2. THE VAN IN THE WOODS

Jack and Jill go off into the old forest, exploring.

The great thing about that first night on Twelve Trees Park was it passed without incidence and some time before dawn the clouds decided to blow away. The sun came out with the dawn, but the winds that had blown the clouds away weren’t the warmest, and Rosie got dressed in a white t-shirt bearing the logo of a 1990s pop band (she hadn’t been a fan, but when she found it in a charity shop, new and still packaged in cellophane and at a silly reduced price she hadn’t been able to resist it.) She also pulled a pair of denim shorts on. She liked wearing shorts. In shorts she no longer felt that she was at work. In shorts she was on holiday.

A vegetarian and a vegan decided, at the first whiff of bacon frying in the small kitchen area of the caravan, that they would postpone their moral stance until they got back home, and all three of them tucked into a hearty cooked breakfast.

“There’s one thing about sleeping in the caravan and that is it makes you hungry,” commented Jack, who was invariably hungry anyway.

“You’re like a pig,” commented Jill, who was safely out of range should her twin brother decide on a physical riposte.

“You’re eating pig,” pointed out Jack, and he grinned at his sister. “Would you want to eat me, then?” he asked as sweetly as a ten year old boy could.

“Urgh!” replied Jill, “that makes me feel sick. Mummy, I want to be sick!”

“Then you’d best go into the trees where nobody can see,” suggested Rosie. “Now what plans have you two made for today so far?”

“I want to explore the woods,” decided Jack, “like I said yesterday.”

“I’ll come with you,” Jill told him. “After all, you’ll need someone with medical knowledge when you fall down a rabbit hole or get gored by a wild boar!”

“Then I’ve got something for you,” said Rosie, and she produced a stick of white chalk from a drawer next to the sink. “Take this and when you’re out of sight of the caravan site make little marks on trees so that you’ll find your way back easily. It’s very common for explorers to get lost in ancient forests, and never be seen again!”

“I won’t get lost!” boasted Jack.

“But I won’t let you go if you don’t promise,” warned Rosie.

“I’ll make sure he does,” said Jill, “I’ll tell on him if he doesn’t!”

“You would too,” groaned Jack. “You might be my twin but I’ll bet you can be a snitch!”

“Oh dear,” sighed Rosie, “you’re worse than children!”

“We are children!” pointed out Jill.

“Off you go when you’re ready, then,” murmured Rosie, “and I’ll make sure that we’re set up properly while you’re gone, and all on my own too!”

“We did just about everything when we arrived, mummy,” said Jack, “I’ll bet when we get back we find you on that lounger thing soaking up the sun with nothing on!”

“It’ll have to get warmer than this before I cast a clout even though the May has long been out!” his mother replied, swiping him playfully.

“I’ll phone childline!” he threatened.

“Do that then, and get taken to an orphanage where you’ll be looked after by old matrons with bent backs and whips!” joked Rosie. “Now when you’ve finished, the two of you, you can pop off and have some fun in the woods.”

Ten minutes later they were gone and Rosie sighed her relief. There were still things to be done, the spare water barrel to be filled at the tap, which chance would have it was at the far end of the site. Even though the area it occupied was fairly small �" it was licensed to hold ten caravans �" there was occasionally a queue at the tap. The water pressure was quite low and it took some time to fill a barrel.

There was one caravanner filling his barrel when she got there. She recognised his bare bottom from the distance, and shook her head.

Some people ought to look in the mirror and decide that their bum’s too gnarled to be put on public display, she thought, just like she did every time she met him on the site.

“It’s a bit cold for bare buttocks, Tom,” she greeted as she approached him. This was Tom Coppleby, in his seventies in the flesh but remarkably youthful in his mind. He had to be, because his wife was more than twenty years his junior and loved him with an intensity that made Rosie proud to be human. And Tom loved June back in the same way, would do anything for her, and the sounds from their van, of laughter and joking, added to the aromas of cooking �" June loved her cooking and especially enjoyed a home-cooked oriental-style cuisine that smelled of ginger and garlic and anything she could think of cooking.

He turned and looked at her, and winked. “So it’s you, Officer,” he said. “We saw you arrive yesterday but were busy doing our own thing, and anyway you needed time to settle in properly, what with those kids of yours being all over the place at the same moment.”

“And what might your own thing have been, Tom?” she asked. She knew, of course, Tom and June loved their jigsaw puzzles and spent many long hours with complex five-thousand piece problems that she herself wouldn’t dream of even looking at. But Tom and June loved them and it kept them occupied whenever the weather was a bit iffy.

“It was cool,” replied Tom, “and we’ve got a sailing ship clipper on a vast sea … such a vast sea we get lost in it! June’s doing a corner now, but I don’t hold much hope for us finishing it this week if the sun decides to stay out. Well, I’m full. I’ll trundle this back to our van and put the kettle on. Do you fancy a cuppa?”

“If I won’t be intruding...” said Rosie, wheeling her barrel inter the tap and turning it on. “Give me five minutes and I’ll be over.”

“June’ll be pleased to see you,” he grinned, “see you anon then, Officer!”

It did take almost five minutes before her barrel was full and she was ready to pop across to Tom’s caravan, and five minutes spent waiting for water to fill a container can seem quite a long time.

But she parked her barrel next to the one they had filled on their arrival yesterday and made her way to the rather luxurious van belonging to Tom and June.

“Knock-knock!” she said when she reached the awning they had erected against the door side of the van.

“Come in, Officer!” called Tom, and she squeezed into the awning. June was in there, as undressed as Tom, and they were sitting on deck-chairs, having politely pushed their puzzle and its table out of the way.

Rosie hadn’t been there for long, maybe only half an hour, though time can play tricks when you’re on holiday and catching up with old friends, when there was a sudden burst of activity from outside and the familiar sounds of twinnish voices.

“Mum!” called Jill, and the two children burst through the awning opening.

“I thought you’d be here!” gasped Jill, “you’ll never guess what we’ve found!”

“I don’t say I will,” murmured a surprised Rosie. “I hadn’t been expecting you back yet.”

“We knew where you’d be,” explained Jack, “we’ve found a really, really old caravan in the woods, and guess what we saw inside it, through the window?”

“What?” asked Rosie.

“A man! A really old man who’s dead!”

“Dead?” Rosie paled, “how do you know that he’s dead?”

“Because he’s just about a skellington,” said Jill very seriously, “a horrible, smelly old skellington!”

TO BE CONTINUED…

© Peter Rogerson 21.03.17.