Then she looked across at the other bed. In it lay the figure of another child, curled up under the bed-clothes. Anne could just see the top of a curly head, and that was all. When the figure stirred a little, Anne spoke.
“I say! Are you Georgina?”
The child in the opposite bed sat up and looked across at Anne. She had very short curly hair, almost as short as a boy’s. Her face was burnt a dark-brown with the sun, and her very blue eyes looked as bright as forget-me-nots in her face. But her mouth was rather sulky, and she had a frown like her father’s.
“No,” she said. “I’m not Georgina.”
“Oh!” said Anne, in surprise. “Then who are you?”
“I’m George,” said the girl. “I shall only answer if you call me George. I hate being a girl. I won’t be. I don’t like doing the things that girls do. I like doing the things that boys do. I can climb better than any boy, and swim faster too. I can sail a boat as well as any fisher-boy on this coast. You’re to call me George. Then I’ll speak to you. But I shan’t if you don’t.”
“Oh!” said Anne, thinking that her new cousin was most extraordinary. “All right! I don’t care what I call you. George is a nice name, I think. I don’t much like Georgina. Anyway, you look like a boy.”
“Do I really?” said George, the frown leaving her face for a moment. “Mother was awfully cross with me when I cut my hair short. I had hair all round my neck; it was awful.”
The two girls stared at one another for a moment. “Don’t you simply hate being a girl?” asked George.
“No, of course not,” said Anne. “You see-I do like pretty frocks-and I love my dolls-and you can’t do that if you’re a boy.”
“Pooh! Fancy bothering about pretty frocks,” said George, in a scornful voice. “And dolls! Well, you are a baby, that’s all I can say.”
Anne felt offended. “You’re not very polite,” she said. “You won’t find that my brothers take much notice of you if you act as if you knew everything. They’re real boys, not pretend boys, like you.”
“Well, if they’re going to be nasty to me I shan’t take any notice of them,” said George, jumping out of bed. “I didn’t want any of you to come, anyway. Interfering with my life here! I’m quite happy on my own. Now I’ve got to put up with a silly girl who likes frocks and dolls, and two stupid boy-cousins!”
Anne felt that they had made a very bad beginning. She said no more, but got dressed herself too. She put on her grey jeans and a red jersey. George put on jeans too, and a boy’s jersey. Just as they were ready the boys hammered on their door.
“Aren’t you ready? Is Georgina there? Cousin Georgina, come out and see us.”
George flung open the door and marched out with her head high. She took no notice of the two surprised boys at all. She stalked downstairs. The other three children looked at one another.
“She won’t answer if you call her Georgina,” explained Anne. “She’s awfully queer, I think. She says she didn’t want us to come because we’ll interfere with her. She laughed at me, and was rather rude.”
Julian put his arm round Anne, who looked a bit doleful. “Cheer up!” he said. “You’ve got us to stick up for you. Come on down to breakfast.”
They were all hungry. The smell of bacon and eggs was very good. They ran down the stairs and said good-morning to their aunt. She was just bringing the breakfast to the table. Their uncle was sitting at the head, reading his paper. He nodded at the children. They sat down without a word, wondering if they were allowed to speak at meals. They always were at home, but their Uncle Quentin looked rather fierce.
George was there, buttering a piece of toast. She scowled at the three children.
“Don’t look like that, George,” said her mother. “I hope you’ve made friends already. It will be fun for you to play together. You must take your cousins to see the bay this morning and show them the best places to bathe.”
“I’m going fishing,” said George.
Her father looked up at once.
“You are not,” he said. “You are going to show a few good manners for a change, and take your cousins to the bay. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” said George, with a scowl exactly like her father’s.
“Oh, we can go to the bay by ourselves all right, if George is going fishing,” said Anne, at once, thinking that it would be nice not to have George if she was in a bad temper.
“George will do exactly as she’s told,” said her father. “If she doesn’t, I shall deal with her.”
So, after breakfast, four children got ready to go down to the beach. An easy path led down to the bay, and they ran down happily. Even George lost her frown as she felt the warmth of the sun and saw the dancing sparkles on the blue sea.
“You go fishing if you want to,” said Anne when they were down on the beach. “We won’t tell tales of you. We don’t want to interfere with you, you know. We’ve got ourselves for company, and if you don’t want to be with us, you needn’t.”
“But we’d like you, all the same, if you’d like to be with us,” said Julian, generously. He thought George was rude and ill-mannered, but he couldn’t help rather liking the look of the straight-backed, short-haired little girl, with her brilliant blue eyes and sulky mouth.
George stared at him. “I’ll see, she said. “I don’t make friends with people just because they’re my cousins, or something silly like that. I only make friends with people if I like them.”
“So do we,” said Julian. “We may not like you, of course.”
“Oh!” said George, as if that thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Well-you may not, of course. Lots of people don’t like me, now I come to think of it.”
Anne was staring out over the blue bay. At the entrance to it lay a curious rocky island with what looked like an old ruined castle on the top of it.
“Isn’t that a funny place?” she said. “I wonder what it’s called.”
“It’s called Kirrin Island,” said George, her eyes as blue as the sea as she turned to look at it. “It’s a lovely place to go to. If I like you, I may take you there some day. But I don’t promise. The only way to get there is by boat.”
“Who does the funny island belong to?” asked Julian.
George made a most surprising answer. “It belongs to me,” she said. “At least, it will belong to me-some day! It will be my very own island-and my very own castle!”
Chapter Three
A QUEER STORY – AND A NEW FRIEND
The three children stared at George in the greatest surprise.
George stared back at them.
“What do you mean?” said Dick, at last. “Kirrin Island can’t belong to you. You’re just boasting.”
“No, I’m not,” said George. “You ask Mother. If you’re not going to believe what I say I won’t tell you another word more. But I don’t tell untruths. I think it’s being a coward if you don’t tell the truth-and I’m not a coward.”
Julian remembered that Aunt Fanny had said that George was absolutely truthful, and he scratched his head and looked at George again. How could she be possibly telling the truth?
“Well, of course we’ll believe you if you tell us the truth,” he said. “But it does sound a bit extraordinary, you know. Really it does. Children don’t usually own islands, even funny little ones like that.”
“It isn’t a funny little island,” said George, fiercely. “It’s lovely. There are rabbits there, as tame as can be-and the big cormorants sit on the other side-and all kinds of gulls go there. The castle is wonderful too, even if it is all in ruins.”
“It sounds fine,” said Dick. “How does it belong to you, Georgina?”
George glared at him and didn’t answer.
“Sorry,” said Dick, hastily. “I didn’t mean to call you Georgina. I meant to call you George.”
“Go on, George-tell us how the island belongs to you,” said Julian, slipping his arm through his sulky little cousin’s.
She pulled away from him at once.
“Don’t do that,” she said. “I’m not sure that I want to make friends with you yet.”
“All right, all right,” said Julian, losing patience. “Be enemies or anything you like. We don’t care. But we like your mother awfully, and we don’t want her to think we won’t make friends with you.”