Rocket, roses and butterfly on ribs

The rocket went up over Sallow Fen on Tuesday, and I swear the whole of Hollin Wick stopped its breakfast to watch. Mr Pardoe had painted it grey the night before, then went over the nose with a tin of red, because he said a thing going to the moon ought to look like it meant it. Dad says the Ministry men will never forgive him for it.

I was sent out with the flask of tea and found the launch crew crouched behind the sheep hurdles. Nobody had told me the countdown would be so slow. Mrs Ashdown's roses from the lane had been cut that morning for the church fête, and someone had left a bunch on the trailer, the petals already browning at the edges. A small brown butterfly kept settling on the fins, opening and shutting its wings as if it were counting something.

When the thing lifted, it did not roar so much as lean, as though it had remembered an appointment. The butterfly stayed put on the casing until the smoke swallowed it. Pardoe stood with his cap in his hands and said, quite gently, that it had gone where it was built to go. I thought of you stuck in Leeds with your typing, and felt the ground shift under my boots.

I am posting you the petal I pressed in the back of the atlas. Come home at Whitsun and bring the good scissors. We will walk out to the fen and see if anything has come down.

Your loving sister, Ivy