‘Please,’ pleaded Zach earnestly.
‘All right.’
What else could he say? He felt irritated. He knew the twins would be furious with him.
‘There’s just one small problem,’ said Zach. ‘I’m afraid I’m a bit like Buster Keaton at the moment.’
George looked at him blankly. He’s a queer one, he thought, no doubt about that.
‘Yes. Look at me.’
He pressed his arms to his side and leaned forward on a diagonal without falling over. ‘I say,’ he said, after having created no response. ‘You do know who Buster Keaton is, don’t you?’
‘Are you goin’ to stay down there all day?’ grunted Tom.
‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m stuck. I need a pull.’ They all grabbed hold of him and, after a lot of yelling from Zach and one almighty heave, they yanked him out and fell backwards in the grass on top of a yelping Sammy.
‘Thank you,’ said Zach, struggling back to his feet. He looked down at them. His sandals were encased in a large quantity of glutinous mud. He lifted one foot up and placed it heavily in front of the other, making a slow progression to the gate.
‘I say,’ he said, twisting his body round. ‘Where shall I meet you?’
‘Outside the shop,’ grunted George. ‘In an hour’s time.’
‘Right-ho!’ and he slowly squelched his way through the gate and out of sight.
An hour later the twins and George were waiting on the corner with their baskets, bags and gas-masks. Willie caught sight of them as he turned the corner. He stopped for a moment and looked around for Zach. He caught sight of a dark-haired boy in a bright red shirt and green shorts coming out of the shop. He gave a sigh of relief and started walking again. Zach had seen him and was waving frantically. George and the twins turned to look at them. Willie felt painfully self-conscious. Zach ran down the road to meet him. His sandals had been scraped clean but they still looked pretty dingy.
From the moment they joined the others outside the shop, it was obvious that the twins were sulking. George mumbled incoherently to them.
‘This is Will,’ said Zach, introducing him to the two girls. ‘I’ve forgotten which one of you is Carrie and which one is Ginnie.’
‘I’m Carrie,’ said the one in the sky blue dress.
‘And I’m Ginnie,’ said the one in the lemon colour.
‘Hello,’ said Willie huskily.
This was followed by a long and tense silence. George stood in the middle of the two pairs, feeling very awkward and uncomfortable. He had guessed right. The twins had been furious with him for inviting the two evacuees. In their opinion, from the little they had seen and heard, one of them spoke too little and the other too much. It was rotten of George to ask them.
George cleared his throat. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘s’pose we’d best get started.’
They turned and headed down the lane towards Ivor’s farm.
Willie held an empty bucket and a small bag, while Zach carried a basket and satchel. They walked on behind the others.
‘I say,’ he said excitedly to Willie. ‘You should have seen Mrs Little’s face when I walked in. She threatened to plant potatoes in my feet.’ He nudged Willie and glanced at George and the twins walking ahead.
‘They’re a bit stuffy, aren’t they?’ he whispered.
‘Stuffy?’ said Willie. ‘Wot d’you mean?’
‘Unfriendly.’
‘But they asked us to go on a picnic wiv ’em.’
‘M’m. I suppose so.’
He nudged a sore spot on Willie’s arm.
‘Anyway,’ he confided. ‘We’ll have a bit of fun, eh?’
Willie was unsure about that. He wished his tongue wasn’t quite so dry and that the skin round his neck didn’t feel so very tight.
They came to Ivor’s farm. Lucy and her friend Grace Bush were playing in front of the house. They ran up to the gate and climbed up on to it. Mrs Padfield was hanging out washing.
‘Hello!’ she said. ‘Where are you all off to?’
‘Blackberryin’,’ said George.
Lucy caught sight of Willie. Her eyes slowly expanded.
‘’Ullo,’ she said shyly to him.
Willie shuffled with embarrassment and avoided her large gaze.
Stupid girls, he thought angrily to himself. Stupid, stupid girls.
‘Fred and Harry are doin’ a bit this afternoon. They’se helpin’ their Dad at the moment seein’ as there’s no school fer a bit. Best not to go to your patch. Be nothin’ left,’ and she smiled and carried on with her work.
‘We’ll drop some into you,’ said Carrie, ‘won’t we, Ginnie?’
Ginnie nodded.
‘Have a good day then.’
Lucy watched them going down the lane. She would dearly have loved to have joined them but they were all older. They wouldn’t want someone as little as her. She felt a tug at her dress.
‘Come on,’ said Grace impatiently. ‘I want to play.’
The others veered round a corner and came to a large field. The girls walked off in one direction to some hedges on the far side, leaving George with Willie and Zach.
‘Who’s in the doghouse, then?’ asked Zach. ‘You or us?’
George gave a smile.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘I’ll find you a good spot.’ He pointed to some bushes. ‘See them red berries?’
‘Rather,’ said Zach. ‘They look delumptious.’
‘De-what?’
‘Delumptious. That’s a mixture of delicious and scrumptious.’
‘Well, anyways,’ continued George, undaunted by Zach’s interruption, ‘if you eats any of them you’ll die. Them’s poisonous. Don’t eat nothin’ till you’ve shown me. Look, there’s a good ’un,’ he said, pointing to a hedgerow dripping with blackberries. ‘You pick there. I’m off to find a patch of me own.’
An hour later, after scratching their arms and legs and staining their hands and mouths with juice, they sat down in the grass and passed a bottle of lemonade around. The girls looked a little less sulky and stared at the two townees. Willie was embarrassed. Zach, however, enjoyed the attention.
‘How’d you do that?’ asked Carrie, pointing to Willie’s leg. He paled for an instant, thinking perhaps that his socks had slid down, but they hadn’t. She was referring to the graze on his knee.
‘I fell,’ he whispered.
‘Looks nasty,’ said Ginnie.
Willie glanced at her and looked hurriedly away. When they had quenched their thirst a little, they returned to the bushes to pick more berries, staying a little closer to each other. Slowly, they started to talk, except for Willie who only listened. Mum had said that if he made himself invisible people would like him and he wanted that very much.
He learnt that Carrie liked reading books, climbing trees and exploring, that Ginnie liked naming and pressing wild flowers, knitting and sewing, and that they both liked swimming. George was keen on fishing and his mother had, on three occasions, cooked fish that he had caught. If they were tiddlers he always threw them back. He liked swimming too and in the summer had built a raft, but it had disintegrated in the middle of the river while he and the twins had been sitting on it. He also played cricket, and had already earned himself a bad reputation by smashing two windows in the village.
Zach said he liked acting, and reading adventure books and poetry. He also liked swimming and cycling. He said that he wrote stories, though he had to admit that he had never got further than the first two pages.
Willie, meanwhile, not only remained silent during these conversations, but picked his berries slowly so that they might forget that he was there, but he reckoned without Zach.
‘Will!’ he said, suddenly entering into his silence. ‘What do you like?’
He was just about to shrug off the question with ‘I dunno’ when he noticed that George and the twins were looking at him for an answer. He sucked a bit of juice from one of his fingers and tried to think o
f something to say. He couldn’t read or write. He couldn’t swim or ride a bicycle. He had never made anything and he couldn’t tell the difference between one flower and another. He couldn’t play cricket or any other game for that matter and he had never been fishing. He began to panic. The others would get bored with waiting and go off on their own without him. He swallowed hard and looked up at their faces. They didn’t look bored. He relaxed a little and then he remembered something.
‘I likes drawin’.’
‘I’m hopeless at it,’ said George. ‘All my people have tiny heads and huge arms and legs.’
‘Like you,’ said Carrie.
Ginnie laughed.
‘Get on with you,’ retorted George. ‘That’s not true!’
‘Could you draw me?’ asked Zach.
‘I dunno. I could have a go.’
‘I’m starvin’,’ said George, interrupting the conversation. ‘Let’s eat.’
They gathered together under a tree and spread the food out. There were scones that had been spread with butter and jam, spam sandwiches, marmalade sandwiches and egg sandwiches. After they had consumed these they each had a slab of apple-and-blackcurrant pie and some chocolate cake. This was followed by more lemonade.
For Willie it was his first taste of chocolate cake, scones and fruit pie. He couldn’t manage half his share, but he was helped by the others, especially George, whose appetite was bottomless.
After they had eaten and sunbathed a little, they cleared everything away and moved to another hedge to pick more berries. Their baskets were soon full and feeling tired they made their way home.
Willie felt as if his arms would surely come out of his sockets with the weight. His bucket and bag were overflowing. He puffed and panted behind the others, gritting his teeth with the effort of trying to keep up with them.
After George had left his basket at home he gave Willie a hand. He felt so ashamed of his weakness, but George didn’t ridicule him at all. He seemed pleased to help. They walked down under the archway of trees to the Littles’ cottage, stood outside the gate chatting to Zach and carried on down the lane. As they came to the rectory George stopped.
‘Look!’ he said, gazing up through the trees. ‘Look! There’s a swallow.’
Willie screwed up his eyes and peered upwards. All he could see was a bird. A swallow to him was something you did when you ate food or you did to stop yourself from crying. He couldn’t see how that could be in the sky.
They opened the gate into Dobbs’ field. George put down the bucket and strode over to her to give her a pat. Willie hovered behind him. He took a few steps towards her and raised his hand to touch her neck, but she gave a little shake of her head and that set him stumbling backwards. He’d wait till he was with Mister Tom again.
George climbed over the gate while Willie opened and shut it neatly behind him. They walked through the garden to the back door when a voice called to them from behind. It was Tom. He was leaning out of the shelter.
‘Afternoon, Mr Oakley,’ said George.
‘Afternoon, George.’
They came over to where he stood and peered inside. The earthen floor was covered with planks and on either side were two rough bunk beds. A tin with one side cut out of it hung from a hook at the back. Fixed inside was a candle. Underneath it stood an orange box on top of which were two flower pots. One was placed like a lid on the other and had a hole in the base. Inside this was another candle. Above their heads over the entrance was a rolled piece of dark canvas. A potted plant hung in a near-by corner.
‘Cor!’ gasped Willie. ‘Ain’t it fine!’
‘Best to be comfortable,’ said Tom, and he gave a short cough to hide his pleasure.
‘Proper job,’ agreed George.
They took turns to walk around inside and sit on the bunks and then George left to go home for tea.
Willie spent the evening with Tom, washing and bottling the blackberries and eating some of them for supper. He sank into an even deeper sleep that night with the knowledge that he, Willie Beech, had survived a whole day with four other people of his own age and he had made jam.
8
School
Willie sat down to breakfast in a clean grey shirt and jersey, pressed grey shorts and polished boots. He stared out at the graveyard. It was a dull day.
‘Eat up, boy. Soon be time to go to school,’ said Tom, placing a paper bag on the table. Inside were two apples and a thick egg sandwich.
‘You can come back here for dinner if you wants, or have it with the others. Best take yer cap and mackintosh. Looks like ram.’ He picked up Willie’s label from the top of the bookcase and handed it to him.
They walked together through Dobbs’s field and Tom stood by the gate and let him walk on his own up the lane. Zach was sitting on the Littles’ dilapidated gate waiting for him. Willie met him and turned to look at Tom. They waved to each other and Sammy immediately shot forwards.
‘Samuel,’ said Tom firmly. ‘Here!’ He stopped, glanced at his master and then bounded back to him. Tom picked him up and watched the two boys disappear round the corner.
George and the twins were standing in a crowd outside the village hall. Two old cars drew up with eight children and two anxious-looking mothers inside.
‘I say,’ said Zach. ‘It’s awfully crowded, isn’t it?’
‘It ent usually like this,’ said Carrie.
‘They’ve had to get an extra teacher,’ added her sister.
‘And,’ said George, ‘we have to share the school with some Catholics. We’re havin’ it in turns. Look!’ and he pointed in the direction of two nuns surrounded by a horde of children. ‘If it stays like this we ent goin’ to have much school at all,’ and he grinned with pleasure.
The five of them went into the hall together. The blackout curtains which were rolled neatly above the windows stood out starkly against the light green walls and wooden skirting boards. Mr Bush was seating the small children cross-legged on the polished wooden floor. The older children were to sit in the back half of the hall which was filled with rows of chairs. At the front end was a small raised platform with curtains on either side.
‘I say,’ said Zach excitedly. ‘There’s a stage!!’
‘Quickly,’ said George, tugging at one of Zach’s well-darned sleeves, ‘let’s grab them chairs afore the big ’uns get them.’
They ran towards them, Willie following as fast as he could, climbing over several small children on the way.
Everyone else had grabbed seats at the back and, when it was too late, George suddenly realized why the particular seats they had chosen had been left empty. They were sitting in the front line of chairs. The rest of the children were seated on the ground so that all five of them were now very exposed.
‘Drat it,’ cursed George. ‘I got some humbugs I was goin’ to slip in me mouth.’
Mr Bush and Mrs Hartridge were talking to an elderly lady.
‘That’s Mrs Black,’ whispered Ginnie. ‘She must be the extra teacher.’
Mr Bush dealt with the older children first and placed a few evacuees with them at the back. It was very noisy. There was a lot of shouting and shuffling amongst the newcomers, most of whom were feeling bored and restless and had spent too long in the country already.
Mr Bush announced the times when the older ones were next needed and dismissed them.
George, Carrie and Ginnie were to be in Mrs Hartridge’s class again. She was taking the eight- to eleven-year-olds. The twins had had their tenth birthday in the holidays and George was eleven.
Mrs Black was to have all the local children and non-Catholic evacuees from five years old to eight.
Willie watched Mrs Hartridge approach him and Zach. Zach told her his age, which was nine, and spelt out his name, apologizing for it at the same time. She smiled. Willie handed her his label and said nothing. Her long flaxen hair was coiled up in a thick plait at the top of her head. Willie gazed with pleasure at her soft, pink-cheeked face
and then suddenly his heart fell.
She leaned over to Zach and said, ‘Now, Zacharias.’
‘You can call me Zach if it’s too much of a mouthful.’
‘I think I can manage, thank you. Now tell me, what were you doing at your last school? You can read and write, can’t you?’
At this juncture, Willie’s ears filled up. Zach’s chattering was only a faint rumbling echo in the distance. He felt her hand on his shoulder.
‘Now, William,’ she said. ‘How about you? Can you read and write?’
He remained silent. He didn’t dare look at the others. What would they think of him?
‘What did you say, William?’
‘No,’ he answered, and he picked at one of the nails on his fingers and stared at the floorboards wishing he could disappear into them.
‘Oh, I’m sorry about that, William. I would have liked you in my class. You’ll have to go and sit with Mrs Black’s class,’ and she pointed to the little ones seated on the floor. Willie looked up in anguish and quickly down again.
The burning inside his ears seemed to spread into his jaw. He rose as if in a daze, found a space on the floor and sat down. He clasped his hands tightly together and bowed his head. He felt utterly humiliated.
Mrs Hartridge’s class were dismissed. They were to have school in the afternoons and wouldn’t be starting until Friday.
Willie was left with Mrs Black and she and the remaining children filed over to the school. There were two girls even older than him who also couldn’t read, but it didn’t make him feel any better. One of them ignored everyone including Mrs Black and just filed her nails and stared out of the window.
Tom was weeding the graveyard when Willie returned. He watched his dejected figure walk past him into the cottage and, after allowing a few minutes to elapse, followed him in and discovered him sitting at the table in the living room, his bag of apples and sandwich lying untouched.
‘I could just do with a cuppa,’ he said brightly. ‘You too, William?’
Willie gave a nod.
He pushed a mug of tea towards him. ‘How was it then?’
Goodnight Mister Tom Page 9