She owed it to Greville to try to hang onto her job. After his efforts on her behalf he didn't deserve that she should tell him-and soon knew she must-that she had been suspended. Suspended, too, not by her immediate boss but by none other than the top man himself!

She wanted that job, she truly did. Because the hours could be somewhat erratic, the job paid well. Oh, if only she wasn't' suspended! Oh, if only she had some other reason she could give other than she had gone fifty miles out of her way-leaving aside her cutting up the top of the top brass in the process-to-deliver a spare kettle to Wilf Fisher's mother.

At dinner that night Fennia and Astra were interested in hearing about her day. Yancie told them of her visit to her stepfather, and, because Fennia was having difficulties with her mother, made light of the not very good reception she'd had from her own. And swiftly changed the conversation.

'How about your day?' she asked her cousin. `Did all go well at the nursery?'

Fennia's reply was that they'd had a near disaster when one of the toddlers, who was inseparable from her fluffy elephant called Fanta, had mislaid it. `Poor mite, she was inconsolable-she'd never have gone to sleep tonight without it.'

'But you did find it?'

Fennia's smile said it all. `I was nearly in tears myself when Kate decided to inspect the backpack of one of our little trouble-makers.'

'And all was revealed?"

'He'd got his own soft toy-but he wanted Fanta.'

Yancie got up the following morning, said goodbye to her two cousins when they went off to work, and tried not to think of the notion which had come to her and which returned to pick at her again and again. It was unthinkable, she told herself-frequently.