The six-pronged fork I’m dragging slows me down as it bumps over the ridges of earth made some time ago by the plough.  Now the barley has been harvested and I struggle through stubble and patches of weed.

“Carry the fork,” instructs my step-sister, not looking at me.

I shake my head.  I’m tired – and my too short legs wouldn’t balance the long handle of the fork.  All right for her, she’s empty-handed.  She thinks she’s a grown up now she’s got a bosom but I don’t think it looks much.  Her eyes scan the fields.  I know she’s searching for the boy who works in the cowsheds.  She’s after anything in trousers, my mother says.  He’ll get the sack if my father finds out – but why should she care!

Now my own eyes find something.  The fork has caught in the tendrils of a shiny, green-leafed plant which runs in a wobbly pattern along the ground.  I look down at the trumpet-shaped purple flowers, their bendy bits wrapped back to hold against your ear.

“Fairy telephones,” I breathe aloud, awestruck at the possibilities.

“Convolvulus!” snaps my sister.  “I told you to pick up that fork.”

I ignore her.  We walk on, the magic of what the flowers promise remaining with me.

My grandmother’s house, where my step-sister lives, is now almost a field behind us.  I’m glad.  I share my sister’s governess every day but they don’t like me there.  I’m afraid of my grandmother, afraid of the governess, afraid of my sister.  Return this fork to your mother, my grandmother said.

The wooden fence is up ahead now, separating the ploughed field from the paddock that runs down the hill to my parents’ house.

“Climb over, then pull the fork through,” says my sister, as she leaps over the fence, one hand on the wooden post.  She scans again – this time for any audience.  She’s just like a boy, my mother says.

Chin set, I push the fork through first.  It slides over the grass on the other side.  Now I get down on my knees and begin to push myself through the wooden rails.  The opening is narrow and I am what my grandmother calls an overfed child.  I push harder.  My blouse catches.  I feel the wood skinning my back.

“Obstinate brat!” hisses my sister.

I pick up the fork, seeing, as I do so, a new clump of scarlet pimpernels.  My back is bleeding – there is stickiness on my blouse.  But I don’t care.  The fairies will be using their telephones tonight – and I’m on my side of the fence.