The Peculiar Lives of Boys & Girls At Plumfield

Chapter Five - A Bunch of Fussocks

According to Nan, the events that followed went something like this.

Dan had gone under right as she'd lifted her head and she'd been confused at first, to see nothing where Dan had been, until she heard thrashing, and a hand broke through the crack, trying and failing to secure itself on a pane of slippery ice.

She didn't waste time, immediately clambering up the banks, screaming for help until her throat burned.

In the next few seconds, when no one answered, she swallowed a sob, and with shaking hands, grabbed onto the lowest tree branch, throwing her weight on it and pulling it with all her might until it snapped.

She dragged it toward the lake, slipping on the ice in her haste, and screamed at the sudden sensation of falling through herself.

Dan still thrashed, snapping her out of it, and she began inching her way toward him, screaming for help once again.

Dick and Billy had heard, and Billy came running while Dick hobbled after him.

Billy skidded across the ice, stopping where Nan was, a few metres from where Dan was slowly beginning to still. Nan had already stretched the branch out to where Dan was, trying to get as close as she could without her weight adding to the strain of the weak ice.

At some point, the stick had been hanging over the hole for some time, but the water was still. Dan wasn't moving.

Nan called out to him, beginning to cry, and Dick watched from the sidelines, lips moving in hurried prayers, his face white. Billy had scrambled toward the hole, and with one hand gripping the stick, he reached his arm into the water, and hauled Dan up by the coat, only succeeding in lifting Dan's head out of the water.

A chunk of ice broke near Billy, and he fought to keep a hold of both Dan and the stick.

Nan held the stick with all her strength, holding both Nat and Billy's weight.

She didn't know how long it took for Billy to hook an arm under Dan's armpit and around his chest, or how much longer until Dan was dragged out of the water and across the ice.

Billy crawled, soaking, until he reached Nan and she pulled them both closer to the bank. Dan's face had been greyish blue, his eyes shut and his body unmoving.

"Call for the doctor! Get home and call for the doctor now, Dick!" Billy had called across the lake, while Nan had gone about pumping Dan's chest and blowing into his mouth. When Dan hadn't responded in twenty seconds, Billy's entire body began to tremble and Nan kept pleading with Dan, God, the sun, moon and stars between pumps.

Eventually, Dan sputtered to life, and Nan and Billy quickly turned him onto his side so he could vomit the water and then proceed to cough the roughest, bitterest set of coughs.

"Nan?" he'd mumbled, eyes opening weakly.

She'd gathered him, large as he was, into her arms and wept tears of relief into his soggy shoulder. Her body trembled violently, and Billy covered her shaking hands with his; his teeth chattering.

They helped Dan to the house and were met halfway by Daisy, Demi, Nursey, Emil and Nat.

"I don't know what I would've done without Billy," Nan finished the story, hair dripping into a bucket of warm water in rhythmic plinks, where her feet were submerged. Billy and Nan sat at the fireplace inside the kitchens while Nursey fixed them some chicken broth. Dan had already been seen by the doctor and tucked in bed. He was not to be disturbed. Daisy said he'd already started coming down with a fever.

Billy nodded curtly at Nan, who smiled something small but genuine, and ducked his eyes toward the fire.

"You two are heroes," Daisy sighed as she removed another kettle of hot water from the stove and came by to add some of it into Billy and Nan's buckets.