The Summer of the Mourning Cloak

by Kathleen Nelson

  Chapter Eight

  A New Pupil comes to School

  However slowly he walked, however often he stopped to stare at a spider’s web between two tall stalks of grass, or pick a slab of moss off a stone, the journey to school ended, as it did every morning, at the school gates.

  Occasionally Zak’s father would let him stay home for the day. It all depended if he had a hangover or not, or if there was a job to do that required Zak’s help.

  “Yes, stay off school. It never did me any good,” his father would sometimes say nodding at him. His grandmother’s main concern was for herself: “As long as they don’t come knocking on my door asking where the boy is!” she would shout, “I’m not taking the blame!” At other times, if Zak asked to stay off school, he would get a smack from his father and be told: “You need to get some learning into that thick skull of yours, boy. Get yourself to school. Never did me any harm.”

  This morning he hadn’t even tried to ask for a day off. He shuffled slowly through the school gates, ignoring the shouts of children greeting each other all around him. Somewhere to his right he heard his name called: “Judd! Hey, Judd, love your trainers!” This was from Tristan Pringle, a boy in his class, who was Zak’s main tormentor. It encouraged some of the younger children to chant his surname mockingly: “Ju-udd! Ju-udd!” Zak did not quicken his pace. He slowed down slightly, in fact, pretending not to hear. Running away was pointless as there was nowhere to run to, and in any case it would show a weakness which would be pounced upon. Nor did he meet anyone’s eye: that could be dangerous too as it might be seen as a challenge. He walked slowly on, kicking at a stone, calculating that they would soon lose interest in him.

  As he made his way towards his classroom Zak looked down at his trainers. They were filthy, and falling apart, but that in itself was not the shameful aspect of them. In fact some boys managed to make scruffy trainers look cool. What marked them out for ridicule was that his grandmother had bought them from the local market, and there was a hint of pink around the toes which probably meant they were intended for a girl. No one else bought trainers in the market. No one else chose trainers for cheapness alone. There was no designer logo on them, nothing to brand them as acceptable, let alone cool. For his own part Zak did not really care, but he preferred not to draw attention to himself, and decided that second-hand trainers from a charity shop might be better in future.

  The noisy hubbub in the classroom informed him at once that Miss Carradine had not arrived. The girls’ high pitched chatter and excited shrieks of laughter dominated the room. As he listened to them speculating about the arrival of a new boy, Zak glanced around with faint curiosity. He could not see any new faces.

  “Oh my God, the poor new boy will have to sit next to you, Zak!” laughed Emily Glover. “That’s the only spare seat.”

  “What has he done to deserve that treat!” This was Emily’s best friend, Olivia. The other girls giggled, and a few of them said: “Oh, my God!” several times in succession.

  Zak was used to paying no attention to the mocking laughter of the girls in the class. He went to the back of the classroom and put his filthy schoolbag on his desk. He gazed up at the huge poster of Queen Victoria. They were learning about her, doing a project. Some of the children had work pinned up on the wall, pictures and drawings and essays, but Zak had not contributed. He did know that the old queen dressed in black because she was mourning a husband whose name Zak couldn’t remember. She had mourned him for forty years, which seemed a long time. He couldn’t recall his father wearing black or doing much mourning for his mother. Unless you counted drinking too much as mourning. His father certainly did plenty of that. Why didn’t the old queen wear a crown, he wondered. There wasn’t much point in being royal if you couldn’t wear a crown. She didn’t look very good-natured either, probably one of those adults who was always shouting and grumbling at you, a bit like his granny.

  The classroom seemed to be unusually full of flies, and one of them settled on his hand. He flicked it off, and tried to remember a film he had once seen where the hero had been able to catch flies with his hand. Zak had practised it himself for some days afterwards, but it was something he had never been able to do. The fly was always too fast. He only looked up when he realised that the noisy chatter had subsided to a “teacher’s-in-the-room” sudden hush.

  Miss Carradine walked towards her desk and smiled at the class. She was not alone. A small, slim girl with dark hair tied back in a pony tail, followed her into the room, looking round at everyone with the most extraordinary eyes that Zak had ever seen. The children looked on with puzzled interest.

  “Morning everyone!” called Miss Carradine in her sing song voice. “This is Hyslop, Hyslop d’Agostino who has joined us from a school in Italy. She is going to be starting in our class and I hope that you will all make her very welc… ”

  “You said Hyslop was a boy, Miss!” cried Tristan Pringle, and there was a male chorus of “Yeah!” and “You said a boy, Miss!” from his cronies.

  “All right, Tristan!” said Miss Carradine sharply. “Yes, I admit I was wrong. I only saw Hyslop’s name on a sheet of paper with no other information, and it is a slightly… um… unusual name for a girl. I confess I misinformed you all that a new boy would be starting. However, Hyslop will be all the more welcome as the girls are outnumbered by the boys, so it’s a good thing for all of us.”

  Zak pondered on the phrase : “A good thing.” Normally he didn’t agree when adults said something was “a good thing” or “good for you.” In his experience it never turned out to be much good. Was a new girl really such a good thing? Some of the girls in the class had cruel mocking tongues.

  “Can we all sit down, please!” said Miss Carradine. “Hyslop, dear, now where will you sit?”

  “Don’t make her sit next to Zak Judd!” called out one of the girls, and there was the familiar chorus of giggling and groans.

  “Chloe, don’t be so silly!” snapped Miss Carradine. “Come on now, everyone, settle down, could you!”

  “Yuk, Miss, there are flies everywhere!” The children all seemed to be talking at once. “I hate flies!” “We need to zap them with something.” “Why are there so many?” “Has something died in here in the night and left its rotting carcass!” “A carcass with maggots!” “That’s gross!” “Oooh, maybe there’s a dead body!”

  “For goodness sake,” said Miss Carradine. “What sort of impression are we giving poor Hyslop?” The teacher smiled down at Hyslop, but there was no smile in reply, just a solemn stare from those large eyes. “Sit down, all of you, and ignore the flies. They won’t harm you. Zak, move your bag off the top of the desk and make room for Hyslop please.”

  “Flies can give you diseases, Miss.” The chorus started up again. “Yes, like malaria.” “That’s mosquitoes, stupid!” “Well, how do you know these aren’t mosquitoes?” “You only get mosquitoes in Africa!” “Not just Africa. My auntie went to India and they had them there too.” “You can die from malaria.” “Yeah, well, we’re not in India or Africa, are we?” “No, but you can get malaria if you… ”

  “Yes, yes,” said Miss Carradine in a weary tone. “Well, I can assure you that none of you are going to get malaria. Nor is there a dead body anywhere nearby. I shall get the janitor to fetch some flyspray. In the meantime, could we sit down and be quiet. Thank you!”

  For Zak it was all meaningless background noise. He found himself transfixed by the new girl, Hyslop d’Agostino. It certainly was a strange name, and she looked somehow different from the other girls in the class too. She stood, straight and self-contained, as if she was apart from everyone else in her own head.

  It came to him slowly, as he watched her approach the back of the classroom where there was a spare seat beside his. She was the girl who was staying at the Hemmingswood estate where his father and grandmother worked. He had heard that there was a mother and a daughter who had come all the way from Italy, and their surname ended in Tino.
This was the girl who was staying in Keeper’s Cottage. Zak wondered if she spoke English. It would be difficult for her if she only spoke Italian. He watched her place her pencil case on the desk, but she did not sit down.

  “We don’t need flyspray,” she said suddenly, in perfect English. The other children fell silent, as they would if a teacher had spoken, and the girl Hyslop walked over to the window. She opened the window as wide as it would go and then stood there, waiting. To Zak’s astonishment, all of the flies flew at once towards the window, probably attracted by the breeze, and then flew out in a great swarm. It was really rather extraordinary.

  There was an astonished silence, then Miss Carradine spoke. “Well! That was clever of you, Hyslop. Yes, well, jolly good. No need for flyspray as you say. That was well done. Now… um… where was I?”

  No one said anything, and Zak stared, open-mouthed, at the new girl as she took her seat beside him.

  “Yes, I know what I was going to say,” said Miss Carradine. “Yes, I think before we start with lessons, we should all introduce ourselves to Hyslop.”

  The teacher smiled at the new girl with a bright false smile. Zak could see that the fly incident had made her a little uneasy.

  “You won’t remember everyone, Hyslop, but it will be a start,” she said in her teacherish voice. “And then maybe you can stand up and tell us a bit about yourself and your school in Italy.” There was no smile in response from Hyslop, no expression at all. The teacher cleared her throat several times and turned to her favourite: “Emily, could you begin, please!”

  Emily, whose desk was closest to the teacher’s, stood up and acknowledged her audience with a series of nods. One of the boys across the aisle from Zak imitated her smile and her supercilious stance, and in truth his impression was fairly accurate. Zak was relieved that someone else was being mocked for once.

  “My name is Emily,” said Emily. “Emily Louise Glover. I am eleven and a half, and I have one brother, Liam, who is six, and who is a complete pain!” She paused for emphasis and a few of her friends tittered obligingly. “I do ballet lessons and I’m on Grade Three piano. I actually passed my Grade Two with merit. I play netball for the school. My BFF is Olivia.” She beamed at the girl next to her, who beamed back. “We’ve been best friends since we were three. We used to be in Brownies together. We have secrets and stuff that we don’t tell anyone else about.” Once again, she and Olivia exchanged knowing smirks. Zak thought they were welcome to their silly secrets. He had no interest in knowing what they giggled about in private. “I have a cat called Mishka. Um… I like different sorts of music.” She paused and went on to name various groups and singers she liked, an interminable list of boy bands that Zak hadn’t heard of. The resume ended up with, “and I want to be a ballet dancer when I grow up.”

  As usual, the girls were more forthcoming than the boys. They were all keen to advertise the names of their best friends. Zak wondered if the Italian girl would know that BFF stood for Best Friend Forever in silly girl-talk. The boys concentrated mainly on their football teams, amid boos and groans from their fellows. Zak allowed it all to merge into meaningless noise, and continued studying the girl Hyslop. Her face betrayed no emotion, and he wondered if she was listening or taking any of it in. Was she deep inside a place in her own head, or was she aware of what the children were saying? It was hard to tell.

  He was suddenly aware of giggling and staring at him, and Miss Carradine saying his name in a cross voice.

  “Are we daydreaming again, Zak?” she said. “Zak? Are you with us?”

  He turned his gaze reluctantly to the teacher.

  “Well?” she continued staring at him. He realised that something was being expected of him.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I said it’s your turn now, Zak,” said Miss Carradine. “All the others have introduced themselves to Hyslop.”

  Still Zak said nothing.

  “So, if you could do the same!” Miss Carradine’s tone became sharp.

  “I’m Zak,” said Zak. He stopped staring at Hyslop and settled his gaze on the open window instead. He was unsure what else to say. After a while he added: “Zak Judd.”

  There was a long silence. Zak knew something was expected of him, but was not sure what it was. Surely he had already introduced himself.

  “Stand up, properly, Zak,” said Miss Carradine. “Stop fidgeting, and talk a bit about yourself. Would you like to tell Hyslop about your hobbies?”

  “Not really,” said Zak. The class roared with laughter, and Zak wondered what he had said that was so funny. He had answered truthfully, but he had found that telling the truth was not always the best policy. He felt his face grow red, as he wondered what the new girl would be thinking of him.

  “Sshhh, everyone!” Miss Carradine sounded crosser than ever now. “Come on now, Zak, just tell Hyslop about something that you like doing.” She cleared her throat and raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Anything at all.”

  “I like vegetables,” said Zak. He sat down awkwardly and decided to say no more as everyone was laughing at him again.

  “You are a vegetable, Judd!”

  “Tristan!” shouted Miss Carradine. “That’s enough! Quite enough! Right, thank you Zak.” She turned to the girl Hyslop. “I think Zak is trying to tell us that he likes gardening and he likes growing vegetables.”

  The laughter subsided and Miss Carradine cleared her throat again.

  “Now, Hyslop, perhaps you can tell us a little bit about yourself.”

  The new girl did not look at anyone. Zak recognised that she was somehow different from the others. Like he was.

  The silence as the class awaited her answer was unlike the normal classroom silence. There was no mocking giggling or whispering, and everyone was watching the girl Hyslop with respectful interest. No one could look away.

  After what seemed a very long time she stood up. She directed her gaze at the window she had opened earlier.

  “My name is Hyslop,” she said. “Hyslop d’Agostino, and I like insects.”

  Chapter Nine

  Zak finds a Purpose in Life

  No one knew the Hemmingswood estate like Zak Judd.

  He had been taken there by his father ever since he could remember, to get him out of the way of his grandmother. Whilst his father mowed and edged and weeded and pruned, Zak had gone exploring. He was good at knowing his way around, but not good at remembering things people told him to do. If his father asked him to fetch a particular edging tool from the shed he would get side-tracked on the way by a new plant or a vegetable. The world was full of things to stop and stare at: Mrs Braithwaite’s brightly coloured dahlias and chrysanthemums, the runner beans which seemed to double in size overnight, and the cunning courgettes which hid behind their larger brethren, then suddenly emerged as giants. His father’s impatient bellow would send him scuttling on to the shed, and there would be a bewildering array of tools and weed-killers and composts, and it would not be clear what he had been sent to do. Often his father found it quicker to come stomping in to fetch the tool himself. He did not screech or scold like Granny did, but his head-shaking disappointment was harder to bear. If he’d had a drink he would give Zak a smack around the head. Zak did not mean to sit staring into space, or to forget errands. It just happened.

  Today was the first day of the school holidays. He was free from the sniggers of his class-mates and the constant nagging of Miss Carradine. No one knew or cared where he was and he wandered through the woods, past the nettles and brambles where the old man’s butterflies were fluttering around. His father was forbidden by the old man from tending to some of the wilder areas, though Mr Braithwaite did not like all the nettles and thistles everywhere. The old man seemed to like plants only if they were good for caterpillars to eat, or for bees and butterflies to feed on, while Mr Braithwaite liked the place to look neat and tidy. Zak’s father was often given conflicting orders about what to do. The old man might have been the boss at one ti
me, but now it seemed that Mr Braithwaite was the one with all the money.

  “You got to be polite to the old boy,” his father instructed him, “but you do what the Braithwaites tell you. Specially Mr Hugo. It’s him that pays the wages.”

  Zak had intended to sit surveying the vegetables he tended for Mrs Braithwaite. She was a kind lady who never seemed to mind if his lettuce rows were not straight. Much of his tending of the vegetable garden consisted of sitting and watching the plants grow. He could pass hours just drifting around the rows of spinach and beans and leeks. Occasionally he would pull a weed out. If he saw his father or Mr Braithwaite coming, he would leap into action and start filling his weed bucket more quickly. People got cross if you were just sitting there. They didn’t understand that plants sometimes wanted a bit of quiet companionship. You were expected always to be doing stuff. Lettuces didn’t mind a few bits of groundsel or chickweed growing beside them in a friendly sort of way.

  Today he had found something far more interesting to survey, however. The old man and that new girl from school, the girl with the boy’s name who was staying at Keeper’s Cottage, were coming towards him from the direction of the big house. Zak dodged behind a tall scarlet wigwam of runner beans and watched them. The old man was pointing out butterflies to her and she seemed to be interested, more interested than anyone else ever was. Well, she had said in school that she liked insects, and butterflies were insects. That would please the old boy. No one ever showed an interest in his butterflies and moths. He wasn’t slapping his head and shouting at the girl like he did with Zak. He looked almost kindly. He gave her something, which looked like a large book, and pointed in the direction of the woods.

  The girl seemed pleased with the book, though Zak couldn’t see what it was. She held it like a treasure and couldn’t take her eyes off it. After a while she said goodbye to the old man and set off on her own. She went slowly, looking all around her as she went. Zak kept her in view and followed, being careful to stay far behind and out of sight. She was too busy looking at the plants and trees to notice him. He knew all the best places to hide and how to make himself invisible.