"You are the only hobbit I know who can play at being a vampire with fruit as your innocent victim," Daisy said, peeling the skin off her own orange as she perched in the tree beside the other girl. They were situated just out of sight beside the Frogmorton road, content to wait and bicker aimiably until someone interesting happened by.
"I bet vampires have to eat dozens of oranges," answered Del. "Because otherwise they'd get scurvy, and I've never seen a vampire with scurvy."
"You've never seen a vampire at all, ninnyhammer."
"Have so." Wiping excess juice from around her flushed mouth, Delphinium looked deadly serious. "Hiro Thatcher never goes out before dark, ever. And he keeps those big black dogs with the sharp teeth. And he doesn't have scurvy."
Daisy laughed, kicking at Del's shins. "You're such a liar. He was out with his wife and their eldest boy buying a new bridle yesterday, you asked him if you could have a puppy from the litter."
"I'm going to name it Fang, and teach it to bite stupid little girls."
Sighing, Daisy bit into a wedge of her now-peeled orange. "She's all right, you know. Her brother Basil is mean as custard to her."
"As custard?"
"Well, Mum's always saying that clever people are keen as mustard. So that means horrid brutes are mean as custard, doesn't it? Makes sense." Daisy shrugged. "Anyway, I think it's sad you two aren't better chums. It would make it a set - Meli and Molly are knotted up so close I can't imagine one without the other, and there's me and Sammie, and then there could be you and Aster."
"But it's always her and Sammie. He doesn't need you anymore," said Del in a cruel tone, making another slit in her orange's skin with a vicious push of the knife.
"The only reason that it's just the two of them working on the story together is because Aster's got the neatest hand. Sammie wants it to look lovely for Mum's birthday, she's gotten him a big bag full of marbles and he wants to make the words look special. He spent hours and hours writing it, and it's worth taking the trouble to get the best calligrapher to copy it for him. If he tried to use me or you it would look like a beetle had stepped in the ink bottle and then walked on paper." Daisy wanted to pat Del on the shoulder but didn't especially relish the thought of having her fingers bitten off. "Anyway, look, here they come now. Hie! You two! Come up and join us, we're making sure we don't get scurvy."
Sammie clambered up to the fork in the branches with agility born of practise, and after a second's hesitation Aster followed.
"Why don't we all go down to the Pool and look for frogspawn?" Sammie suggested. "There should be lots this time of year, we can collect it in jars and things."
"Mum said I could use the crocks left over from our old dinner set," piped up Aster. "I was going to ask your Dad for some flowers to put in them." Delphinium made a derisive snort. "But we could use them."
"Brilliant!" Daisy clapped. "Del's very good at finding the best spots, aren't you?"
Delphinium shrugged. "I suppose."
"Well, come on then." Sammie grinned. "No point in making sure you don't have scurvy if you just sit about in trees all day."
~