by Debbie Young
Tommy looked at his feet, for the first time abashed. “I don’t know how to make a guy. And besides, I haven’t got any clothes to make one out of. I need a man’s clothes. My dad left us when I was three, and my mum burnt all his clothes then.”
That melted my resistance. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Joshua drawing his front room curtains, nodding to me and Tommy in greeting as he did so. That gave me an idea.
“I tell you what, why don’t you ask Joshua to help you? He’s been telling me how much he enjoyed making guys when he was a boy, so he’ll be an expert. He might even find some old clothes of his own to start you off, if you ask him nicely.”
Tommy’s mood brightened immediately, and I was pleased for him, guessing no father figure had stepped in to fill his void. I was glad for Joshua, too, who probably wouldn’t have bothered to make a guy on his own but might love to be the catalyst for the youngest generation to carry on his boyhood tradition.
“You don’t think he’d mind?”
“I think he’d be glad you asked him.”
I hoped I wasn’t overestimating Joshua’s generosity, but having seen how popular he was among the children at Hector’s House, and how much he thrived on their company, I thought it was worth a try. He always seemed to walk more easily when leaving the shop after chatting with the children, as if he’d absorbed a dose of their youth and energy. In any case, Joshua would have known Tommy since he was a baby, and Tommy’s father too, so it’s not as if I was inflicting a stranger on him.
“I’ll do it.” With animal grace, Tommy leaped over the low lavender hedge that divided my front path from Joshua’s to save himself the bother of navigating around the wheelbarrow he’d left at my gate. Landing as neatly as a cat, he knocked tentatively on Joshua’s door.
A qualm of guilt spreading over me, I stayed where I was, waiting to hear the old man’s familiar slow footfall. As Joshua opened the door, I smiled encouragingly at Tommy.
“Good evening to you, young scallywag.” It sounded as if no introduction was needed, but I thought it best to ease the way.
“Hello, Joshua, I hope you don’t mind, but Tommy’s after some expert advice on how to make a guy. I told him you were the best person in Wendlebury to talk to about that.”
Joshua looked gratified. “I’d be glad to, and glad of your company this dark evening, Master Crowe. Don’t expect me to do the work for you, but I’ll point you in the right direction. You can start by threading a needle for me. Threading needles needs young eyes.”
I felt sure they’d make a great team. Just before Tommy skipped over the doorstep to follow Joshua inside, he turned to me with a wide-eyed smile.
“Thanks, miss. You’re a good person.”
Unsure why an awkward compliment from a reprobate should give me such a warm glow, I closed my front door and left them to their complicity, hoping I’d done the right thing. Only afterwards did it occur to me that I’d given Tommy another reason to play with fire. I was just glad I hadn’t given him the sticks with which to start one.
29 The Mysterious Guy
Next day, Hector really did have an appointment at Slate Green Comprehensive School. He was due to see the librarian and the head of English at the end of the school day. This meant I was in charge of the shop for an hour, which always made me slightly nervous, even though I enjoyed pretending I was the proprietor.
As I cleared the tea things after the end-of-school rush, I was just musing to myself what I’d call my own bookshop, dithering between Sayers’ Pages and Sophie’s Choice Books, when a stranger arrived. I put him in his early thirties. In his shiny and ill-fitting business suit and plain dark tie, he looked out of place in our village and in Hector’s House. We didn’t get many customers in suits that weren’t tweed. His sturdy black shoes shone almost as much as his suit, his startling lime green socks providing a clear marker where his feet ended and his legs began.
I thought he might be lost on his way to a business meeting. If so, I could sell him a road atlas, unless he had satnav. I was always pleased when I made sales in Hector’s absence, dropping them into conversation casually on his return, as proof of my value to the shop’s viability.
The stranger’s opening gambit, therefore, took me by surprise. “Do you by any chance stock My Life in a Sentence by Septimus Vance?”
I couldn’t resist the obvious quip. “That can’t be a very long book.”
The stranger sighed. I suspect he’d heard that joke before. “But do you stock it? It would be in your memoir section.”
“I’m afraid we don’t. But if you know the ISBN, I could order it, and we could probably have it in the shop for you to collect by the end of tomorrow. There’s no charge for ordering, but we do ask you to pay in advance.”
The stranger put up his hand to stop me. “Oh no, I don’t want another copy, thanks. I just wondered whether you stocked it. I heard the author had moved to the area recently and I was curious as to whether he might have left you some copies to sell. If he had, I thought you might be able to give me his phone number.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, can’t help you on that one. I’ve not heard of him, I’m afraid. But we wouldn’t give out our customers’ private information to strangers anyway. You must have heard of the Data Protection Act.” I suddenly clicked that he might be some kind of mystery shopper for our distributors, trying to test our customer service. No wonder he was laying it on a bit thick.
I tried a different tack. “Well, do you have an AI sheet about it?”
He looked blank.
“You know, an advance information sheet – the sheets you publishers’ reps give to booksellers?” I realised he must be a new recruit, which was why we’d never seen him before. I’d enjoyed getting to know the reps that called on us regularly to pitch their authors’ new books. They were usually cheerful, upbeat, outgoing characters, but this one seemed strangely edgy. I didn’t hold out much hope for his chances of meeting his sales quota, the way he was going. “I’m not saying we would stock it, unless it’s a good fit for our customers, but as you’re here, I can run your AI sheet past my boss when he gets back.”
Shaking his head, the rep turned away, probably embarrassed at his ineptitude, and gazed around the shop as if hoping to find Septimus Vance himself on a display table. Then he turned back to me, realising I’d rumbled him.
“OK, no worries, then.” He seemed remarkably defeatist for a salesman. “I only stopped by to ask directions to the vicarage. I’m meeting a friend there.”
Not knowing the vicar, he didn’t realise what an unlikely cover story that was. I couldn’t believe that Mr Neep might have a friend. He no more knew how to be sociable than to turn invisible, but perhaps I was being too harsh. Perhaps it just took a while to get to know him.
Making one last stab at being helpful, I led the rep out of the shop to point him in the right direction.
“It’s the last house on the right at the end of the village, set back a bit from the road, with a big holly hedge along the front. You can’t miss it.”
With no further comment, he ambled away, and I was glad to return to the warmth of the shop. I’d just sat down on Hector’s stool behind the counter, planning out of curiosity to look up My Life in a Sentence on our supplier’s database, when the shop’s landline rang.
Before I could even say “Hello”, Carol’s voice, breathless with anxiety, blurted out, “Tommy Crowe’s pushing Joshua in a wheelbarrow.”
I stared into the handset in astonishment. “What, you mean Joshua is standing next to a wheelbarrow and Tommy’s pushing him into it?”
“No, no, Joshua’s just lying in it, helpless, arms and legs dangling all over the place. He’s probably unconscionable. Or dead. And Tommy’s pushing the wheelbarrow, dead body and all, up the High Street.”
“Well, why didn’t you stop him?”
“I didn’t see him. Old Mrs Mason on the corner phoned me while I was in the stockroom to tell me that he’d just passed h
ers, but by the time I’d got back to the counter, I’d missed him. So he’s probably just about to reach Hector’s House now. Quick, go out and stop him before it’s too late.”
“I can’t leave the shop unattended. Hector’s out.” I glanced across to the shop window just in time to see the back end of Tommy Crowe, wheelbarrow handles in his hands, disappear in the direction of the school. “I know, I’ll phone Ella Berry. She’s probably still in the school office and might be able to leap out and stop him in his tracks with a citizen’s arrest.”
I pressed the “call end” button and then the school’s speed dial code, while running to the door and flinging it open, almost knocking the returning Hector off his feet. As soon as Ella picked up, I shouted, “Quick, Ella, run out to the front of the school and look down the street. Tommy Crowe’s heading your way with a dead body in a wheelbarrow.”
Ella sounded bemused. “But I don’t want a dead body in a wheelbarrow.”
Hector, by contrast, went into overdrive. “Sophie, stay here, and call the police. And an ambulance, in case it’s not too late.” He started to run up the High Street towards the school.
“What about our village bobby?” I said, before remembering that, mid-afternoon, Bob would be on duty at the Slate Green police station. I grabbed my mobile phone and dialled 999 as I followed Hector up the High Street, garbling a breathless description of events to the emergency switchboard operator. He told me to stay on the line till the services arrived, in case reinforcements were needed.
Hector sprinted until he reached the school’s front boundary wall, where he caught up with Tommy, who was casually pushing his wheelbarrow along with no idea of the turmoil he’d caused. Hector firmly clamped one hand on the boy’s shoulder, as if apprehending a shoplifter. Tommy’s indignant “Oi!” carried all the way down the High Street, but was quickly silenced by a downpour of dry sand. Ella, seizing the first defensive weapon that had come to hand, had emptied the contents of a school fire bucket over Tommy and Hector’s heads.
“It was the closest thing I had to a pepper spray,” Ella was saying as I caught up with them. Hector and Tommy shook sand from their hair like Labradors drying themselves after a swim in the village pond.
Tommy eyed the fire bucket accusingly. “It’s not like my guy’s on fire already. Not till Saturday night. And I don’t think you should go putting out fires then either, not unless you want to spoil the party for everyone.”
“I didn’t think you were on fire. I just wanted to stop you in your tracks. Oh, Tommy, what have you done now? Mr Hampton, Mr Hampton, speak to me! Are you OK?” Ella rushed down the school steps, set the fire bucket on the pavement, and seized the limp wrist of the figure in the wheelbarrow. She dropped it just as quickly. “Ew! For goodness’ sake, Tommy Crowe, that’s not a dead body, that’s a scarecrow.” Her first aid training had clearly been better than mine.
Tommy raised his hands in indignation at the idiocy of grown-ups. “I never said it was a dead body, did I? Actually it’s a guy, and I’m taking it to the vicarage ready for Saturday’s party. What’s your problem?”
Hector bent down and raised the frayed cloth cap covering the figure’s face. “I know Joshua moves slowly, but not that slowly. It’s a good likeness, though, I’ll give you that, Tommy.”
“That’s not surprising. The clothes are all Mr Hampton’s old ones. He gave them to me. I didn’t take them.” Tommy was clearly used to being accused of misdemeanours, not always without good reason.
Hector turned on me. “Whatever made you think it was a dead body, Sophie?”
“Yeah, Sophie.” Ella seized her fire bucket by the handle, jangling it pointedly.
I took a step back in self-defence. “How is this suddenly all my fault? I was only following a tip-off from Carol, who got the message from old Mrs Mason on the corner that Tommy Crowe had knocked Joshua Hampton down and carried him off in a wheelbarrow.”
“Hello, hello?” a voice called from my telephone. I turned my back on the scene to reply.
“I’m so sorry, it’s a completely false alarm. It’s just a guy. You know, a Guy Fawkes guy. I do apologise for having troubled you.” I pressed ‘Call End’ quickly before the operator could tell me off.
Hector let out a weary sigh. “Typical village Chinese whispers. That Mrs Mason’s always been a bit hysterical. Carol ought to know better than to take her at her word.”
“Especially since she’s missing her nerve pills,” said Ella. “I heard her giving poor Carol what for in the shop this morning because her prescription wasn’t in her basket when she got it home. She’s such a scatterbrain. Once she even left her false teeth on the counter.”
“Well, how was I meant to know about Mrs Mason’s nerve pills?” I asked crossly. “I was only following Carol’s instructions.”
Tommy turned on me, drawing on a childhood filled with classic teachers’ admonitions. “And if Mrs Mason told Carol to tell you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?”
To my relief, the others laughed at his impudence, and the tension began to dissipate.
Tommy looked how I felt. “Don’t worry, miss,” he said kindly. “People are always getting at me like that, too. You get used to it eventually.”
Ella picked up the fire bucket and passed it to Tommy. “I tell you what, Tommy, if you sweep up the sand and put it back in the bucket, I’ll let you off.”
She flashed him her best smile, and Tommy visibly weakened. “OK, miss. I always did like you at school.” I suspected Ella had a soft spot for him too.
I patted Tommy on the shoulder apologetically. “Sorry for all the fuss, Tommy. But well done on making that guy. It’s a very good effort. He certainly had us fooled.” I ignored Hector’s arch look. “You and Joshua have done a great job.”
Tommy feigned modesty. “Well, I suppose Mr Hampton did help a bit.”
As Ella returned with the caretaker’s broom, Hector glanced back up to our shop. “Come on, Sophie, back to work. You’ve left the shop completely unattended. The way this afternoon’s going, we’ll probably get back and find it full of masked men in stripey shirts with bulging swag bags.”
As we strode back up the High Street together, Hector, irritated and uncomfortable, tried to brush the rest of the sand out of his hair. “Any other disasters while I was out?”
I shook my head, contrite. “No, just the one.” I didn’t like him being cross with me. I hoped I hadn’t upset him enough to make him cancel our date. Even so, I was glad that things had worked out so well between Joshua and Tommy.
30 Shaking It Up
At least Tommy held no grudges against me for the fiasco with his guy. He turned up at Hector’s House late the next afternoon jangling a pocketful of coins in his khaki parka. He marched in through the shop door and emptied them onto the main shop counter.
“Look what the vicar just gave me. Is it enough for a milkshake?”
Hector looked disparagingly at the pile of copper coins, began counting it, and gave up. It looked to me as if it amounted to less than fifty pence. A milkshake cost two pounds.
Hector pushed the coins back across the counter to Tommy and pointed to the Read for Good collecting box in front of the till. “I tell you what, if you put that lot into the charity box, I’ll have Sophie make you a milkshake of your choice. And you can tell me why the vicar has been giving you his small change.”
Tommy looked pleased with himself. “Banana, please, miss. I’ve been helping him all afternoon.”
I calculated that must have been an hour at the most, by the time Tommy had got home from school and changed out of his school uniform. Even so, fifty pence seemed meagre wages for his labours.
“Helping him? By doing what?”
Tommy, enjoying posting coins in the orange box, spoke loudly so I could hear him over the clanking.
“Building his bonfire for Saturday.”
I peeled and chopped a banana and put it in the milkshake blender with some milk. “What with? I thought
he was having trouble getting enough wood for it.”
“Turns out he didn’t need much wood after all.”
“Tommy, how exactly can you have a bonfire without much wood?”
“You don’t need much at all if you’ve got plenty of books.”
That made Hector tune back into the conversation. He nearly fell off his stool.
“What? No wood so he’s burning books? That’s the flimsiest excuse for censorship I’ve ever heard.”
As I added a scoop of ice cream to the blender goblet, Hector followed Tommy over to the tearoom to extract more information. “Which books exactly? What kind of books? Library books? Ones from the vicarage shelves? Hymn books? Prayer books? Can you remember any of the titles?”
Tommy shrugged. “I dunno. All books look the same to me. It was fun, though. We made a big nest of them at the base of the bonfire, then put a little bit of wood on the top from the vicar’s woodshed, with a big stake standing up in the middle to tie the best guy to. He’s tied mine to it already, and he said I’d win the guy competition because I’ve been helping him.”
He looked proud, and I was pleased for him, though it seemed unfair on those who hadn’t yet delivered their guys for judging.
I decanted the contents of the blender into a glass, sprinkled the bubbly surface with grated chocolate, and added two straws before setting it in front of Tommy, who sucked at them eagerly. Hector made a T sign to me with his index fingers, and I took the hint to switch the kettle on
Only when the milkshake glass was half empty did Tommy come up for air. “Now we just need more guys. The vicar wants lots more guys to arrange all around mine.”
Tommy paused to run a long, skinny finger around the inner rim of the glass.
“I had to show him the best way to make a bonfire, though. Honestly, you’d think he’d never made one before. He was so clumsy at it that I thought he was taking the mick, like he was pretending not to know how to do it so as to get me to do all the work. Lucky for him that I was there. Still, I didn’t mind. I’m brilliant at making fires, my mum says. I always do ours at home. I think I could be a professional fire maker when I grow up.”