Page 21 of Summer Showers at Elder Fell Farm

‘Feeling better, Harry?’

‘Yeah,’ he said comfortably as he reached out to take her hand and the started to pick their way through the tents, helped by the light from the toilet block which lit their way for the first part of the path.

‘Mam, why have your boobies gone all pointy like that?’ he said, suddenly.

‘What do you mean, Harry?’ she asked, horrified.

‘Well, they’re like, pointy.’ He giggled. ‘Your titties have gone all pointy!’

Oh God. They had indeed. That’s why Oliver Sutherland’s dad hadn’t known where to look. The cold had brought her nipples up into sharp points, and that stupid little silky camisole top she was wearing left nothing to the imagination, especially under the spotlight beam of a camper’s head torch. No wonder he’d tried to give her his sweatshirt! What had possessed her to bring pyjamas like this on a camping trip?

‘It’s because I’m cold, Harry,’ she said in what she hoped was a calm and controlled voice, trying to channel Mary Poppins again. ‘It’s what happens sometimes to a lady’s … boobies … when it’s cold.’

‘Yack. Gross. I’m glad I’m a boy, boobies are so stupid.’

They made it back to the tent in one piece and she helped him climb back into his sleeping bag. She put their shoes away in the porch beside the door to the bedroom area, turned off the torch, climbed back into her own sleeping bag and zipped it back up with a sigh of relief.

‘Goodnight, Harry.’ She settled down into the warmth of her bed.

‘Night, Mam.’

For thirty seconds she luxuriated in relative comfort as she tried to wipe from her mind the fact that Oliver Sutherland’s dad had been looking at her nipples through her pyjama top.

‘Mam?’ a small voice in the darkness spoke.

‘Yes, Harry?’

‘You know when we went up to the toilets? I forgot to go to the loo. I still need a wee.’