I Am Margaret by Corinna Turner Page B

slightly! But for goodness’ sake be careful.”
    “ Yeah, ‘course I will,” and with an oh-so-reassuring flip of his hand, Bane disappeared between the huts.
    Previous experience at Annual Summits left me in little doubt that even after the speeches had started—or perhaps especially then—there’d be plenty of people hanging around the edges of the sports ground. So I headed along the fence until I was only a short walk from the gardeners’ hut, but far enough away that I wouldn’t be visible to the guards.
    Now came the waiting, the ridiculous hype of the High Committee’s arrival, the extremely lengthy descriptions of how honored little Salperton-under-Fell was this night, and the tedious introductions on stage. It barely penetrated my brain as I pictured Bane creeping slowly through the undergrowth, circling behind that little shed. I should’ve asked him how exactly he planned to get in...
    “ And now, it gives me great pleasure to welcome to Salperton-under-Fell, this night, Donald Grisforth, our honored Minister for the British Department…”
    My cue at last.
     
    Jerked from my half-conscious state by my alarm, I got up reluctantly and dressed. Taking my letter to the table, I found a nice wide margin along the side of an inner page and set to work.
     
P. S.
You know you made me promise to tell you how my story ‘The Latter Years of Peter Rabbit’ ended? Well, I can hardly bear to do so, the ending has turned out so sad.
Dear old Peter Rabbit goes to Grandma Jemima Puddle Duck’s pond to visit, because she’s sick, but since he’s such an old rabbit by then he gets caught by a human, who takes him home and chops him up to make a stew. Only, then the human realizes there’s not really enough of him to make a stew, so he goes out and starts hunting for the warren, so he can eat all Peter’s little bunny children as well.
So you see, it’s terribly sad and I’m so very sorry to have to tell you about it. Anyway, let me know if you would like me to send you a copy, it’s only short, but I imagine you perhaps won’t, with the ending having finished up like that!
Love, M xxx
     
    I read the postscript critically. I couldn’t do much better than that. Since they knew nothing of any ‘The Latter Years of Peter Rabbit’, let alone a promise about it, surely they would understand what I was telling them? So might a priestcatcher, but that I would have to risk.
    Breakfast wasn’t for another fifteen minutes; my little addition hadn’t taken as long as I’d feared. I fetched my notebook and headed a fresh page:
     
The Latter Years of Peter Rabbit
Margaret Verrall
     
    Just in case I found pursuivants crawling out of the woodwork—concrete—here.
    We posted our letters at breakfast, those of us who could write well enough to send them and had someone to send them to. There were some blessings to count. I finished the story then, before our gym session. It extended to only five sides, was far from the most inspiring thing I’d ever written, and I was glad to be finished with it. But it existed. That was enough.
    “Margy! Story, story!” Sarah tugged at the pad eagerly, seeing I’d finished.
    “I don’t think you’ll enjoy that one.” I detached her hands gently and flicked back to the beginning of the pad. “How about ‘The Diary of a Fellest Ewe: Part One’?”
    “Ewe, ram, lamb,” recited Sarah. “All sheep.”
    “Yes, I think that will be right up your street.” Which was why I’d started this Facility pad with something so pleasant. “Are you sitting comfortably?”
    Sarah plunked down in a chair and Caroline and Harriet looked our way and brightened.
    Jane got there first, though.
    “Piss off, Sarah, I want to talk to Margaret.”
    Sarah jumped up hastily, but I caught her wrist.
    “You don’t have to go anywhere, Sarah. If you want to speak to me, Jane, wait ‘til I’m unoccupied or ask me nicely, don’t just boss my friends around.”
    Jane huffed impatiently.
    “