Free Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper Page B

courses at the Academy—and playing in a jazz club at night,” Paul said with a crooked grin.
    â€œGood Lord!”
    â€œAh, the worm turns. Not exactly your kind of jazz, though.”
    â€œBetter nor nowt. What are you going to do, Will?”
    â€œLoaf about, like me,” said Barbara comfortably, from an armchair.
    â€œWell as a matter of fact,” Mrs. Stanton said, “Will has an invitation he hasn’t heard about yet. Quite a surprise.” She leaned forward with the teapot and began filling cups. “Your Aunt Jen telephoned this afternoon from London—she and David are up for a day or two, with some group from Wales. And she wanted to know, Will, if you’d like to spend part of the holidays at the farm—as soon as school ends, if you like.”
    Will said slowly, “That’s good.”
    â€œWow!” said James. “Don’t tell Mary, she’ll be livid—she thought she was going to get invited back to Wales this year.”
    â€œJen said something about Will getting along very welllast year with a rather lonely boy who lived there,” Mrs.Stanton said.
    â€œYes,” Will said. “Yes, I did. His name was Bran.”
    â€œYou’ll have to make sure it’s a working holiday, you know,” said his father. “Make yourself useful to your uncle. I know that part of Wales is almost all sheep, but it’s a busy time of the year on any farm.”
    â€œOh yes,” Will said. He picked up another of the small immature apples and twirled it round and round, fast, by its stem. “Yes. There’ll be a lot of work to do.”

The Singing Mountains

•  
Five
  •
    â€œHave we been here before?” Barney said. “I keep feeling—”
    â€œNo,” Simon said.
    â€œNot even when you were little, and I was a baby? You might have forgotten.”
    â€œForgotten this?”
    Simon swung one arm rather theatrically to embrace the panorama that lay spread around them, where they sat on the wiry grass halfway up the mountain, among spiny bushes of brilliant yellow gorse. Over all the right-hand half of their view was the blue sea of Cardigan Bay, with its long beaches stretching far into the haze of distance. Directly below them lay the green undulations of Aberdyfi golf course, behind its uneven dunes. To the left, the beaches ran into the broad estuary of the River Dyfi, full and blue now with water at high tide. And beyond, over the flat stretch of marsh on the other side of the river-mouth, the mountain mass of Mid-Wales rolled along the skyline, purple and brown and dull green, its colours shifting and patching constantly as clouds sailed over the summer sky past the sun.
    â€œNo,” Jane said. “We’ve never been to Wales before, Barney. But Dad’s grandmother was born here. Right in Aberdyfi. Perhaps memories can float about in your blood or something.”
    â€œIn your blood!” Simon said scornfully. He had recently announced that instead of going to sea, he proposed to become a doctor, like their father, and the side-effects of this weighty decision were beginning to try Jane and Barney’s patience.
    Jane sighed. “I didn’t mean it like that.” She groped in her shirt pocket. “Here. Halfway snack time. Have some chocolate before it melts.”
    â€œGood!” said Barney promptly.
    â€œAnd don’t tell me it’s bad for our teeth, Simon, because I know it is.”
    â€œCourse it is,” said her elder brother with a disarming grin. “Utter disaster. Where’s mine?”
    They sat munching fruit-and-nut chocolate for a contented space, gazing out over the estuary.
    â€œI just know I’ve been here before,” Barney said.
    â€œDon’t keep on,” Jane said. “You’ve seen pictures.”
    â€œI mean it.”
    â€œIf you’ve been here before,” Simon said, long-suffering,