Skull in feathered headdress on a thigh

The plums came in early this year, so Dad has been up the ladders since six, swearing at the wasps. I have been in the packing shed with the sugar-skull mould you sent back from Lisbon, pressing white paste into the little hollows and trying not to think about how long it will take to dry. Mrs Okafor from the village wants twelve for her son's wedding, and the feathers she asked for arrived in a brown envelope: jay and magpie, mostly, picked up from the lane after the crows had their fill.

Something about the shed makes me slow. The light comes through the gaps in the boards in stripes, and the fruit smell is so thick you could lean on it. Yesterday a rook landed on the gatepost and stared at me as though I owed it rent. I thought of you saying that a skull is only a face that has stopped arguing, and I laughed out loud on my own over the sugar.

I have set the largest one aside, the one with the long crest of feathers laid back over its brow. It took me three evenings to fix the quills in a fan at the back of the paste, each one pushed in at the right slant so it looks like it could lift off the table. Mum would have called it showing off. I think it is the best thing I have made.

Come home before the frost. Bring your good pencils and tell me whether a skull can look pleased with itself. I suspect it can, given time and enough fruit.

Love, Nell