Worse for Worse

The village hall smelled of old cricket nets and Mum's lemon cake. Kit Marlowe stood on a folding chair and adjusted a string of bunting that was nearly straight, because it was drooping slightly by the door and nobody had noticed and it was their job now.

"Right." Dad wiped his hands on a rag and looked round like a general. "Mum and I need to fetch the cake tins from home. Ten minutes, Kit. You're in charge."

Ten minutes. In charge. Kit's chest puffed up so fast they nearly toppled off the chair. Juno, who was fourteen and a house prefect and could probably run the country, didn't look up from her phone.

"Don't burn the hall down," she said, in the bored voice of someone who had never burned anything in her life.

Then Mum and Dad were gone, and the hall was quiet except for the kettle ticking — and the drip, drip, drip from the old kitchen tap in the corner.

Everyone had stared at that tap for years. New washer, Dad always said. Measure twice, mend once. But Dad wasn't here. Kit was. And how hard could a tap be?

They pulled a chair over. Climbed up. Wrapped both hands round the cold metal and gave it a proper, grown-up twist.

The pipe behind the wall made a noise like a grumpy old man clearing his throat.

Kit twisted harder.

There was a crack. Then a hiss. Then a roar. Water burst from beneath the sink in a thick, noisy gulp and slapped across the lino, and the lino did not seem to have any intention of stopping it.

"Oh no," Kit said, in a very small voice. "Oh no oh no oh no."

The stopcock — the special tap that turned off all the water. Dad would know where it was. Kit did not. Kit looked under the sink. Kit looked in the cupboard. Kit looked in the cupboard again. The stopcock had not magically appeared.

There was a mop. There was a yellow bucket. Kit attacked the flood like it owed them money. The water retreated, briefly, into a brown tide around the bucket. Then it kept coming, lapping cheerfully at the bunting boxes, licking the trestle-table legs, sliding with great enthusiasm out of the back door and into the lane.

Towels next. Kit stuffed tea towels into the crack beneath the sink. The water came up through the floorboards instead, as if it had heard there was a fête on and wanted to come too.

The door creaked.

Kit froze, holding a sodden tea towel that was making a noise like a dying duck.

It was the vicar's wife, peering in with a tin of biscuits. "Oh! Hello, love. Bit damp in here, isn't it? Have you spilt something?"

"Humidity," Kit said, in a voice that did not sound like their own. "It's the — the weather. British weather. You know."

The vicar's wife gave Kit a long look. Her eyes dropped to Kit's thoroughly soaked socks.

"Right," she said slowly. "Well. Humidity. Cheerio."

She left. She was not entirely convinced. Kit could feel it, hanging in the air like the wet-dog smell now rising off the trestle tables.

Alone again, Kit stood in ankle-deep water and watched a paper bunting flag float past like a small defeated boat. The fête was in six days. The floor was a lake. The stopcock was still missing. And telling anyone would mean admitting that Kit Marlowe, left in charge for ten whole minutes, had flooded the village hall.

Kit's jaw set. Dad had taught them to measure twice and mend once. But Kit had also taught themselves a second rule, without meaning to: do it yourself, no matter what.

The water lapped. The kettle ticked. The bunting sagged.

Six days.