Free Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones

one with queer eyes. But you didn’t see them, did—”
    â€œYes, I did,” said Dagner. “We were only in the woods. That one was the leader. Kialan, I think that settles it, don’t you? We’d better leave at once, as soon as I’ve said good-bye to Mother.”
    â€œDon’t be an idiot!” said Moril. “If you tell Mother we’re going, she’ll tell Ganner. And he’s such a big fusspot that he’s bound to say it’s dangerous and stop us going.”
    Kialan and Dagner looked at one another again. “He’s got a point there, Dagner,” Kialan said. “Ganner is an awful old woman. He’s bound to come after us, anyway. What do you say to waiting until the wedding feast has started and he’s too busy to notice we’re missing?”
    Dagner pondered anxiously. He looked purple and bent with worry. “No,” he said at length. “No, we daren’t. Not if this other fellow’s here.” He jerked his head to the end of the yard. There was a big old gate in the wall there, bolted and peeling. “We’ve found out that leads to a back street. You two get those bolts back while I harness Olob, but don’t open it till I’m ready.”
    Kialan helped Dagner pull out the cart and back Olob between its shafts, so they were ready almost as soon as Brid and Moril had done their part. The bolts were very stiff and rusty. Brid wanted to fetch the oil from the cart, but Moril would not let her. “No,” he said. “I’ve an idea to fool Ganner.” It took them quite a while, and cost Brid a pinched finger, to waggle the bolts back without.
    â€œReady,” said Dagner. Olob came toward the gate, almost dancing with pleasure at being at the work he was used to. Brid and Moril swung the gate creaking open. Brid went up into the cart, with the easy spring of long practice, and sat down to get her boots off. The cart rumbled through and crunched on the gravel of the lane outside, which was so narrow that Olob for a moment seemed likely to run into the shuttered house opposite. Moril stayed inside the stableyard and carefully bolted the gate again. It looked, to his satisfaction, as if it had never been opened at all. He took a running jump at it and managed to hook his fingers in the top, where the gate did not quite meet the wall above. From there, he swarmed up onto the thick top of the wall itself. Kialan stood up in the cart to help him jump down.
    â€œGood idea,” he said. “Let’s hope Ganner wastes a lot of time trying to find out which way we went.”

6

    In the late afternoon Markind seemed to be deserted. As they clattered northward through its shuttered, respectable streets, Moril was ready to swear that there was no one around to notice even such a noticeable cart as theirs. Nevertheless, Dagner was as tense as if he were giving a performance. He did not relax even when they were out of Markind. Instead of looking for a main road, he struck into the first small lane that went north and kept turning round uneasily as he drove to see if Ganner was following them.
    Olob clattered along with a will, with his ears gaily pricked. The lane, and then the other lanes they took after it, led through apple orchards where the trees were bursting into bloom. The sun was mild and warm. Moril sat smiling sleepily and happily, listening to the familiar beat of Olob’s hooves, the wine sloshing about in the great jar behind him, and the blackbirds singing in the apple trees. This was the life! He was sure they could manage, whatever Lenina thought. A cuckoo sang out, cutting across the songs of the blackbirds.
    â€œO—oh!” said Brid. Tears began rolling down her cheeks. “Father said to me—by the lake—he hadn’t heard a cuckoo yet this year. And he was sorry he was going to miss it.” Her face screwed up, and her tears ran faster than ever. “He told me to