Robert A.V. Jacobs....Author

Daisy Weal and the Millions

 

 

Daisy was sauntering down the road, which was something that she did a lot of these days. She spent as much time as she could with her friends, but there was still a lot of time when she was alone. Her mum never worried about her, but had trouble convincing George that she would be alright. He thought it was pretty weird, letting a seven year old wander about wherever she wanted, and promised Marjorie that if anything happened to Daisy she could expect to be immediately strangled.

 

She didn’t seem worried at all by the threat, which puzzled George even more, but he trusted her judgement even though he still worried and kept whinging all the time Daisy was out of his sight. Marjorie was sorely tempted during this traumatic period to let George into Daisy’s secret, but decided that it was Daisy’s place to do that in her own good time.

 

It did get easier for George, when Daisy always managed to return in one piece after she had gone out on one of her solitary walks. He still worried, but it wasn’t the almost blind panic that he had experienced in the early days.

 

But let’s get back to Daisy sauntering. She sauntered until she was pretty certain that no one would see her and then she teleported, and one second later she arrived at the shore of Bishop Ashton’s small lake. Finding a large rock which jutted out over the water she climbed up onto it and settled down to watch the Ducks. Two of them detached themselves from a group and swam to a point just below her,

 

“Hello Daisy,” they said in unison, “it’s been a while.”

 

“That’s true,” replied Daisy, “the kids you had last time I was here, must be grown up by now.”

 

Before the duck could reply, a voice from behind Daisy startled her,

 

“They put you away for things like that,” said the voice very sneeringly, “and besides which they’re ducks. They got no brains.”

 

Daisy smiled,

 

“You see this very nice Mallard here.” she said, “Well his name is Jamie, and you have just upset him. Now if you get into a position where you can see him properly, I will ask him to swim in a circle twice and then swim backwards away from us.”

 

“You are an extremely rude young lady,” said the stern looking matronly figure that came and stared up at her on the rock, “what’s your name? I shall have a word with your mother.”

 

“Watch the duck please,” said Daisy, completely unimpressed.

 

Reflexively the woman’s glance moved to the duck, which obligingly swam in two circles and then started to swim backwards away from them. Her mouth dropped open and she spluttered something and staggered away.

 

“I think maybe we won’t see her again,” commented Jamie, swimming back to his original position, “no loss though, she never brought anything for us.”

 

“Oh, I remembered some biscuits,” said Daisy, pulling half a dozen biscuits out of her pocket, “I’ll drop them in the water. They are quite nice when they get soggy.”

 

She crumbled them up and dropped them into the water, where they were eagerly gobbled up by the two ducks.

 

“There is a big thing in the middle of the lake,” said the other duck that was with Jamie.

 

“Yes,” said Jamie, “Really odd, don’t know where it came from, but there was this loud noise, a really gigantic splash, and there it was. I didn’t see it, but Lily here did.”

 

An airliner flew over, heading for the International Airport, and Daisy pointed up,

 

“Does it look anything like that,” she asked.

 

“Oh yes, but very much bigger,” said Lily, not equating distance with reduction in size, “but it had one of those spinning things at the front.”

 

“Did anyone get out?” asked Daisy.

 

“What people like you, do you mean?” asked Jamie.

 

“Yes,” agreed Daisy,

 

“Not that I saw,” said Lily, “maybe there was no one in it.”