Aliens In The Family Page 13

  "It's hard to say," David answered. "Funnily enough, I do feel happy, but I'm not sure if it's an ending or a beginning."

  "Maybe it's both," said Philippa wisely. "A circle."

  Each one of them gradually drifted off to sleep, Dora and Lewis snuggled up to David, and Jake leaning against Philippa. When at last they awoke, they opened their eyes to a world of dappled shadows and patches of sky seen through green leaves.

  "This is where we started from," said David. "Let's see if we can find the rest of our poor horses."

  The creek flowed along murmuring to itself. It sounded as if it had always been there and always would be. It was hard to imagine a time when there had been no creek, and no trees, only stones. A time when the ridges of the eastern hills had glowed and overflowed with the burning gold of molten rock. Yet the land had made itself before their eyes.

  The five people and a horse wandered along the creek bed until they came upon a place where they saw, with astonishment, their own footprints on the bank of the creek. They scrambled up the slope with Cooney following them obediently, and found all the other horses standing quietly on the open ridge that overlooked Webster's Bush. Cooney flicked his tail and went to join them.

  At the sight of the horses David stopped, perplexed. "One horse too many!" he exclaimed, then frowned. "Wasn't there someone else with us?" he asked vaguely.

  Philippa and Dora looked at each other, puzzled. Jake was silent.

  "I think there was," Lewis said. "A sort of brightly-coloured person." He looked around as if expecting a brightly-coloured person to step out of the clear air of the valley.

  "I think he went the long way home," said Jake, half remembering. "He met friends unexpectedly and went home with them instead."

  "We'll have to lead the extra horse," Philippa said. "It's just as well they know me at the riding school."

  "I'll lead it," volunteered Jake. "But go slowly, so that I can get a bit more used to the feeling of Cooney."

  "If you want to practise trotting, I'll take a turn," Dora offered generously. "It's funny, though! I have the feeling that everything's changed, yet when I look around everything's the same."

  "I think things have changed," commented Jake, "but I don't mind. They're better than they were before."

  "He was a sort of eagle," Lewis said, still looking around, "and then he flew off." But he no longer remembered quite whom he was talking about. His memory was crowded with images of trees growing, volcanoes spouting fire, and years flickering by like pages swiftly turning. His head felt as if it was filled with dreams—but then it often felt like that.

  "The extra horse can be a packhorse," Philippa said, putting the pack with the lunch and the spare jackets and other necessary things over Scoot's back.

  "He went the long way home," Jake repeated, frowning as if she was trying hard to remember more, "but he didn't need to stay any longer."

  Nobody heard her.