Davey

"Promise you won't tell anybody, especially Mum and Dad?"

"I promise."

"I'm going to be an actress!"

He snorted, and she looked wounded. "Stop laughing! I'm serious!"

"I think they already know that, Goosey. Everybody knows that's what you're going to be. You already are one."

"A great one?" she asked slyly.

"Of course you are. Lucy Smith, the next... the next Keira Knightley! She'd better watch out!"

She pulled a face, even as she looked pleased – a difficult feat even for some grown actresses, let alone those not quite nine years old. "Eeeeew, no, not Smith. I can't use that name, Davey, nobody will take me seriously!"

"So, you got your screen name all picked out, then?"

She struck a dramatic pose on the sand. "Lucy Noble, at your service, sir!" she told him airily, then managed a creditable deep, formal curtsey – though the lack of a sweeping skirt somewhat hampered her gravitas.

Playing back to her, as he always did, Davey solemnly took her proffered hand and bowed over it. "Milady." He'd been her staunchest supporter since she was born, as the twins had always had each other first, and naturally ganged up on their fey younger sister as often as not. Just as naturally, whenever he was around, her kind-hearted cousin took up her defense, for which she rewarded him with equal devotion.

Bursting into a fit of giggles at their own whimsy, the cousins turned without a word and went back to hunting seashells, Davey glancing back to make sure they hadn't wandered too far from the others. He could still make out that it was Lyra splashing Loren at the moment, so he figured they were OK. Besides, Grandad Wilf was trailing slowly along behind them, halfway back to the others.

"So, you're gonna have your birthday here, huh?" he asked her.

"Yup! Two weeks from yesterday!" came the proud reply. Then, conspiratorially, "Did you see if anybody brought any presents in the TARD'?"

"Nah, I didn't see any. But who knows? You could hide a whole planet in the TARD' and nobody would know."

Lucy giggled. "Imagine getting a whole planet as a birthday present! I'd like that!"

He grinned back. "OK, Miss Noble. I'll give you one. Which one would you like?"

"Hmmmmm – oh, I know! Saturn, so I can wear the rings!" He grinned at her again, and forbore reminding her of the size of those rings.

"Why don't you go to school like me and the Big Brats?" Lucy wanted to know.

"Cause my... my Dad's teaching me, and my Mum. I'm being home-schooled, she says."

"In the TARD'?"

"Yeah."

She stopped and looked at him, pouring as much innocence into her green eyes as she could. "Does that make you a re-TARD?"

His jaw dropped, but then he caught the grin lurking below the surface, and simply glared. "Lu-uce! Don't say that!" His voice was full of hurt.

She took pity then, and gave him a swift, contrite hug. "Sorry. I didn't mean it. But really... don't you want to go to school?"

"But I'm learning all kinds of things – Dad says I'm way ahead of all you guys, maybe even college level."

"But you don't have any friends. Aren't you lonely? And you don't know stuff like football." The other day at the twins' game, the first he'd ever seen, Lucy had to explain every little detail to her thirteen-year-old cousin, whispering intently so that the other kids on the sideline didn't hear and laugh at him again.

Davey had sputtered to another stop, staring at his bare feet. When she turned and looked back from several feet ahead, he slowly raised his eyes to her, and after a long pause, simply nodded. Some things are too deep for words. She transferred her shell bucket to her other side, and held her hand out to him. He likewise shifted his bucket, and the two kids continued their shell hunt, hand in hand, in comfortable silence.

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A/N: as a matter of absolutely no consequence whatsoever, since it's not integral to the plot, I'm of course referring to British "football" throughout, soccer to us Yanks. Just making that clear.