by Penny Dolan
I touched the clothes and felt a growing sickness. Ma had made every item with her own hands. She had sat there, stitching garments with the best cloth she could buy. She had sat there knitting, not telling me what she was using her best wool to make. Ma had known this day would come, and she had said not a word. She knew, and I did not. It made my head spin, but I would not cry.
‘It will be good for you to go, Mouse,’ Ma said, smiling bleakly. ‘You have so many things to learn! Such a life to lead!’ She wiped my face with a cloth, and I had to put on my new clothes.
Then, when I was finally ready, Ma reached inside her own treasure box, where she kept a curl from every baby she had looked after. She found a folded muslin cloth embroidered with fine white thread. As she unwrapped the fabric, a long silver chain slipped out.
‘For you.’
As I lifted the delicate chain in my sunburned farmboy hand, suddenly some kind of sturdy silver medal hung dangling there, grand enough to ornament a gentleman’s watch chain.
The medal fell into my open palm, and there, on one side, was a finely engraved mouse, with small round ears and bright eyes and whiskers. On the other side were five curling letters. I read the word they made. This was easy to do, for they spelled my name: M.O.U.S.E.
Quickly, Ma put the medal round my neck and tucked it well down inside my new shirt. She buttoned the collar so firmly that I squirmed.
‘My mouse?’ I whispered, delighted.
‘Yes, and remember, my own Mouse,’ she said, in a trembling voice, ‘that this is yours, and it is more than precious. You must keep it safe, in case of . . .’
‘Case of what, Ma?’
‘In case anything happens to me.’ Seeing my face crumple, she added, ‘But nothing will, pet, nothing will.’
Ma hugged me tightly and pushed a new nose-wiper into my pocket. Though I felt rather grand in my new clothes, my heart was full of alarm.
Then, just as she was about to take me through to the button man, Ma hesitated. She had a look in her eye I had never seen before.
‘You must keep your medal hidden, Mouse. You must! I have taught you to be honest and truthful, but now you must keep your mouth tight shut if anyone asks about it. Anyone. Do you understand?’
The fierceness in her voice was like the wind blowing against the door in winter, so I said I did, though it was all very puzzling, and we returned to where the stranger waited.
Isaac lifted me up so high that my head touched the ceiling. It was a sort of farewell. Though his strong hands were around me, they could not protect me from Mr Button. Isaac’s eyes were sad, and I knew he was only pretending to play.
‘Holidays. There will be holidays. You will come back then, boy,’ he said. ‘We will have fun together then.’
I got into the hard, glossy carriage. Mr Button clicked his teeth impatiently. The driver cracked his whip, the horses pulled, the wheels turned, and off I went. There was no sign of holiday in the man’s hard eyes, and my happy life was ended. Neither Ma nor Isaac could do anything to stop it all happening.
Perhaps it was seeing the two of them so powerless that made me decide that, from then on, I must take care of myself.
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CHAPTER 7
MOUSE’S GAME
The waving was over. Roseberry Farm was moving further into the past. The coach blinds flapped to and fro, snipping up the disappearing landscape.
Ma and Isaac had spoken of holidays, but Mr Button had not. Maybe he would not know where to send me, or how to send me back. How would I get home?
I would have to help myself, like the little red hen in the tale Ma often told me. Sitting at a certain angle in the carriage, I could just eye-spy the places we passed. I would have to remember each one, but I was very good at remembering.
This was not because I was clever, but because each winter, when the ice and snow made it too cold to go outside, Ma played a special game. She spread all kinds of objects on the table and covered them over with a clean apron. Once she was ready, she called me to her and slowly drew back the cloth. I had to remember as many things as I could.
‘Look, Mousey, look hard!’ she’d say. ‘Say the names to yourself.’
Then, all at once, she pulled that cover over again. I had to tell her each thing I could. At first I only remembered five. Then I got more – ten, twelve, eighteen, twenty-one. I chanted the names under my breath like a secret nursery rhyme, and got very good at remembering what I’d seen. Sometimes Ma took an object away, and I had to say what was missing. I grew very good at that game.
So, trapped in the carriage with bright shiny Button, I hoped that Ma’s eye-spy game might save me. As the blind flipped and flapped, I studied all the buildings and churches and taverns that the coach passed. I watched where the coach halted, or where it turned at crossroads. I stared at unusual sights: a twisty spire, a white horse carved on the hill, a new-built railway bridge and the narrow dark glass of the canals, and gave them all their own funny names.
I studied the tavern signs where the coach waited while Button went inside, having locked the carriage. He returned smelling of roasted meat and puddings, with one hard bit of biscuit for me. Though some sights were lost when I dozed, and some when it was dark, I tried to believe that one day those images, strung out like beads on my memory, would help me.
This peeping work gave me some comfort. Surely I would remember at least one sight, even if it was only a water well beside the road, or the tower of a tumbledown castle, or an ancient market cross that I could ask about? And something was better than nothing, when you had left your home behind.
I want to remember all these sights. I want to remember all my happy times. Some people only want to hear the worst.
What was the worst? One name sticks in my throat. One name floats like a dead rat on the grey soup of my childish dream. One name appears in my story all too soon.
Mr Button and his carriage travelled far, far from any town, the horses cantering so fast there was not a moment to jump down or escape. The track crossed an open heath and entered a scrawny wood, where the boughs of tangled trees cast webs of shadow across Button’s cruelly smiling face.
Then we passed through iron gates, and the trees parted, revealing a vast bleak house wrapped in mildewed ivy. Sadness seemed to drip from those leaves, sliding down the coach windows like grimy tears.
I was not yet seven, and knew very little, but even so I was sure that this was not the kind of place that Ma Foster thought she was sending me to. I had arrived at Murkstone Hall, my dreadful new home.
Button dragged me inside to a place where boys whirled loudly and angrily around me. Some shrieked from the staircase, some yelled, none stopped, and all were much bigger, much wilder than I was. I saw that I would not be a king here, and that there was no Isaac around to catch me if I fell.
Button yanked me into some kind of waiting room. Horsehair grew from the cracks in a dusty sofa and lay in coils on the grimy rug.
He glanced at me as if I was dirt on his polished boots. ‘Well, boy! Now you are delivered,’ he snapped, ‘but you haven’t heard the last of me, or the one who sent you here.’
‘Who sent me here?’ I asked him. It could not be Isaac or Ma. I’d realised that much.
Button scoffed. ‘That’s for me to know and for you not to find out. Sit!’ He pointed to the one hard wooden chair and strode through to an inner parlour.
‘Bulloughby!’ he called, and I did not know whether this was a threat or a greeting.
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CHAPTER 8
THE CLOSED MOUTH
Waiting on that hard chair, I remembered what Ma had told me about my new treasure.
‘Keep your mouth shut tight . . . Keep it safe.’
More swiftly than my fingers had ever worked before, I unclasped Ma
’s silver chain, slipped that mouse medal off it and popped the disc into my mouth. I poked it with my tongue so it lodged against my cheek, like a fat sugar drop being saved for later. The silver tasted cold and metallic, but I was keeping my secret safe.
I closed my lips tightly, knowing I must not swallow my medal, because that could be the death of me. I fastened the chain around my neck just in time.
Button reappeared, with that smile on his face that was no smile at all, and then he was gone.
‘Come!’ roared a voice, and I went into the dreadful parlour to meet the man who would turn my life into a nightmare.
Headmaster Bulloughby whisked a bamboo switch rhythmically against the carved leg of his desk. His cravat was stained with snuff, and a half-supped tankard stood before him. His hairy ears supported an orange wig, and his nose was almost purple.
At first I smiled, for he looked comical, like a character from a puppet play I’d seen on the village green.
Bulloughby let the switch fall on the rug and beckoned me over. I trotted amiably to his desk, trying to be pleasant. As soon as I got within reach, he grabbed me by my collar, twisted it, and thrust a letter against my face, rubbing it against my cheek. His eyes bulged wildly.
‘See what it says, boy? He sent you to me. He says I have to keep you here until he decides what to do with you.’
I squirmed. My own eyes were popping, and I was too afraid of spitting out my medal to gasp for air. Bulloughby laughed bitterly, as if this was the usual way to welcome children.
‘You don’t even know why you were sent here, do you?’ Bulloughby pulled me so tightly towards him that I saw the spittle threads hanging from his yellow teeth. ‘What do they call you, boy?’
‘Mouse,’ I squawked.
‘Mouse? Mouse? Vermin, more like, not worth a farthing!’ He jabbed his finger at my forehead. ‘I did not want you here. I did not ask for you. I did not send for you, or request your company in any way at all. Remember that! You, young Vermin, is nothing but the payment of a debt!’
An open ledger lay on his table, with the names of boys listed down each page, and each name marked For Return or Not Return. I could not spot my name there yet, but I saw thick ink scratched right across some lines. The never, ever returnable.
Busily, Bulloughby examined my pockets. He dragged out the clean handkerchief Ma gave me. ‘Barely more than a rag you’ve got here,’ he sneered. ‘Not fine at all.’ Then he studied my jacket and breeches, the clothes that Ma had made so carefully for me. ‘You’re not much more than a pauper, are you?’
It was as Bulloughby twisted my collar that he caught the glint of the silver chain. He tugged hard enough to burst my shirt open, and snatched so quick and slick that I thought of Isaac’s tales of the pickpockets in the market crowds.
In a moment my silver chain was within a drawer in his desk, among watches and signet rings and trinkets that must have belonged to the other boys he had so personally welcomed into his care. Any precious guineas, crowns or sovereigns would end up in his safe-keeping too.
Then Bulloughby flung me from him. ‘Off you go, Vermin. Turn left. Down the corridor. Round the corner. Pair of doors. Knock. That’s it.’ He loomed over me, and even his wig trembled with his rage. ‘If I spot you anywhere from now on, boy, you’ll feel it, so take care! Out!’
I staggered to my feet and hurried off. The taste of blood was in my mouth, but the silver medal was safe within my cheek. It was a tiny triumph: I had kept the one important thing that belonged to me. Turning the corner, I spat my medal out and wiped it dry on my sleeve. I slipped it down inside the ankle of my boot, wiggling my leg about until the disc lay inside my sock, securely under the sole of my foot.
‘I kept it safe, Ma,’ I said to myself, though I knew she could not hear, and walked slowly towards the two doors. I knocked.
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CHAPTER 9
A USEFUL TALENT
‘In!’ An awkward crop-haired boy hauled me into the classroom. Across the back of his ragged jacket was chalked the letter M.
I gazed at him, puzzled. ‘Please, what –’
‘Monitor!’ he gasped, and raced back to the few inches of splintered wood that was his place on one of the benches.
Rows of long desks rose like steps up to the ceiling, filled with more faces than I had seen in my life. Small boys were squashed tightly at the front, and bigger boys crammed together at the back. They gave a shout of delight, as if they had just seen something amusing.
‘New Boy, New Boy!’ they called, banging hard on the desks and shouting. ‘New Boy, New Boy!’
I looked around for this amusing person, and then saw that I was the New Boy, so there and then I decided to do something friendly and entertaining in reply.
I balanced, first on one hand and then on the other, then walked with my face just a breath above the grimy floorboards, and heard cheers. Adding in a somersault or two, proud of my greatly amusing skills, I then gave at least one cartwheel.
The boys smothered their laughter and clutched at their jiggling cheeks. Yes, it was me, full of fun and cheer. The boy Mouse had arrived!
Then, even though my world was upside down, something much less amusing came into view. Raised high up on one wall was a panelled desk, far higher than Ma’s wardrobe. It was carved deeply as a church pulpit, and inside that desk was a dusty grey woman.
Still upside down, I paused, transfixed by this ancient fledgling in her wooden nest. Her hair was scrunched back tightly into a wispy bun, her nose was curved like a beak, and her bony hands darted about, rearranging the trails of her musty gown. All at once her head shot forward and she stared at me through thick metal-rimmed glasses.
So I stopped parading about on my hands, aware I might have done a very wrong thing. As slowly and politely as I could, I turned myself the right way up again and stood there before her.
Her voice, when it came, was pinched and bitter. ‘I am Madam Claudine. Your name, new boy?’
‘Mouse!’ I tried to smile, but the class burst into another roar of laughter.
‘Mouse! Mouse!’ they shouted.
She rapped on her pulpit with hard nails, and all fell silent. ‘Boy, I repeat – what is your name?’
‘Mouse.’
‘Mouse?’ Her eyes narrowed. She was not amused.
‘That’s what I’m called. Honest,’ I said. ‘I’d tell you another name if I had one, Madam Claudine.’
She sensed that if these questions went on any longer, things would get worse. Two or three boys were already squeaking and calling out, ‘Cheese, cheese!’
Rustling about, she dipped a quill into a gigantic inkwell. A note, still dribbling ink, floated down to me. ‘For the Headmaster,’ she ordered, with an oddly sneering smile.
I trotted down the corridor again and offered the note at the dreadful parlour.
‘I told you never –’ came the roar.
‘Madam Claudine –’ I began.
Bulloughby snatched the sheet, slamming the door shut. A moment later the door opened and the note was thrust back at me.
As I trotted back, I struggled to read her copperplate question. ‘What is this boy’s family name?’
Bulloughby’s reply was scratched across the paper. ‘He no longer has one.’
‘Who am I then?’ I wondered, confused.
Then I set off, stamping my answer with each step as I went back to that classroom.
‘I am Mouse, that’s who. I am Mouse no matter what. There’s Ma, and Isaac, and there’s me, a boy called Mouse. So there.’
They would not make me into a nothing here. They would not.
I handed over the note.
‘Mouse you must be then,’ sniffed Madam Claudine, writing it down on her own register of names. ‘Stupid name. Over there! Now!�
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The boys on the front bench shuffled along, as I squashed into a few inches at the end. There were so many of us that I had to cling on to the desk to keep my place. My boots dangled in the air.
‘And now to work!’ she ordered, ‘Keep together!’
A chorus of voices filled the room, and only gradually did I understand what they were chanting.
‘Twelve times twelve is one hundred and forty-four.
‘Thirteen times twelve is one hundred and fifty-six.
‘Fourteen times twelve is one hundred and sixty-eight.
‘Fifteen times twelve is a hundred and Niddle.’
Niddle? Niddle? What? Someone had spoken the word ‘Niddle’ in my left ear. Though the boy next to me faced Madam Claudine, he winked one eye cheekily in my direction.
‘Mouse!’ I whispered back.
‘Know that, silly,’ Niddle said, grinning quickly, then returning to the noise.
‘Seventeen times twelve is two hundred and four.
‘Eighteen times twelve is two hundred and sixteen . . .’
On they went, on to the twenty times table, and then returning to the beginning, repeating and repeating. I kept up where I could.
Suddenly, as I was almost falling asleep, Madam Claudine rapped on her desk twice and the chant changed.
‘A is for Armadillo.
‘B is for Buffalo.
‘C is for Camel . . .’
And that, or so it seemed, was to be the style of my schooling.
Madam Claudine believed in nothing but long lists of tables, words, phrases and definitions. Anything that could be listed – any creature, place or object – was listed. Hidden like codes within the rhythm of the chants, the boys kept secret conversations moving around the class.
How did this woman keep us in order? Around the room were hung texts she believed to be inspiring.
‘Regard the Exhortations!’ she cried. ‘Clutch them to your hearts. Recite!’