Chapter Text
Hanna wakes up and straight away, she knows that this will be a Very Special Day. She’s spent the whole night in her own bed, and she’s wearing her sparkly pyjamas, and her ugg boots are right there by her bed, right where she left them, so everything is good.
She slides out from under the covers and sits on the floor to put on her boots. Right foot, left foot. Done! She jumps to her feet and her boots make a happy thud on the floor, and then she opens her bedroom door and tiptoes out into the corridor.
The fifth floor is empty, and a quick peek over the balcony tells Hanna that everywhere else is deserted too, so she makes her way around to Aunty Jemma’s room. She opens the door very slowly, in case it creaks, and then she walks in and whispers, “Hello?”
The person in the bed gives a bleary sort of mumble, so Hanna walks over and climbs up onto the mattress. Aunty Jemma is curled beneath the covers, which are pulled right up to her ears, and her eyes are still closed.
“Wake up,” Hanna says loudly, “because it’s morning!”
Slowly, the woman opens her eyes. “Hanna,” she murmurs.
“It’s a Very Special Day,” Hanna announces. “Do you know why?”
Aunty Jemma says, “What time is it?”
Hanna doesn’t know, so she shrugs and bounces a little bit on the bed just because she can. “Guess why it’s a Very Special Day.”
“I d-don’t know,” Aunty Jemma answers, interrupted halfway through by a tremendous yawn. “Do you want breakfast?”
“Yes,” Hanna says decisively, because her tummy is rumbly. “Pancakes.”
Aunty Jemma sits up, runs a hand through her hair, yawns again and then finally finally gets out of bed. Hanna follows her out of the room and into the fifth-floor kitchen, which they combined with the lounge room last year by knocking out a wall. Hanna remembers, because she was there, and she got plaster dust all over her hair and Mummy said she was filthy.
When the pancakes are nearly ready (and Aunty Jemma has let Hanna sit up on the counter, which is very good), Trip comes in. Hanna beckons him over, and says, “Do you know why it’s a Very Special Day, Trip?”
“Um,” Trip says. He glances over to Aunty Jemma. “Because there are pancakes for breakfast?”
“No,” Hanna tells him scornfully. “It was a Very Special Day before the pancakes.” She holds out her arms and regally says, “Please lift me down.”
Trip hoists her up and lowers her to the floor and she runs over to kneel on the back of the sofa, where she waits for Fitz, because he’ll know why it’s a Very Special Day.
He comes in a few minutes later, sniffs the air and says, “Pancakes!” with enthusiasm. Then he spots Hanna. “Hello, monkey,” he smiles.
“It’s a Very Special Day,” Hanna says without preamble.
Fitz nods. “Yes, because your Mummy and Daddy are coming home today, aren’t they?”
She knew that Uncle Fitz would get it. “I love you, Uncle Fitz,” she says, and holds out her arms for a hug.
“I love you too, monkey,” he says, looking pleasantly surprised. He picks her up and hugs her hard, just the way she likes it, and then carries her over into the kitchen. “Tell me what you want on your pancake.”
After breakfast, Aunty Jemma says Hanna needs to get dressed. She doesn’t want to get dressed, because her pyjamas are so sparkly and they have a unicorn on the front, but Aunty Jemma makes her strictest face, so Hanna has to go.
She chooses her purple checked shirt with the buttons and her white leggings and her underpants with the stars on the sides. Pants and leggings are easy – she sits on the edge of her bed to put her feet through the holes, right foot, left foot, and then she stands up to jump the leggings up her legs. The purple shirt is easy too, but not the buttons. Hanna puts her arms through the sleeves and then she goes outside for help.
Trip is walking past, so Hanna waves her arms at him, the sleeves of the shirt falling past her hands, and says, “Help!”
He smiles and crouches in front of her to do up her buttons. “Do you want to come down to the gym with me?”
Hanna considers it, her head tipped to one side, and then she says, “Yes, please.” She turns around and finds her purple Converse with the glitter and the sparkles standing outside the door and hands them to Trip. “Please will you tie up my laces?”
“Absolutely.” He slides the shoes on, right foot, left foot, and then he tugs the laces tight, just how Hanna likes them, and ties them up into two neat bows.
“Will you carry me down?” she asks.
“You know you’re supposed to do it by yourself,” Trip says. He glances left and right, to check that no one is listening, and then he says, “Oh, all right then, come on.”
Hanna holds on tightly around his neck while he goes down the ropes hand-over-hand, only she’s careful not to strangle him because Mummy says that if you strangle people, they will fall all the way down to the bottom and then go splat.
They go to the gym on the third floor, which has all the soft mats set out for falling on. Hanna can do somersaults and handstands on those mats. Trip puts her down and goes to strap his hands, which means he’s doing punching. Hanna skips over to him and holds out her hands, too. He straps hers after he has finished with his own, and then they both go and stand by the punching bag.
“I’ll hold first,” Hanna says, and she puts her strapped hands on either side of the bag and braces her feet in their sparkly purple shoes on the ground. She leans into the bag, holding it with her shoulder, the way Daddy taught her, and hears the ‘smack-smack-smack’ as Trip starts to hit it on the other side. One time, Trip hit too hard and Hanna went flying all the way to the other side of the room. Daddy was really angry with Trip, but Mummy checked Hanna’s head for all the bumps and bruises and then she just laughed. Mummy is funny, but Daddy is serious.
“Swap with me,” Trip says, so Hanna moves around to stand on the mats and Trip braces his feet on the bare floor and holds the bag for her. She punches like Daddy taught her, too, fast jabs and occasional big swinging roundhouse punches. “Move your feet,” Trip reminds her, and so Hanna shuffles them a little bit, shifting her weight from one foot to the other because Daddy always says you need to stay loose.
Later, Trip does some weights and Hanna plays with the exercise ball, and then she gets bored and tells him she’ll go and find Aunty Jemma. Trip makes her promise to be careful and climb the ladders, not the ropes, but then he lets her go.
Hanna clings tight to the rope ladder and climbs it one rung at a time, to get to the fourth floor, and then up again, to the fifth, where she thinks she might find company. She pushes open the door to Aunty Jemma’s bedroom, but it’s only Fitz in there.
“Hallo, Hanna,” he says cheerfully. Hanna likes Fitz’s voice, because it sounds like he’s singing even when he’s just saying hello. Sometimes, she practices speaking like Fitz or Aunty Jemma, which always makes Daddy very happy.
“Have you seen Aunty Jemma?” she asks.
Fitz says, “She went to have a shower.”
“So why are you in here?”
He makes a guilty face. “Can you keep a secret?”
“’Course,” Hanna says indignantly. “Tell me.”
Fitz pulls something small and brightly wrapped from behind his back. “I was going to hide a present in here for her.”
Hanna frowns. “Why? It’s not her birthday and it’s not Christmas.”
“Well, no,” Fitz says, “just as a general present… you know, to let her know I think of her.”
“That seems a bit silly,” Hanna says, and she props her hands on her hips. “Hide it in her sock drawer. That’s where my Daddy hides things.”
“What things?” Fitz asks absently, but he doesn’t really seem to want to know, because he keeps talking straight away, saying, “Ah, well, maybe I could put it there… I don’t want to seem like I’ve been prying though…”
Hanna leaves him to it, because he’s never sensible after he starts muttering to himself, and she goes back out onto the landing.
The door from the hangar crashes open, and Hanna jumps forward, standing up on the railings to hang over the edge of the balcony and stare down. Billy comes in first, and he doesn’t like her to call him Billy, but she finds his other name tricky to remember (Kernig, or Koonig maybe) and then right behind Billy is AC, which stands for air-conditioning but also Awesome Coulson, that’s what Mummy said. May is next, but Hanna doesn’t pay any attention to her – she’s waiting… waiting…
Mummy and Daddy walk through the door almost at the same time. They look tired, and Daddy has mud on his face, and Mummy has mud on her blue checked shirt with the buttons, like Hanna’s but bigger, but they are here.
She squeals, “Mummy! Daddy!” and they both look up to see her and their faces break into exhausted smiles. Hanna jumps away from the balcony and runs around the edge of the landing to the slide. She climbs in and sticks her legs out straight and pushes off with her hands, yelling with laughter the whole way down to the bottom because she’s just so happy that they’re back.
Her parents are waiting for her at the bottom of the slide, and Mummy lunges forward and catches her under her armpits, swinging Hanna up and into Mummy’s arms. Daddy steps closer and palms the back of Hanna’s head with his big, warm hand.
“Hi, Mummy,” Hanna says, smiling right into her mother’s face. She turns and adds, “Hi, Daddy.”
“Hi, baby,” Mummy murmurs. “We’re really glad to be home.”
Hanna sinks her face into Mummy’s shoulder and wraps her legs tight around Mummy’s waist. “Did you miss me?”
“All week,” Daddy says seriously. “We never stopped thinking about you the whole time.”
“Me neither,” Hanna says quickly, not to be outdone. “I even thought about you when I was sleeping.” Mummy laughs, and Hanna remembers she has another question to ask. “How was the mission? Did you win?”
Mummy and Daddy look at each other, a quick look, and then Mummy opens her mouth to say something but she’s interrupted by a crash and a splash which is Tessie climbing out of the swimming pool and galloping over to see them. Hanna wriggles so that Mummy will put her down, and then she watches Mummy and Daddy say hi to Tessie and she kneels to let Tessie give her whiskery kisses all over her face, which make her laugh.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Mummy says. She yawns loudly. “We’re hungry.”
Hanna holds onto both their hands as they walk over to the rope ladder, and, when they reach it, both of her parents lift her at once so that she starts climbing before them.
“Go on, then,” Daddy says, when she pauses to glance back down at them. “We’re right behind you.”