Page 108 of Hope and Happiness in Bluebell Wood
‘I’m not sure,’ Callum says, doing the same.
‘Merlin!’ I call. ‘Merlin, where are you?’
He barks again, and we attempt to walk in the direction of his bark, but it’s difficult, we’re in a particularly dense patch of trees here, denser than the wood we’re used to walking in near the cottage.
‘Look,’ Callum says, pointing upwards. I follow his hand and above the trees I can see a huge flock of birds circling in the sky.
‘He’s there!’ I cry. ‘He must be.’
We follow the birds until we’re almost underneath them, and it’s then we see Merlin in the middle of a clearing. He’s pawing at the ground.
‘Merlin!’ I cry, running to him. ‘What is it?’
Merlin looks up at me for a moment then continues with his digging.
‘Is something there?’ Callum asks.
‘I can’t see anything,’ I say, kneeling down next to Merlin. ‘Can you get the metal detector?’
Callum quickly returns with Jemima, the metal detector and the others, who’ve heard the commotion.
I hold Merlin back from his digging, and Jemima hovers the machine over the ground. To our immense delight it beeps.
‘There’s definitely something down there,’ she says.
Jack digs the area with a shovel while everyone else keeps a close eye on the earth that he’s removing.
‘Yes!’ Jonah calls after Jack has been digging for a few minutes. ‘Here’s something!’
We all stop what we’re doing and rush over to him.
‘What is it?’ I ask excitedly.
‘I don’t know,’ Jonah says, holding up a small piece of silvery metal. He rubs it over a little with his sleeve. ‘But there’s some engraving on it.’
The metal is passed between all of us but no one knows what it could be.
‘It looks familiar,’ Callum says, holding it in the palm of his hand, ‘but I have no idea what it is.’
‘It does look familiar, doesn’t it?’ Jonah agrees. ‘But I don’t know why?’
‘It could be anything,’ Lonan says, examining it. ‘Sadly it doesn’t look as though it’s of any value – it doesn’t look like silver, just an engraved metal. This pattern could be anything too – it’s just swirls.’
‘Why would the birds have gone to all the trouble of pointing this out,’ I say, taking the metal from Lonan, ‘if it isn’t anything special?’
‘The machine isn’t registering anything else,’ Jemima says, shaking her head. ‘That must have been it.’
‘I think it might be time to go now,’ Jonah suggests. ‘Callum and I have Sunday service in a few hours.’
‘Yes, and we have a pub to open later, too,’ Jack says, putting his arm around Alouette’s shoulders. ‘I’m sorry we didn’t find anything better, Ava. But hopefully what we do have will be enough to build a decent case for the building work to stop for a while.’
Quietly, one by one, everyone begins to gather up their belongings and head back down the hill, and I have no choice but to follow. I couldn’t expect them to stay here all morning; Callum’s right: other people will be using this footpath soon,they’d see us and wonder what was going on. Questions would be asked, and then we’d have all sorts of problems.
I sigh as I trail behind the group making its way, with slightly less exuberance than it had on the way up, back down the hill towards the school.
None of this made any sense. Nothing that was happening added up. Was I just imagining all this stuff with the birds? Was it like Callum suggested: because of what Robin had said? Was I making it fit my own agenda about stopping the development?
I pull the piece of tarnished metal from my pocket and look at it while I walk.
