Page:The railway children (IA railwaychildren00nesb 1).pdf/317

 Mother, will you let me off lessons to-day? I feel as if I wanted to be quite alone by myself."

"Yes, of course I'll let you off," said Mother; "but—"

Bobbie dropped her slate. It cracked just across the little green mark that is so useful for drawing patterns round, and it was never the same slate again. Without waiting to pick it up she bolted. Mother caught her in the hall feeling blindly among the waterproofs and umbrellas for her garden hat.

"What is it, my sweetheart?" said Mother. "You don't feel ill, do you?"

"I don't know," Bobbie answered, a little breathless, "but I want to be by myself and see if my head really is all silly and my inside all squirmy-twisty.";

"Hadn't you better lie down?" Mother said, stroking her hair back from her forehead.

"I'd be more alive in the garden, I think," said Bobbie.

But she could not stay in the garden. The hollyhocks and the asters and the late roses all seemed to be waiting for something to happen. It was one of those still shiny autumn days, when everything does seem to be waiting.

Bobbie could not wait.