Maria was amazed. From her expression, she could have been watching an archaeopteryx
flying by.
"I saw one!" she said. "Do you think it stands a chance here?"
"Who knows?"
They were coming to the river. The embankment had been planted with apple trees,
almond trees, cobnuts and sweet chestnut trees. Solar balloons, made of sections
of solar fabric, waved in clusters on long delicate poles containing the wires for
the electric current. It was a favourite place for Kirk. Now they were more in the
open, they could hear the water mill wheels turning. Maria rested against a piece
of stone wall.
"I didn't know it was like this at night. You can see the moon across the river and
the stars look so close."
"It's even better when you're floating through moonlight," Kirk said. He looked up
at an old plane tree he used as his marker and then plunged into a boggy area of
brambles and nettles.
"I think the river is gradually getting in here, somewhere," he commented. He bent
over a log and carefully began to lift the ivy which was covering it.
Maria wondered where they had hidden the canoe he had told her about.
"What do you think of her?" he asked proudly.
She looked, not quite knowing what to say. All she could see was a tree trunk, cut
into a single large log.
"We usually carry it like this," he said. "But I'll turn it over and we can push
it on a branch I use as roller when I'm on my own."
He rolled the log over, far more easily than she had expected, to reveal a hollowed
interior with three good paddles and several large packages with rope round them.
Where The Fox Goes