A Little, Aloud

by Angela Macmillan

  She heard nothing – but while she was hearing nothing the passé air of the staircase was disturbed by a draught that travelled up to her face. It emanated from the basement: down where a door or window was being opened by someone who chose this moment to leave the house.

  The rain had stopped; the pavements steamily shone as Mrs Drover let herself out by inches from her own front door into the empty street. The unoccupied houses opposite continued to meet her look with their damaged stare. Making toward the thoroughfare and the taxi, she tried not to keep looking behind. Indeed, the silence was so intense – one of those creeks of London silence exaggerated this summer by damage of war – that no tread could have gained on hers unheard. Where her street debouched on the square where people went on living, she grew conscious of, and checked, her unnatural pace. Across the open end of the square, two buses impassively passed each other: women, a perambulator, cyclists, a man wheeling a barrow signalised, once again, the ordinary flow of life. At the square’s most populous corner should be – and was – the short taxi rank. This evening, only one taxi – but this, although it presented its blank rump, appeared already to be alertly waiting for her. Indeed, without looking round the driver started his engine as she panted up from behind and put her hand on the door. As she did so, the clock struck seven. The taxi faced the main road: to make the trip back to her house it would have to turn – she had settled back on the seat and the taxi had turned before she, surprised by its knowing movement, recollected that she had not ‘said where’. She leaned forward to scratch at the glass panel that divided the driver’s head from her own.

  The driver braked to what was almost a stop, turned round, and slid the glass panel back: the jolt of this flung Mrs Drover forward till her face was almost into the glass. Through the aperture driver and passenger, not six inches between them, remained for an eternity eye to eye. Mrs Drover’s mouth hung open for some seconds before she could issue her first scream. After that she continued to scream freely and to beat with her gloved hands on the glass all round as the taxi, accelerating without mercy, made off with her into the hinterland of deserted streets.

  THE LISTENERS

  Walter de la Mare

  ‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,

  Knocking on the moonlit door;

  And his horse in the silence champed the grasses

  Of the forest’s ferny floor:

  And a bird flew up out of the turret,

  Above the Traveller’s head:

  And he smote upon the door again a second time;

  ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.

  But no one descended to the Traveller;

  No head from the leaf-fringed sill

  Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,

  Where he stood perplexed and still.

  But only a host of phantom listeners

  That dwelt in the lone house then

  Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

  To that voice from the world of men:

  Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,

  That goes down to the empty hall,

  Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken

  By the lonely Traveller’s call.

  And he felt in his heart their strangeness,

  Their stillness answering his cry,

  While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

  ’Neath the starred and leafy sky;

  For he suddenly smote on the door, even

  Louder, and lifted his head:—

  ‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,

  That I kept my word,’ he said.

  Never the least stir made the listeners,

  Though every word he spake

  Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

  From the one man left awake:

  Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,

  And the sound of iron on stone,

  And how the silence surged softly backward,

  When the plunging hoofs were gone.

  READING NOTES

  A group of parents and guardians found much to talk about in this atmospheric story. Why had the woman become engaged to someone she hardly knew and seemed afraid of? The way the first two paragraphs create a sense of unease. Was the man evil? Was that why you could never fully see his face? What indeed is evil? Several people felt the story ended too abruptly. Would knowing what happened after the taxi drives off make it more or less frightening?

  The poem is also intensely atmospheric and, like the story, leaves you with hundreds of questions: who is the Traveller; why has he come; to whom has he made a promise; who are the ‘phantom listeners’ and why is there no one there? Someone noticed the sounds and patterns of the words in the poem – ‘the forest’s ferny floor’ or ‘the silence surged softly backward’ – and talked about what that added to the mood. Everyone had ideas about the story behind the poem. Do you think the poem succeeds because the mystery remains impenetrable or would you prefer to know?

  The Call of the Wild

  THE CALL OF THE WILD

  (THE WAGER, CHAPTER 6)

  Jack London

  (approximate reading time 11 minutes)

  The story is set in Alaska at the time of the Klondike gold rush. Buck is a cross between a St Bernard and a Scottish sheepdog. He has been stolen from his home in California and sold in Alaska to be trained as a sledge dog. Life is tough and brutal and Buck endures much cruelty and danger in the hands of bad owners. In this extract he is owned by a good master, John Thornton, to whom he is devoted . . .

  That winter, at Dawson, Buck performed another exploit, not so heroic, perhaps, but one that put his name many notches higher on the totem-pole of Alaskan fame. This exploit was particularly gratifying to the three men; for they stood in need of the outfit which it furnished, and were enabled to make a long-desired trip into the virgin East, where miners had not yet appeared. It was brought about by a conversation in the Eldorado Saloon, in which men waxed boastful of their favorite dogs. Buck, because of his record, was the target for these men, and Thornton was driven stoutly to defend him. At the end of half an hour one man stated that his dog could start a sled with five hundred pounds and walk off with it; a second bragged six hundred for his dog; and a third, seven hundred.

  ‘Pooh! pooh!’ said John Thornton; ‘Buck can start a thousand pounds.’

  ‘And break it out? and walk off with it for a hundred yards?’ demanded Matthewson, a Bonanza King, he of the seven hundred vaunt.

  ‘And break it out, and walk off with it for a hundred yards,’ John Thornton said coolly.

  ‘Well,’ Matthewson said, slowly and deliberately, so that all could hear, ‘I’ve got a thousand dollars that says he can’t. And there it is.’ So saying, he slammed a sack of gold dust of the size of a bologna sausage down upon the bar.

  Nobody spoke. Thornton’s bluff, if bluff it was, had been called. He could feel a flush of warm blood creeping up his face. His tongue had tricked him. He did not know whether Buck could start a thousand pounds. Half a ton! The enormousness of it appalled him. He had great faith in Buck’s strength and had often thought him capable of starting such a load; but never, as now, had he faced the possibility of it, the eyes of a dozen men fixed upon him, silent and waiting. Further, he had no thousand dollars; nor had Hans or Pete.

  ‘I’ve got a sled standing outside now, with twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour on it,’ Matthewson went on with brutal directness; ‘so don’t let that hinder you.’

  Thornton did not reply. He did not know what to say. He glanced from face to face in the absent way of a man who has lost the power of thought and is seeking somewhere to find the thing that will start it going again. The face of Jim O’Brien, a Mastodon King and old-time comrade, caught his eyes. It was as a cue to him, seeming to rouse him to do what he would never have dreamed of doing.

  ‘Can you lend me a thousand?’ he asked, almost in a whisper.

  �
��Sure,’ answered O’Brien, thumping down a plethoric sack by the side of Matthewson’s. ‘Though it’s little faith I’m having, John, that the beast can do the trick.’

  The Eldorado emptied its occupants into the street to see the test. The tables were deserted, and the dealers and game-keepers came forth to see the outcome of the wager and to lay odds. Several hundred men, furred and mittened, banked around the sled within easy distance. Matthewson’s sled, loaded with a thousand pounds of flour, had been standing for a couple of hours, and in the intense cold (it was sixty below zero) the runners had frozen fast to the hard-packed snow. Men offered odds of two to one that Buck could not budge the sled. A quibble arose concerning the phrase ‘break out.’ O’Brien contended it was Thornton’s privilege to knock the runners loose, leaving Buck to ‘break it out’ from a dead standstill. Matthewson insisted that the phrase included breaking the runners from the frozen grip of the snow. A majority of the men who had witnessed the making of the bet decided in his favor, whereat the odds went up to three to one against Buck.

  There were no takers. Not a man believed him capable of the feat. Thornton had been hurried into the wager, heavy with doubt; and now that he looked at the sled itself, the concrete fact, with the regular team of ten dogs curled up in the snow before it, the more impossible the task appeared. Matthewson waxed jubilant.

  ‘Three to one!’ he proclaimed. ‘I’ll lay you another thousand at that figure, Thornton. What d’ye say?’

  Thornton’s doubt was strong in his face, but his fighting spirit was aroused – the fighting spirit that soars above odds, fails to recognize the impossible, and is deaf to all save the clamor for battle. He called Hans and Pete to him. Their sacks were slim, and with his own the three partners could rake together only two hundred dollars. In the ebb of their fortunes, this sum was their total capital; yet they laid it unhesitatingly against Matthewson’s six hundred.

  The team of ten dogs was unhitched, and Buck, with his own harness, was put into the sled. He had caught the contagion of the excitement, and he felt that in some way he must do a great thing for John Thornton. Murmurs of admiration at his splendid appearance went up. He was in perfect condition, without an ounce of superfluous flesh, and the one hundred and fifty pounds that he weighed were so many pounds of grit and virility. His furry coat shone with the sheen of silk. Down the neck and across the shoulders, his mane, in repose as it was, half bristled and seemed to lift with every movement, as though excess of vigor made each particular hair alive and active. The great breast and heavy fore legs were no more than in proportion with the rest of the body, where the muscles showed in tight rolls underneath the skin. Men felt these muscles and proclaimed them hard as iron, and the odds went down to two to one.

  ‘Gad, sir! Gad, sir!’ stuttered a member of the latest dynasty, a king of the Skookum Benches. ‘I offer you eight hundred for him, sir, before the test, sir; eight hundred just as he stands.’

  Thornton shook his head and stepped to Buck’s side.

  ‘You must stand off from him,’ Matthewson protested. ‘Free play and plenty of room.’

  The crowd fell silent; only could be heard the voices of the gamblers vainly offering two to one. Everybody acknowledged Buck a magnificent animal, but twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour bulked too large in their eyes for them to loosen their pouch-strings.

  Thornton knelt down by Buck’s side. He took his head in his two hands and rested cheek on cheek. He did not playfully shake him, as was his wont, or murmur soft love curses; but he whispered in his ear. ‘As you love me, Buck. As you love me,’ was what he whispered. Buck whined with suppressed eagerness.

  The crowd was watching curiously. The affair was growing mysterious. It seemed like a conjuration. As Thornton got to his feet, Buck seized his mittened hand between his jaws, pressing in with his teeth and releasing slowly, half-reluctantly. It was the answer, in terms, not of speech, but of love. Thornton stepped well back.

  ‘Now, Buck,’ he said.

  Buck tightened the traces, then slacked them for a matter of several inches. It was the way he had learned.

  ‘Gee!’ Thornton’s voice rang out, sharp in the tense silence.

  Buck swung to the right, ending the movement in a plunge that took up the slack and with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and fifty pounds. The load quivered, and from under the runners arose a crisp crackling.

  ‘Haw!’ Thornton commanded.

  Buck duplicated the manoeuvre, this time to the left. The crackling turned into a snapping, the sled pivoting and the runners slipping and grating several inches to the side. The sled was broken out. Men were holding their breaths, intensely unconscious of the fact.

  ‘Now, MUSH!’

  Thornton’s command cracked out like a pistol-shot. Buck threw himself forward, tightening the traces with a jarring lunge. His whole body was gathered compactly together in the tremendous effort, the muscles writhing and knotting like live things under the silky fur. His great chest was low to the ground, his head forward and down, while his feet were flying like mad, the claws scarring the hard-packed snow in parallel grooves. The sled swayed and trembled, half-started forward. One of his feet slipped, and one man groaned aloud. Then the sled lurched ahead in what appeared a rapid succession of jerks, though it never really came to a dead stop again . . . half an inch . . . an inch . . . two inches . . . The jerks perceptibly diminished; as the sled gained momentum, he caught them up, till it was moving steadily along.

  Men gasped and began to breathe again, unaware that for a moment they had ceased to breathe. Thornton was running behind, encouraging Buck with short, cheery words. The distance had been measured off, and as he neared the pile of firewood which marked the end of the hundred yards, a cheer began to grow and grow, which burst into a roar as he passed the firewood and halted at command. Every man was tearing himself loose, even Matthewson. Hats and mittens were flying in the air. Men were shaking hands, it did not matter with whom, and bubbling over in a general incoherent babel.

  But Thornton fell on his knees beside Buck. Head was against head, and he was shaking him back and forth. Those who hurried up heard him cursing Buck, and he cursed him long and fervently, and softly and lovingly.

  ‘Gad, sir! Gad, sir!’ spluttered the Skookum Bench king. ‘I’ll give you a thousand for him, sir, a thousand, sir – twelve hundred, sir.’

  Thornton rose to his feet. His eyes were wet. The tears were streaming frankly down his cheeks. ‘Sir,’ he said to the Skookum Bench king, ‘no, sir. You can go to hell, sir. It’s the best I can do for you, sir.’

  Buck seized Thornton’s hand in his teeth. Thornton shook him back and forth. As though animated by a common impulse, the onlookers drew back to a respectful distance; nor were they again indiscreet enough to interrupt.

  SEA FEVER

  John Masefield

  I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

  And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

  And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

  And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

  I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

  Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

  And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

  And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the seagulls crying.

  I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

  To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

  And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

  And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

  READING NOTES

  After listening to the story, an elderly man in a day centre reading group said that he had had dogs all his life and thought that a real dog lover would never have made his dog do such a dangerously hard task just for a bet. ‘
Thornton had doubts,’ he said, ‘he didn’t think it was possible, yet he went ahead. That’s not right.’ Others had not thought of the story in this way; they had simply been impressed at how much the dog was prepared to go through for his master. Inevitably the talk centred on dogs: how to treat and train them. There was talk about Alaska: though no one in the group had been there, some had seen films about the gold rush and knew it to be a wild place and time. Questions about what the call of the wild might be led on to the reading of the poem which was familiar to quite a few. One woman was able to recite the first verse word-perfectly.

  Why the poem is called ‘Sea Fever’; and the ways in which the poem achieves a sense of urgency that seems to make you feel you too ‘must’ go down to the sea, necessitate a close look at the language of the poem. What are your feelings about the sea: fear, fascination? And are you drawn to wild places or do you prefer to read about them from the relative safety of suburban life?

  Cats

  THE SUMMER BOOK

  (THE CAT, CHAPTER 9)

  Tove Jansson

  (approximate reading time 10 minutes)

  ‘The Cat’ is a stand-alone chapter from The Summer Book. Following the death of her mother, six-year-old Sophia has come to spend the long summer with her grandmother on a very small island in the Gulf of Finland. The old lady and the young child must get to know and understand one another . . .

  It was a tiny kitten when it came and could drink its milk only from a nipple. Fortunately, they still had Sophia’s baby bottle in the attic. In the beginning, the kitten slept in a tea-cosy to keep warm, but when it found its legs they let it sleep in the cottage in Sophia’s bed. It had its own pillow, next to hers.