Picking Elderflowers in the Evening, Near Litton, Somerset

Amy is five years old and in all of those five years she's never seen Mummy acting like this before. Mummy's in front of her on the grass, standing in a weird way, as if she's been frozen by one of those ice guns what the man in The Incredibles have got in his hand most of the time. She's on one leg, with one arm out, like she's been running and got told to stop and stay still as a statue. Her mouth is open too and her face is white. It would be really funny if her eyes weren't all opened up and weird, the way her face goes when she's looking at something scary on the television. Behind her is a line of fluffy white clouds in the sky – like on The Simpsons – except the sky's a bit darker, because it's nearly night-time.

'Amy?' After a while Mum puts her foot down. Stops balancing on it. She does this funny little sideways dance like a puppet what's about to fall over, and when she gets her balance again her face changes. 'AMY?'

She starts running and as she runs she's screaming, 'Brian!?! Brian, I've found her. Brian? Come NOW. I've found her. Over here in the trees.'

Before Amy can say anything Mum has grabbed her up. She's still screaming out to Dad, 'Brian Brian Brian,' and she's hugging Amy the way she hugged her that day she was about to go into the road and almost got squished by a bus, which Mum says is the most scary thing what ever happened to her, but Amy didn't think was even half as scary as the Puzzler man off of Numberjacks on CBeebies.

'Where've you been?' Mum puts her back down on the ground with a bump. She squats and runs her hands up and down her arms and legs, straightening her blue dress and pushing her hair out of her face. Staring at her, all worried. 'Amy? Amy, are you all right? Are you all right, darling?'

'I'm all right, Mummy. Why?'

'Why?' Mum shakes her head, like the times when Dad says something really stupid. 'Why? Oh baby, baby, baby. My baby.' She closes her eyes, drops her head against Amy's chest and squeezes her. It's a really hard hug and Amy can feel her insides squishing up, but she doesn't want to squiggle away coz it might upset Mum.

'Amy!' Dad comes running along the path. The field is very big and very green and sloping and all the people from the cars that were parked here before have got out and they're all standing staring at her. 'AMY?' Dad's not carrying the container they were putting their flowers into any longer, instead he's got his phone in his hand. He's taken off his nice jumper and his shirt's all wet and yucky under the armpits. Mum says that's where he leaks when he runs too fast so he must of been running for a long time. His face is just like Mum's, all white and scared, and Amy wants to laugh a bit, coz they do look funny both of them, all white like Halloween masks, except it's hard to tell if Dad's really cross or really sad.

'Where were you? Where have you been?' His voice is really shouty. 'How many times have I told you not to go out of our sight?' He turns and yells at the people over at the cars. 'We've found her. We've found her.' Then he turns back to Amy. He's cross, definitely cross – you can tell by how squinty his eyes have gone. 'You've been ages, you've made your mother cry now. This is the last time we pick elderflowers. The last time.'

'Brian, be quiet. She's all right, that's the main thing.'

'Is she?' He puts a hand on Mum's shoulder and moves her out of the way so he can bend and look into Amy's face. His eyes go up and down and side to side, taking in every inch. 'Are you all right? Amy? Where've you been? Have you spoken to anyone?'

She bites her lip. Her head feels all nasty and hot and there are some tears in her eyes that fall out of under her eyelids and go running down her cheeks.

'Amy?' Dad shakes her arm. 'Did you speak to anyone?'

'Only the man. That's all.'

Dad goes all funny when she says this. Suddenly his hands aren't nice any more but are like bird's claws, digging into Amy's arms. 'The man?'

'Yes.'

Mum's mouth starts quivering. The black make-up stuff on her eyes has gone runny and it's all trickling down her face. 'I told you we shouldn't be out here at this time of day, Brian, this is when they all come out – all of them. And we're not far from the Donkey Pitch. Remember? The Donkey Pitch?'

'What man?' Dad says. 'Amy, tell me in the most grown-up way you can, because this is serious. What man?'

She turns towards the woods, lifting her hand to point. But as she does she sees that he's gone – the man who likes dogs. He's gone away. And he must of taken the puppy, coz that's gone too.

'He was really cute.'

'Cute?' Mum says. 'Cute?'

'The puppy was called Bear.'

'The puppy?'

'Oh, for God's sake!' Dad rubs hard at his forehead. 'There's always a puppy. Always a shagging puppy.'

'Brian, please.'

'It's the oldest trick in the book: I've got a poorly puppy – come into the woods and I'll show you. We're taking her to the police. She needs an examination.'

Amy frowns. The man in the woods didn't say that the puppy was poorly, and he didn't ask her to come into the woods to look at it. She was the one what found the puppy, before she met the man.

'I don't want no exam, Mum – I don't want one of them.'

'See, Brian, you've scared her. Now, Amy ...' Mum sits down on the grass. She pats her leg. 'Come here, sweetie. Sit down.'

Amy sits on Mum's lap. She wipes her nose with her hand. Sniffs up the rest of the snot, which is yucky. She wishes Dad wasn't cross – she doesn't understand why he's cross, coz the man wasn't horrid. He looked a bit funny, with a big hairy beard like a goblin, or like a Santa Claus in reverse, because his beard was black, but he spoke to her very very nice and made her a promise, a proper pinkie-promise which everyone in the world knows is the most proper. And another thing is that he called her Crocus, which was the bit she liked the best – when he said she was as pretty as a crocus. Because crocuses are really pretty and they're sometimes purple and sometimes yellow and sometimes both. Miss Redhill at school says they're the second flower of spring after the snowdrops have died and gone back into the ground.

'Amy,' Mum asks. 'This man ... was he nice to you?'

'Yes. And he was nice to the puppy.'

'Was it his puppy?'

'No.'

'Then whose puppy was it?'

'I don't know.' She puts her finger in her nose and picks it thoughtfully. She thinks that maybe the puppy wasn't a puppy for real but a grown-up dog – sometimes a big dog can be little if it's a puppy and sometimes an old dog can be smaller than a puppy, even though it's really lots older. It's all about something called 'breeds' what can be small or big. 'He came after I found the puppy. I just said that, didn't I?'

Dad straightens up. 'Come on. Show me where you found this puppy.'

Mum lets Amy jump off her lap. She holds her hand as they walk into the trees. It's a bit more spooky in the wood coz it's dark in here now. But she can see Dad's white shirt, and Mum does that thing as they go, with her hand, where she squeezes Amy's thumb to let her know everything's OK. Amy squeezes her hand in return.

Amy takes Mum and Dad to the place she met the puppy. It's getting really...