Birds, roses and script sleeve design

The fair pulled into Ferndale on Tuesday and the wind has not let up since. Mr Abernethy has the big top up on the common, but the tent poles sing all night like a ship's rigging, and Mrs Lusk, who runs the bird tent, says it is the sparrows complaining. She keeps a cage of them in the wagon behind the ghost train, the little brown ones we caught in the hop fields, and every morning she lets them out to see if they will come back. Most do. Two never have, which she says is the point of the exercise.

Your wages are in the envelope, the cheque from Keswick, so don't go spending it on the lamp shop. The painter has finished the new front board for the stall, the one with the script across the middle: The sky is the limit. Abernethy wanted it in gold leaf. Ruddock, the quiet fellow who once worked the ships, said gold would cost us a fortnight of takings, so it's black and white with roses either side like a funeral wreath. Honestly, it looks better for it.

Something happened on Thursday that I can't put down neatly. A girl from the village came to the stall with a sparrow cupped in her hands, half dead, and asked if Mrs Lusk could mend it. Mrs Lusk took the bird, breathed gently along its back, and said it was not hurt, only frightened of the height of the sky. Then she opened her palm, and it flew straight up past the flags and the Ferris wheel and kept climbing until I lost it against the cloud.

We move on Monday to Cheltenham. Write to me there, care of the post office. I'll be looking up.

Love, Nell