Country

‘Hullo girls, have you been behaving while I was out?’

Three heads nodded vigorously.

‘Good. It’s getting late, so finish your ice cream - goodness have you eaten all of it? - oh well never mind. Bedtime, quick sharp - and don’t forget to clean your teeth after all that sugar,’ she called up the stairs after their retreating backs.

‘I don’t know how it is in your country,’ she said, gathering up the dishes, ‘but the children just adore ice cream.’

‘Our country?’ said Brontë.

‘Oh, are you not from Sweden then, the same as Xavier? I just assumed…’ Bella looked from one to another of her visitors, conscious she might have made some sort of a gaffe.

Conferring silently, the clones decided they were from Sweden as far as Bella was concerned. 

‘Yes, Swayah - sorry - Sweden.’ Brontë knew she had the pronunciation very precisely and it covered the reason she had queried Bella’s question, she hoped. ‘Our children love it too.’ That sounded about right, she thought.

‘Thanks so much for minding the girls, I really appreciate it.  Let me call you a cab to get home. I’m so sorry to have been so late…’ Her voice tailed off as she reached for her phone.

‘Actually, there’s a bit of a difficulty with that,’ said Alain. ‘We don’t have a key to the house and Kim and Joe said they would be out really late this evening. Could we perhaps sleep here and return home in the morning?’

Bella looked very surprised and started to say something but Brontë cut in quickly.

‘We’re quite happy to sleep on the floor, we’re used to camping.’ She laughed confidently. ‘If you don’t mind, of course?’

And so it was settled. Whatever Bella thought about the arrangement, she kept it to herself, especially as she knew she owed the young people a huge debt of gratitude - and her date with her new beau had gone so well.