One Young Fool in Dorset Read Online Free

that
because your school report wasn’t too bad, perhaps you deserve a
pet.”
    My school report had just arrived in the post. It
was probably the best one I ever received and I’m pretty sure my
teachers were lenient because I’d only just joined the school.
    * * *
    School Report
    Reading: Victoria is making
steady progress.
    Writing: Victoria is
developing a good style.
    Oral Composition: Good,
although shy.
    Written Composition: Victoria enjoys this and has made progress.
    Arithmetic: Could do
better.
    Nature Study: Excellent.
    * * *
    Inside the cardboard box was a tortoise. In those
days, tortoises were freely available in pet shops, and the fact
that huge numbers died as they were shipped abroad, packed on top
of each other without food and water, was of little
consequence.
    It wasn’t quite the pet I had in mind. I couldn’t
take this pet for walks on a leash. Nevertheless, I was delighted
with Timmy the tortoise. My father built a run for him with a
little hutch one end where he could retreat during inclement
weather. I fed him pieces of tomato and banana which he crushed in
his toothless mouth. I found him juicy dandelion leaves and
sometimes lifted him out of the run and let him explore the
garden.
    By now, my mother was getting to grips with the
unruly garden and was no longer digging up whiskey bottles. Whilst
creating lawns, new flowerbeds, laying paths and raising
vegetables, she was slowly discovering the passion of her life:
gardening.
    I couldn’t understand how a short stroll to drop
some potato peelings on the compost heap at the bottom of the
garden could take her half an hour. But it did because she had to
pause to smell the buddleia flowers, or admire the cyclamen
seedlings which unwound like springs, or check if baby lettuce had
pushed through the soil overnight. I didn’t understand the
attraction until twenty years later when I, too, had my first
garden and my own passion for gardening was born.
    The garden was already unrecognisable, bearing no
resemblance to the one we inherited. We now had a paved terrace on
which I would later learn to roller skate. There was a little wall
built from yellow Purbeck stone in front of which giant gaudy
African marigolds stood in battalions. Clumps of lavender scented
the air, edging a lawn big enough to put up a badminton net.
    As she forked, dug and planted, my mother would
enter a kind of trance. This could be useful because it was the
perfect opportunity should I want to raid the larder or get up to
any mischief. I could time my misdeeds carefully, knowing that if
she was busy gardening, she would never notice anything.
    As my mother laboured happily in the garden, she
would often collect Timmy the tortoise and place him in the middle
of the lawn. Timmy meandered around, munching contentedly on
daisies. Tortoises aren’t known for their speed, but Timmy
regularly surprised us by sprinting to the edge of the lawn and
diving into a flowerbed when our backs were turned.
    “He’s gone again.”
    “Oh no, did you see which direction he was
heading?”
    If we stood still and watched the flowerbeds, we’d
see a clump of flowers shaking, or being roughly pushed aside.
    “Timmy! There you are!” I squealed.
    Usually he wasn’t difficult to find and we’d soon
scoop him up and return him to the centre of the lawn.
    Of course it was bound to happen. One day, while my
mother was absorbed in her garden, she forgot all about Timmy. By
the time she remembered him, he’d vanished.
    “When did you last see him?”
    “ Ach, I’m not sure… It was probably when I
was planting the artichokes. Perhaps an hour ago…”
    “An hour?”
    At first we didn’t worry, but when he didn’t appear
all afternoon, thorough searches were organised. It was a big
garden, much of it still untamed. As we searched, our arms were
scratched by brambles and our knees were muddied, but there was no
sign of Timmy.
    Night fell, and Timmy was still missing.
    I cried myself to sleep.

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