‘Can’t you go a little faster?’ she says to Dad. ‘You drive like an old lady.’
Dad accelerates by maybe two miles per hour just to shut her up.
‘I miss driving,’ she says. ‘Haven’t driven in years. Eyesight’s gone to pot. Rotten luck! Can’t see the road. Used to love it!’
That’s sad, I think. That’s why it’s lucky we could help her.
‘You know all this civil unrest is *mild rude word!* exciting,’ she says, nudging me hard.
I can’t believe she said that. This car does not usually have rude words in it. Not unless Mum is driving.
‘People fighting all over the place,’ she says. ‘I heard on the news that one man got a broken nose because he wanted the last packet of Coco Pops. Riots left, right and centre. Bank robberies. Petrol-station hold-ups. Anywhere there’s cash.’
‘What’s a hold-up?’ says Teddy.
‘Nothing!’ says Mum, clearly not wanting to worry him, but I’m pretty keen to know more.
‘Yes, the country’s on its knees,’ says Ellie. ‘Whole world is. And all because people can’t watch Netflix or play Candy Crushers or whatever it’s called.’
‘Well, it’s a little more complicated than that, Ellie,’ says Mum. ‘And maybe this is a conversation for another time…’
I don’t know if anything Ellie is saying is true, but it sounds true. Though I also know that sometimes, when people can’t get information, they start to make up their own.
‘Anyway,’ says Mum. ‘Surely we’re nearly at your home?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ asks Ellie. ‘All looks the same to me. And I can barely see a thing.’
Dad starts to grip the steering wheel hard again, and Mum strokes his arm to calm him down.
‘Are you sure this is the right way?’ says Ellie, squinting.
‘No!’ says Dad. ‘I thought you knew!’
‘Are you sure you’re even a taxi driver?’
‘No!’ says Dad.
‘Well, where are we?’ says Ellie.
‘I have NO IDEA!’ says Dad.
‘You’d think a taxi driver might have some idea,’ says Ellie, looking at me as if I’m going to back her up. ‘Ah, look, here we are. I got us here in the end.’
Up ahead, a big brown sign says
‘I don’t believe it,’ says Dad, as Mum unpacks the car. ‘We were on our way. We had just enough petrol. And now look!’
The car conked out the second we stopped outside the front door of Blackberry Manor. We were out of petrol, the exhaust pipe was smoking and we’d lost three of our hubcaps since yesterday morning. Dad was going to have a job explaining the state of the car to his work, said Mum. It looked so bad that Dad had to push it round the corner of the main house because Ellie said it looked untidy out front and would make local property prices plummet.
Blackberry Manor was enormous. It had a long gravel driveway like in Downton Abbey and lots of windows everywhere. The door was the width of two normal doors and Ellie said it even had a Great Hall. A thought suddenly struck me. This really reminded me of Grandma’s house.
‘Do you know a lady called Nanette Bobcroft?’ I ask Ellie.
‘Where does she live?’ says Ellie.
‘Rendlesham,’ I say. ‘In Suffolk.’
‘Never heard of her. Why?’
‘Oh, she’s my grandma. We’re on our way to see her,’ I say. ‘We were supposed to be there by now.’
Ellie makes a face like I’ve said something wrong.
‘And then I got in the way, did I? Drove you off course?’
‘No!’ I say because that’s not what I mean, but it’s like I’ve insulted her.
‘Can I see the Great Hall?’ I ask, trying to change the subject.
Ellie says no. She says none of us can come in because we might accidentally let all the dogs out. The dogs are not to be disturbed. This makes me sad because there are dogs around and now all I really want is to see them but it sounds like I’m not going to be allowed.
I guess my face must show how disappointed I am because Ellie takes another look at me, at all of us, tired and dirty and hopeless, and she says look, we can stay in her field, if we really have to.
Dad’s face falls, but it gives us somewhere to stop while we figure out what to do about the car, so he thanks her. And Ellie goes in, and Dad’s like, ‘Surely there’s one spare bedroom in a place this big? Surely she could have let us have that?’
But then there’s a whole load of barking from what sounds like about fifty dogs and Ellie is coming outside again, pushing the door shut behind her.
‘Normally, we run a camping business at the back. What do they call it again? “Glamping.” ’
‘Oh yes?’ says Mum, perking up.
‘And, what with no one being able to look at our website, we don’t have any bookings and consequently no guests. So you’ll have the run of the place. There are some fresh towels there, in case any of you would like a wash?’
She stares hard at Dad when she says that.
‘I’ll send some food over. Do sleep well.’
The campsite wasn’t like any campsite I’d seen before.
First off, forget the fire we lit in that lay-by. Here there was a proper big firepit for us to sit round. We got straight to work lighting it, even though the sun hadn’t quite set yet.
And there was a big field for me and Teddy to run around in, with hay bales to jump off and roll around on.
There were alpacas in the field next to it, and bags of feed for us to give them.
And the tent was HUGE. It was covered in fairy lights and lanterns and the beds looked cosy, with thick duvets and the softest and fattest pillows possible.
Dad had looked gobsmacked when he saw that right outside the tent was a big outdoor bathtub. He threw his hands up to the clouds and yelled, ‘Thank you!’ and ran a giant bubble bath
