by Hilary McKay
‘Looks a bit smudgy,’ commented Rachel, inspecting the result.
‘Postman won’t notice.’ Naomi put it on the table to dry and began measuring water, jugful by jugful, very splashily into a bucket. ‘What are you looking for, anyway?’
‘I’m checking to see if that dog food’s still there,’ whispered Rachel, glancing apprehensively at the window where Big Grandma, outside, was painting the window frame around the new pane of glass. ‘What if we’ve eaten it?’
‘I’d rather not know, so you needn’t bother telling me.’
Rachel didn’t agree. She thought she’d much rather know and she raked around the bottom of the cupboard until she at last rediscovered the rusty tins. There were still three of them, so she was safe. Very relieved she scrambled to her feet.
‘Well?’ asked Naomi, as she headed back to her diary. ‘Go on, say it, we’ve eaten them, haven’t we?’
‘You said not to tell you!’ remarked Rachel in surprise.
‘How many? All of them? You might as well say, now you’ve made me think about it. Are they all gone?’
‘None of them are gone.’
‘Oh,’ said Naomi, feeling strangely disappointed, and she began counting drops of Baby Bio into her bucket of water. Big Grandma watched her through the window.
‘What’s it for?’ she called.
‘My lettuces,’ replied Naomi. ‘Their leaves look a bit pale so I thought I’d give them some food.’ She stirred her bucket carefully with the wooden cake spoon and staggered, lopsided, down the garden path with it in one hand and her letter in the other. A few moments later she returned for her measuring jug.
‘There’s a little watering can in the greenhouse,’ Big Grandma told her.
‘It’s important not to splash the leaves,’ replied Naomi a bit patronisingly. ‘A jug will be more accurate!’
‘Oh,’ said Big Grandma humbly, and she thought of a whole bucket of Baby Bio being poured on one short row of lettuces and hoped it wouldn’t drown them.
Ruth, having spent most of the afternoon trying to teach herself to read upside down from one of the awful magazines, now sat on the fell side above an unsuspecting badger’s sett, waiting for dusk. According to her natural history book, that was the time when the badgers would emerge to tidy up their homes, play with their cubs, and begin their nightly adventures.
From her position on the hillside Ruth could see right down into Big Grandma’s garden. There was Naomi, hunched like a snail over her lettuces, willing them to grow. The white spot on the path beside her must be the letter she had been writing. Ruth, who had been allowed to read it, wished Naomi had minded her own business about the Isle of Man. Swimming there seemed less and less of a good idea every time she thought of it. But would she have any choice if her parents sent the money for the return fare back? Would they send it? Yes, they probably would. She could just imagine her mother’s words. That will be a nice, healthy way for Ruth to spend the afternoon, and her father would nod in agreement, and they would put the money into an envelope, and then … and then …
Ruth dismissed the thought as firmly as she could manage and looked for other things to distract her. Phoebe, polishing the kitchen window with Big Grandma pointing to the places she had missed. Rachel, lurking behind the compost heap, surreptitiously fishing in Phoebe’s bucket.
What else could she see?
Beyond Big Grandma’s house was the village, and after that there was just one farm between the village and the sea. Graham’s house. Graham no longer thought they were mad, not dangerously mad anyway, but he still thought they were soft in the head. You could tell.
‘Do you know where there are any badger setts around here?’ Ruth had asked him.
‘Badger holes?’ asked Graham, grinning. ‘Haven’t you had enough of holes, with all that burying you did on the beach?’
‘Oh stop gloating!’ said Ruth crossly. ‘I just wanted to see some badgers, that’s all.’
‘You can always spot a badger hole,’ went on Graham, undeterred, ‘by the great heap of saucepans and frying pans lying around outside!’
‘He keeps them,’ went on Graham, ignoring Ruth’s expression, ‘to throw at the ghosts and spooks that are always hanging about …’
‘Trying to borrow his books!’ ended Graham in triumph.
So Ruth had gone hunting for badger setts alone, with no help except that of the natural history book she had brought from home. It wasn’t as useful as she had thought it would be. It said that badger setts were often occupied by rabbits or foxes, but it didn’t say how you could tell if you were sitting outside a fox’s badger sett, or a rabbit’s badger sett, or a badger’s badger sett. Ruth had found three burrows, side by side, dug in the fell above the house, and she had examined the bare red earth around them for footprints, but found nothing to indicate who might be the owners. The only thing to do was to wait and see who came out, and that was what she was doing.
It felt like she had been doing it for a very long time.
The sun slipped behind a thick cloud bank that hung low over the horizon, and all the colours in the landscape lost their daytime glow. Nobody was in the garden any more. A freight train came tearing into the village station and Ruth counted its wagons as it passed the signal box. Twenty eight. The noise of the train rattled and roared through the dusk, echoing off the fell side until it faded away up the coast. The badgers should be coming out soon. Ruth strained her eyes to stare at the empty patch of ground where she hoped they would appear. The wind through the bracken made distracting rustling sounds, and in the ink-misty village a farm dog barked and barked. Ruth hoped it wouldn’t frighten the badgers. Where were they? Perhaps they could smell her. Should she have disguised her smell? But then the badgers would have smelt the disguised smell. It was all very difficult.
She heard a soft wooden hooting sound, over and over.
‘Owl,’ thought Ruth without opening her eyes.
The grass smelt nice.
A noise woke Ruth with an awful jump and she cracked her head on a rock. There were loud booming calls and screeches and yells. Big Grandma and Naomi and Rachel and Phoebe were all standing at the bottom of the garden in the dark, bawling her name.
‘Coming!’ she shouted, slipping and tumbling through the bracken, but nobody could hear her reply; they were all making such a racket themselves. Among the voices she could hear Graham, but he wasn’t calling her name.
‘Eh up, come up, come up,’ he was repeating on two flat notes; just the same call as they used to bring in the cows for milking.
‘I’m coming!’ Ruth shouted again, and this time they heard and the noises they were making changed to exclamations and mutters and triumphant grunts.
‘I fell asleep.’
‘We know,’ said Naomi, ‘we heard you snoring.’
‘In, in, in,’ ordered Big Grandma. ‘The lost lamb has returned. Go in and put the kettle on.’
‘Lost cow,’ corrected Graham, meaning no offence. ‘I called her in with the cows’ call. If you were looking for those badgers you had no hope. There’s only rabbits in the holes up there.’
‘You might have said.’
‘How was I to know?’ demanded Graham. ‘It’s lucky I was here to call you down.’
‘Aren’t there badger setts round towards the old quarry?’ asked Big Grandma. ‘Couldn’t you take them up there some day, Graham, and show them? Usual rates of course,’ she added, as if it was a private code.
‘I might,’ said Graham, who was paid fifty pence an hour for doing odd jobs for Big Grandma. ‘It’ll take a bit of time though; it’s a long old walk round there.’
‘Doesn’t matter if it takes all day,’ said Big Grandma cheerfully. ‘You can have a picnic and show them the cave.’
‘Cave?’ asked everyone. There were no caves in Lincolnshire.
‘When?’ asked Naomi.
Graham frowned thoughtfully, as if he were in constant demand as a tour guide all over the villa
ge.
‘Couldn’t make it tomorrow.’
‘The next day then?’ suggested Big Grandma.
Graham shook his head as if it wasn’t going to be easy.
‘Couldn’t come Sunday either,’ he said. ‘Mum likes everyone home for Sunday dinner. Monday perhaps.’
‘Very well, Monday,’ agreed Big Grandma.
‘Will you be all right till then?’ asked Graham, a little anxiously.
‘We will endeavour to pass the days with our customary tranquility,’ said Big Grandma, cheerfully, and the days did pass fairly tranquilly, with sea and sunshine and gardening and learning to be useful at window cleaning and pancake making, changing sheets and pillowcases, and the washing of the kitchen floor.
‘Mum never lets us do this,’ said Rachel, luxuriously swishing and squeezing. ‘When I grow up I’m going to be a mopper.’
‘A what?’
‘And mop people’s houses and get paid loads of money.’
‘What an absolutely excellent plan,’ said Big Grandma, patting her on her head.
Meanwhile, in Lincolnshire, Naomi’s letter had arrived. The postman delivered it to her father as he left the house for work in the morning, and he charged Mr Conroy for the delivery because the stamp had fallen off. Mr Conroy didn’t think much of this, and he stuffed the letter rather crossly in his pocket instead of taking it to his wife. He didn’t take it out again until tea-break, at which time he forgave Naomi completely. Secretly he had been rather worried that the girls were not happy, but this letter made him laugh. He showed it to his friends and they all agreed that his daughters must be having the time of their lives, and then he borrowed a stamp and an envelope and a bit of paper from the girl in the office and wrote an immediate reply:
Grand letter! Be good! Buy a stamp next time. Enclosing some money. Got to rush. All the best. Love and kisses. Dad!
He stuck a ten pound note in the envelope for pocket money and put it in the post.
‘Ten pounds was far too much!’ said Mrs Conroy when she heard about it later. ‘You know it will go on nothing but sweets.’ Then she settled down to write a very long letter, all about not playing with axes and not messing about with tractors and not swimming out too far and not spending all the money their father sent on sweets, and making sure they changed their clothes regularly and not grumbling about being expected to help and how much she was missing them, and that she knew they were far too young to read Shakespeare, and that they were not to try and learn to cook unless their Grandma really didn’t mind. And that they were never to post letters without stamping them first. And they were to have fun.
They were having fun. Monday had arrived, and Graham with it, and they had packed for a day-long expedition and they didn’t intend to starve.
Naomi had a rucksack stuffed full of food, while Ruth had a very awkward carrier containing orange juice, lemonade, her natural history book, a notebook, pencils and a couple of torches. A shiny red plastic handbag (‘I won it at a whist drive,’ explained Big Grandma) was filled with candles and matches for exploring the cave. ‘Are you sure you need them if you’re taking torches?’ Big Grandma had asked, but they had all agreed they did. ‘Candles are much more exciting than torches,’ explained Ruth, and her sisters had nodded in agreement. The candle bag was carried by Phoebe, who instead of travelling along at her normal half-trot, insisted on playing Old Ladies.
‘It’s that awful handbag making her do it,’ observed Naomi as she watched Phoebe complacently waddle along, hands folded in front of her imaginary bust, and the squashy red handbag swinging gaily from her elbow and bashing her knees.
Big Grandma had also unearthed an old-fashioned leather satchel that she said had belonged to their mother. It was strapped across Rachel’s shoulders now, and full of apple pasties.
Graham led the way, carrying nothing at all except a big stick that he had brought with him when he came to collect them. Whenever anyone said, ‘Graham, swap! You ought to carry something!’ he walked a little faster, but when the handles of Ruth’s carrier bag snapped under the weight of the orange juice he did help her to tie up the top with a piece of binder twine and fasten it on to the end of his stick. Then Ruth could carry it very comfortably across her shoulder, like a tramp.
They were following a sheep track that curved round the side of the fell like a narrow belt threaded through the bracken.
‘How far is it?’ asked Rachel.
‘About three miles or so.’
‘How far’s three miles?’
‘From your gran’s to the sea is one mile,’ answered Graham, ‘so it’s three of them there and three of them back. The badgers are about half way along.’
‘It’s the quarry we really want to see,’ explained Ruth, ‘and the cave.’
‘Cave’s good,’ agreed Graham, ‘I took your gran there once.’
‘She’d like a cave,’ said Naomi. ‘She’d feel at home.’
The village was already out of sight, hidden by the shoulder of the fell. The track had crumbled away in places, and they had to scramble across the narrow ledge that remained, clinging to bracken fronds to help them keep their balance. At other times they found that the path would vanish into a patch of bog or climb suddenly over a boulder or crag, some of them quite steep.
‘How do sheep get along,’ asked Ruth, ‘with no arms to pull themselves up?’
‘Sheep’ll go anywhere if you don’t hurry them,’ Graham said. ‘It’s only when you rush them that they get stuck.’
There was a pause at the badger setts.
‘Rabbit holes,’ said Naomi. ‘Come on, let’s get to the cave.’
‘Badgers,’ said Graham. ‘Definitely.’
‘Where are they then?’ asked Rachel.
Ruth was carefully inspecting the diggings. New red earth, still looking crumbly, as if it had just been dug. Piles of shabby looking bracken, left out to air. Beneath the holes was a terraced-shaped mound, made from the soil excavated by generations of hard-working badgers. She hung over a trail of footprints leading through the newly dug earth, drawing a picture of a paw mark in her notebook.
‘Hurry, Ruth!’ called Naomi.
‘Coming in a minute,’ she said without looking up.
‘They’ve all gone,’ said a voice from the earth, and Ruth saw the top of Phoebe’s head sticking out of one of the holes.
‘There’s nothing in this one,’ said Phoebe. ‘I’ve been right inside and looked!’
‘Get out!’ exclaimed Ruth, yanking up her little sister out her arms. ‘Barging in like that! Serve you right if they bit you! Come on and catch up the others before they explore the cave without us.’
‘They can’t,’ said Phoebe complacently. ‘You’ve got the torches and I’ve got the candles.’
‘They could eat all the picnic,’ suggested Ruth, and Phoebe broke into a run.
The sheep track widened and became a path, and the path curved round to join an overgrown track that led up to the quarry from the main road.
‘That’s the way the wagons came,’ Graham told them. ‘My grandad can remember when it was still used. It’s not been worked for years now though. Watch out for adders; people see them around here.’
‘Have you ever?’ asked Ruth eagerly.
‘Well,’ said Graham, ‘not exactly.’
‘Oh,’ said Ruth, disappointed. ‘Oh well. What about something to eat, and what about the cave? Where is it?’
‘Show you after dinner,’ said Graham, ‘if there’s anything left fit to eat after Naomi’s finished sitting on it.’
‘I’m only leaning on it,’ said Naomi, wriggling out of the rucksack straps. ‘It’ll still be all right. Look and see.’
Graham reached for the bag and began pulling things out. ‘Packet of chocolate biscuits. Box of sandwiches. Hang on –’ he paused to take one apart ‘– cheese and lettuce sandwiches.’
‘I’m not eating that one now,’ interrupted Phoebe.
‘Bag of cracked boiled
eggs,’ went on Graham, ignoring her, ‘bag of squashed tomatoes – you must have sat on them – pork pie, cut into chunks … what’s this?’ He unfolded a damp brown paper parcel. ‘Oh, bag of bent bananas.’
‘Bananas are naturally bent,’ said Naomi. ‘Anything else?’
‘No,’ said Graham, feeling around. ‘Oh, yes, five flat packets of crisps!’
‘We always squash our crisps before we eat them,’ Rachel told him. ‘It makes them last longer.’
Half an hour later the contents of the rucksack, both squashed and solid, had almost disappeared.
‘I never thought we’d get through all that,’ commented Ruth.
‘Never should have without Rachel,’ said Graham. ‘Don’t your jaws ache, Rachel?’
‘No,’ said Rachel smugly, sitting with the last hard-boiled egg in one hand and the last apple pasty in the other, taking alternate bites.
‘Mine would,’ said Graham, stuffing rubbish into the rucksack. ‘We’ll go and look at that cave in a minute, if you like.’
‘I’m too full to move,’ said Phoebe.
‘What did they used to dig here for?’ asked Rachel, looking round at the overgrown sides of the quarry.
‘Slate,’ replied Naomi.
‘May have been slate,’ said Graham, settling his head more comfortably on the rucksack full of papers and banana skins. ‘May have been slate. Or gold or diamonds or pearls.’ He yawned.
‘What’s that place down there?’ asked Ruth, pointing to another small village visible on the coast beneath them.
‘Nothing of a place,’ said Graham, opening his eyes again. ‘Proper dump that is.’
‘It looks just the same as our village.’
‘It doesn’t,’ said Graham. ‘They’re right strange folk there.’
‘Why?’
Never stop asking questions, thought Graham. Never a minute’s peace!
‘Why are they strange folk there?’
‘Graham?’
‘They grow that much barley,’ mumbled Graham through his dreams, ‘and they talk that broad.’
The girls glanced knowingly at each other and then sat in silence, watching Graham’s mouth slowly open wider and wider.