Flower Girls

Chapter 6 - The Picnic

"Girls, your picnic is ready!" Mum called.

Lily and I raced down the stairs.

"Thanks Mum," I said, kissing her on the cheek. "We should be back around three."

"Be safe," said Mum. I know she's been as worried about the strange man as I have, but we'd told the police about the incident involving the white car. There wasn't much more we could do, other than try to be extra careful when we went out.

Besides, we were only going to the meadow behind the field at the back of the house, it wasn't far away.

Lily and I took our picnic and the blanket, and I showed her how to get across the stiles across the fields to get to the meadow. When we reached the meadow, Lily gasped. "It's beautiful," she exclaimed.

She was right. This meadow was always beautiful in the summer. There were pretty flowers of all different colours. The tiny blue forget-me-nots, purple clover, yellow buttercups and white daisies poked their heads through the lush green grass. Around the edge of the meadow there were rowan trees with their bright red berries, and beyond the edge was the start of the forest. Sometimes deer came out of the forest and into the meadow and I was hoping we might be lucky and see one today.

We found a nice patch to sit to eat our picnic, so I spread the picnic blanket across the floor. We sat down and started unpacking the food. Sandwiches, scotch eggs and a variety of fruit and vegetable sticks. Mum had also packed us some of her home-made flapjacks and a little cake each.

"The food looks great," said Lily, and I had to agree. Mum made the best picnics.

I told Lily that if we're lucky we might see a deer, or some of the other wildlife. We ate while we chatted about the flowers around us.

"I've just realised something," I said while Lily took a drink as we were finishing our food.

"Hmm?" prompted Lily.

"We both have the names of flowers in our names," I said. "We're both Flower Girls."

Lily chuckled softly. "You're absolutely right," she said. "I like being a Flower Girl with you. We're surrounded by flowers too. How about we make a daisy chain?"

"That sounds great," I said enthusiastically, and plucked a nearby daisy with a long thick stem. Lily picked up a daisy close to her, and we started the chain.

"Can I ask you something?" I asked her while we were adding more daisies. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

Lily looked up at me. "It's fine, you can ask," she replied.

"What happened that you had to leave your parents so quickly?" I asked.

Just as it looked like she was starting to reply, a loud bang ripped through the air. Suddenly Lily was looking at something small and shiny in her hand.

"Is that a bullet?" I asked.

"Yeah," said Lily. "Get down and stay down." She stood up as I lay down, and then she was gone. From my position on the ground, I looked round the meadow. We'd been sitting in the middle of the field, yet she'd gone. There was no way she could have disappeared – even if she'd been running, I should still be able to see her somewhere. I kept looking around me nervously. What on earth was going on?

As suddenly as she'd gone, Lily was back, out of breath and panting. She sat down and took a drink of water.

"I've checked all around the perimeter of the meadow, I can't see anyone," she said. "But I can guess who was trying to shoot us. I believe he's gone now though."