
“Are you proud of me?”
“Yes,” he said. “Very.”
She leaned against his arm.
“I’m proud of me too.”
“I thought you might be.”
They stayed until Millie had taken a photograph of the view, another of Dad, and one of her own knees by mistake.
Then she jumped to her feet.
“I could run all the way home!”
“Let’s walk the steep part.” Dad picked up the basket and looked inside. “Besides, we seem to have forgotten something.”
Millie stared at it.
“The mushrooms!”
Home before soup
On the way down, Millie spotted mushrooms in places Dad hadn’t even looked. Some were hidden under leaves. Others stood right beside the path, looking as though they’d been waiting for her.
Each time, she called him over before touching anything.
He checked every find. Many stayed where they were. A few went into the basket, and Millie carried it herself for a while, carefully keeping it level.
When they reached the fallen branch, her crooked stick was still there.
The mushroom wasn’t.
“Something’s had it,” she said.
“Perhaps.”
“Do you think we walked past while it was eating?”
“We might have.”
Millie looked into the undergrowth. Whatever had been there had missed its chance to have its photograph taken.
Near the edge of the woods, Dad started singing again.
“That’s not how it goes,” Millie told him.
“You’ll have to help me, then.”
So she did, though she didn’t know all the words either.
At home, Mum opened the door before they could knock.
“Well?”
“I got to the top,” Millie said. “And we saw our house. Maybe. And Dad didn’t know what the bird was.”
“I’d hoped you might leave that part out,” Dad said.
Evie and Grace came to inspect the basket. There were questions to answer, photographs to show, and a long argument waiting about which roof belonged to them.
But first, Mum said, soup.
Millie washed her hands and climbed into her chair. Dad sat beside her. Her boots stood under the table, with their laces loose.
“I haven’t told you the best bit yet,” she said.
Mum set down the bread.
“What was the best bit?”
Millie rested her head against Dad’s arm. Just for a moment, while she decided.
By the time the soup reached her place, she was asleep.
Dad shifted carefully so she could stay where she was.
“The rest can wait till morning,” he whispered.
The end