Black Rabbit Hall Read Online Free PDF Page A

yanks her back – which I personally think is pretty spunky for a four-year-old girl. She’s quite something, our Kitty.
    ‘Ow.’ Kitty backs away from the brush. ‘You’re tugging Kitty’s head off, Momma.’
    ‘You should try not to get sand in your hair. Then Momma wouldn’t have to brush it all the time,’ I point out.
    Kitty sticks out her bottom lip. ‘If I was a crab I wouldn’t have to brush my hair.’
    ‘You tell me when you develop that hard shell then, Kittycat.’ Momma gives up on the brush and uses her fingers to pull apart the knots in my little sister’s fine blonde hair. Momma hums beneath her breath – the hum hasn’t changed since I was Kitty’s age: I could sing it in my sleepbut I have no idea what it is – and squats down behind her, so that Kitty is tightly wedged between her knees and unable to fidget.
    ‘Momma, will you take me to the den in the woods?’ Barney heads the ball over the balustrade, wraps his twig arms around Momma’s neck. ‘I want to show you the den.’
    ‘The den?’ she says, like mothers do when they’re not really listening.
    ‘The new one.’
    ‘Sounds very exciting.’ Another thing mothers say when not really listening. ‘You can show me later. After the storm. Easy, easy, Barney.’ She picks off his fingers one by one. ‘I can’t breathe.’
    My little brother is like one of those mini-monkeys in the Harrods pet shop, all eyelashes, mischief and bendy limbs. He’ll hang upside down until his eyes pop pink. And he’s at his happiest in the company of animals: a line of ants marching over his foot, a slowworm cupped in his hands, rabbits. Barney adores rabbits. He found a baby bunny on the lawn last year with sealed-shut eyes and fur like a dandelion clock and fed it warm milk through a pipette. When it died a few hours later, he cried for a whole day. He’s been looking for a replacement ever since. But Barney’s not a cry-baby, not normally, not like those whimpery little boys you see pulling on their nanny’s hands in London parks. Barney’s too busy, too curious to be miserable for long. Same as Toby like that: more alive than anyone else. The difference is that Barney is happy rushing about on his own – Peggy says he should be on a lead – while Toby always wants me around, close as possible. Until recently we’d curl up together, like two questionmarks, on the sofa. The tips of our fingers would touch beneath the table at supper. Now, we don’t so much. We’re a bit too old. Someone might see.
    ‘Now, Momma. Please. There might be a badger in the trap,’ Barney whines.
    The ‘trap’ – a cage of twigs Toby made for him – is no more likely to catch a badger than a baby rhino. But Barney is convinced he’s going to catch a badger cub and hand-rear it, even though this has never happened before and you wouldn’t want to rear it even if you did catch one. They’ve got a terrible bite. We’ve been warned about the dangers of badgers. And riptides, adders and foxgloves.
    ‘Please, Momma.’
    ‘If you’ve got so much energy, how about you practise those neat little cartwheels Kitty taught you earlier?’
    ‘I’m better at cartwheels,’ says Kitty imperiously.
    ‘So. Cartwheels are for girls. I’m better at rockets. You’re completely useless at rockets, Kitty.’
    ‘Mom-
ma
, Barney says I’m useless at rockets …’
    ‘Don’t you two start squabbling. Here, Toby,’ Momma calls, over Kitty’s head. ‘How about taking your little brother for a kick-around?’
    ‘Do I have to?’
    ‘Yup.’
    ‘Pssst!’ Toby beckons him over. ‘Better idea.’ He lines up a moss ball on the balustrade and, using finger and thumb, flicks it across the terrace. Barney scrabbles up on the wall beside him. ‘A bit of target practice?’ Toby is looking at me, even though he’s whispering into Barney’s ear.
    I shake my head like I’m above it all.
    ‘Now, choose your moment carefully, Barney.’ Tobyrolls a moss ball on