a small place

"How are things, Kit?"

"Fine, Mrs Kelly."

Lilian Kelly stood back to look more attentively at her daughter's friend. The child was very handsome, with the great head of dark curly hair and those unexpected blue eyes. She would probably be a beauty like her mother.

"And tell me, have you and Clio had a falling out?"

"A falling out?" Kit's blue eyes were too innocent. She repeated the phrase with wonder, as if she hadn't a clue what the words meant.

"Well, it's just that up to now you've been like Siamese twins, joined at the hip. But in the last few weeks you don't seem to be going within a donkey's roar of each other, and that seems a pity, seeing that it's the summer holidays." She paused, waiting.

But she was getting nothing from Kit. "We didn't have a row, honestly Mrs Kelly."

"I know. That's what Clio said." Kit was anxious to be away. "Nobody listens to their own mother, so maybe you might listen to me instead. You and Clio need each other. This is a small place; you'll always be glad to have a friend here. Whatever silliness this is it doesn't matter, it'll soon be over. Now you know where we live. Come on up to the house this evening, will you?"

"Clio knows where I live too, Mrs Kelly."

"God protect me from two such stubborn woen. I don't know what's going to happen to the next generation.. " Mrs Kelly sighed and went off good-naturedly. Kit watched her go. Clio's mother was large and square and wore sensible clothes. Today she had on a cotton dress with white cuffs and collar and a small daisy print, and she was carrying a shopping basket.

She was like the picture of a mother in a story book.

Not like Kit's own mother, who was very thin, and who wore bright greens or crimson or royal blue, and whose clothes were sort of floaty looking. She looked much more like a dance than a mother.

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