‘No.’
‘Please?’
‘No!’ Mum snapped, banging down the iron. ‘I want you to go through all your cupboards and drawers in that tip of a bedroom of yours today and clear out all those old toys and books and any clothes you don’t wear any more.’
I gave a great heaving sigh.
‘And less of the sound effects,’ said Mum. ‘Go on, up to your room and get cracking.’
I had brought home a letter the day before from Mr Morgan, saying that there was to be the annual fund-raising event at the school the following Saturday and asking parents to send in items to sell.
To raise money, every year the school opens on a Saturday for the bring-and-buy sale. It’s really a sort of jumble sale, and the hall gets full to bursting with stalls selling toys, books, clothes, games, food, bottles, sports equipment, crockery and old pots, bric-a-brac, plants, and all sorts of things that people don’t want any more. Mum and Dad always go along to man one of the stalls and I get roped in to help. I don’t mind being on a stall, in fact I quite enjoy it. For a start the stallholders get to see what’s for sale before the doors open to the public, and you can pick up some really good bargains before everyone else. One year I got a complete set of lead soldiers and another year a nearly new tennis racket. I also like being on the stall and trying to get buyers to pay more for an item. Dad says I’d make a really good market trader the way I shout and barter. What I don’t like, however, is that every year I have to go through the things in my bedroom, which I find a real chore, particularly on a sunny Saturday morning when I could be down at the park playing football with Barry and Kevin.
‘It’s a really good opportunity,’ said Mum, folding up one of my dad’s shirts, ‘to have a good old clear-out.’
‘But not this morning,’ I groaned.
‘Yes, this morning,’ she said, ‘and no arguments.’
‘But…’
‘No buts,’ she interrupted. ‘And if you don’t sort out all your things this morning, then I will, and you wouldn’t be best pleased if I was to decide what to keep and what to give away, now would you?’
‘No, I wouldn’t!’ I exclaimed.
‘Well then,’ said Mum. ‘Off you go. Your dad’s put two cardboard boxes on the landing for all the things you no longer want and he’ll help you take them to school on Monday.’
I started sorting through my possessions in a really bad mood, but by the end of the morning I was in a much better frame of mind. I discovered things I had not seen for years, games I had never played, books I had never read, stamps I had never stuck in my album, and the real find – a money-box full of coins that I had forgotten about. By lunchtime the two cardboard boxes on the landing were bursting.
‘All done,’ I told Mum, feeling pretty pleased with myself.
‘That’s a good lad,’ she said. ‘Now, what are your plans for the rest of the day?’
Sheffield Wednesday was playing an away game down south that afternoon, so Dad and me were not going to the match.
‘Can I ride over to Barry’s on my bike?’ I asked her.
‘I should think so, if you’re careful on the road.’
‘And don’t talk to strangers,’ I added before she could mention it, ‘and be back before it gets dark.’
‘Before you go,’ she said, ‘you’ve got time to pop into Mrs Sewell’s with her shopping.’ Mum did our next-door neighbour’s shopping every Friday.
‘Aw, Mum,’ I moaned.
‘Never you mind the “Aw, Mum.” It’s only next door and she’ll be waiting for it. I’d take it myself, but I’ve got all this ironing to finish and then I want to blitz your bedroom now I can see the carpet. You know how she talks. I’d never get away.’
‘I hate going next door with her shopping,’ I said. ‘All she does is moan and groan and complain. She’s a pain in the neck.’
‘That’s because she’s lonely. She’s glad of a bit of company, although she’ll never admit it. You’ll be old one day, young man. Now go on, her shopping’s in the kitchen.’
Mrs Sewell had lived in the house next door for as long as I could remember. Dad describes her as a bad-tempered old stick and he’s right. She likes nothing better than moaning about her many ailments and complaining about everything and anybody. Mum says she feels sorry for her because she never goes out and no one, except us and the doctor, ever visits her, and that it’s no wonder she’s grumpy and annoying.
I hate going next door. Mrs Sewell’s house is dark and dusty and smells like the hamster cage at school. Mrs Sewell smells as well – of mothballs and old age – and she wears old cardigans that are thin and tattered and thick black skirts with stains down the front and dirty brown slippers with holes in the toes. Dad says it’s not as if she can’t afford to buy new clothes, because her husband, long since dead, worked for years in the Council Offices and must have been on a good salary. It’s just that she’s mean and doesn’t like spending anything. The old lady never throws anything out in case, as she says, ‘it may come in handy’, so her living room is a cluttered mass of all sorts of useless items. She saves bottles and bags and old cardboard boxes, jam jars and bits of string and rubber bands, plastic margarine tubs and old newspapers. Her house is like a junk shop. She could have her own bring-and-buy sale, although I guess nobody would want most of her stuff. But it’s not just the smelly old house that I don’t like. It’s the cat. Mrs Sewell has this vicious tomcat called Tibby, a big fat tortoiseshell beast more tiger than cat that spits and hisses and scratches as soon as I get in the door. Once it climbed up the threadbare curtains and leapt on to my shoulders and scratched my face before I could sweep it off. ‘It’s only being playful,’ said Mrs Sewell, as the cat shot out of the door hissing. ‘I hope you’ve not hurt him.’
Anyway, I hate going round to her house so Mum usually delivers the shopping.
That Saturday I banged really loudly on the front door and then, a moment later, I heard a rattling of chains and a scraping of bolts. The door opened a fraction and a wrinkled screwed-up old face peered through the crack.
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me, Mrs Sewell,’ I said.
‘Who?’
‘Me. Jimmy from next door.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I’ve got your shopping.’
‘What?’
‘Shopping!’ I shouted. ‘I’ve come with your shopping.’
She opened the door and examined me like some specimen in a museum case. ‘You had better come in,’ she said. ‘And wipe your feet. I don’t want you traipsing in with dirt on your shoes and marking the carpet.’
That’s a laugh, I thought. The pavement outside was cleaner than her carpet.
‘I won’t come in,’ I said. ‘I’ll just leave your shopping in the hall.’
She ignored me. ‘Bring it through to the kitchen.’
‘Can I leave it here?’ I asked.
‘And how am I supposed to carry that little lot with my bad back?’ she said quickly and irritably. ‘Bring it through and do as you’re told.’
So I carried the bag of groceries into her kitchen, holding my breath as I entered the house. ‘Where shall I put it?’ I asked, looking around for an empty space amidst the clutter.
‘Put it by the table,’ she ordered.
I did as I was told and headed for the front door. ‘I’ll be off then,’ I said.
‘Wait a minute! Wait a minute; I’ve got something for you.’
Gosh, I thought, this is a new one. I’m going to get a tip. She was actually going to give me something for bringing her shopping.
She shuffled over to the sink and pulled out a drawer and began rummaging among the cutlery. Then she held up an old rusty tin-opener which she thrust into my hands. ‘Ask your dad to have a look at this,’ she said. ‘It won’t work. You can bring it round later on.’
I felt like saying: ‘Is there anything else, Mrs Sewell? Would you like him to redecorate your house, put in a s
hower, carpet the living room, build a conservatory?’ But I stuffed the tin-opener in my jeans pocket and left.
‘And don’t let the cat out!’ she shouted after me as I slammed the front door. Dad fixed the tin-opener and I was instructed to make a return visit.
There was no way I was going back into that smelly house, so I decided to post the tin-opener through the letterbox. I lifted up the flap really quietly and fed it through. It was as if the door was on some sort of spring, because as soon as the tin-opener hit the floor in Mrs Sewell’s hallway, the door swung open.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
‘Returning your tin-opener,’ I told her. ‘My dad’s fixed it for you. I posted it through your letterbox.’
‘Well, I can’t bend down with my bad legs,’ she said. ‘Pick it up and bring it into the kitchen.’
Mrs Sewell wouldn’t let me leave until she had tried the tin-opener to see if it worked. The killer cat was there, sitting on the top of a cupboard watching me with green eyes and hissing menacingly. I moved well away from it.
‘It doesn’t work as well as it used to,’ she complained.
‘You ought to get yourself a new one then,’ I said.
‘I don’t need a new one,’ she told me. ‘It’ll have to do.’ The cat meowed. ‘He’s not happy,’ she told me.
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘Tibby. He’s cut his tongue on that.’ She pointed to an old blue bowl on the table. ‘It’s got a crack in it and it’s all rough round the rim. He must have caught his tongue on it when he was licking up his milk. I shall have to get him a new bowl. You can ask your mum to get me one. Plastic, not expensive. You can get rid of that old bowl for me.’
Crikey, I thought, she is actually going to throw something out. ‘Are you sure it won’t come in?’ I asked her mischievously.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want Tibby cutting his tongue again. Anyway, I’ve never liked that bowl. My sister gave it to me. She was probably given it and didn’t like it so she passed it on to me. Chuck it away.’
I wondered to myself if the words ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ had ever been part of her vocabulary.
Well, I didn’t chuck the bowl away. I scrubbed it and polished it and took it to the bring-and-buy sale the following Saturday. It looked pretty good in the centre of the table, a pale blue with delicate flowers decorating the side.
‘I’d have that,’ said Mum, ‘if it wasn’t for the damage. Perhaps nobody will notice that crack. Perhaps we’ll get a couple of pounds for it.’
We did a good trade on our stall but the bowl remained unsold. Lots of people picked it up but when they saw the damage shook their heads and returned it to the table. When things quietened down a bit Mum went to get a cup of coffee and Dad to help on another stall, so I was left alone. That’s when I saw Ignatius wandering around aimlessly with his hands in the pockets of the old baggy trousers he wore for school.
‘Hello, Iggy,’ I said, as he passed my stall.
‘Oh, hello, James,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see you there. I’m just having a little wander around, not that I’m going to buy anything. Mum and Dad might pop in later. They have business in town this morning.’ More likely in the pub, I thought. He began looking through all the bric-a-brac on the table, picking up an object and examining it closely like an expert at an auction. He spent quite some time looking at the bowl. ‘This is interesting,’ he said. ‘I think it’s Chinese.’ He replaced it in the centre of the table at the very moment when this large, red-cheeked man approached. He glanced at the items on the table and then his eyes settled on the bowl. He picked it up and turned it around in his hands, inspecting it closely and thoroughly.
‘How much for this?’ he asked.
Before I could answer, Ignatius asked him, ‘How much are you prepared to pay?’
‘Couple of quid.’
‘It’s worth more than that,’ said Ignatius, taking the bowl from him.
The man laughed. ‘What, an old pot bowl with a crack in it?’
‘Actually, it’s not pot,’ Ignatius told him. ‘It’s porcelain.’
‘Get away,’ said the man. ‘Cheap pottery. Anyway, what would a kid like you know about china?’
‘So it is porcelain china then,’ said Ignatius, still holding on to the bowl, ‘and not an old pot bowl?’
‘It might be,’ said the man, observing him suspiciously.
‘You can always tell china,’ said Ignatius, tapping the bowl with a long finger. ‘It makes a little chinging sound. I read that in a book.’
‘Well, I’m not paying more than a fiver,’ said the man.
‘Then someone else will be the lucky owner,’ Ignatius told him.
The man thought for a moment. ‘Ten quid, then.’
‘This rare and lovely Chinese ceramic bowl is worth a lot more than ten pounds. It could be very rare.’
‘And it could be a load of rubbish,’ said the man, walking away.
‘What was that all about?’ I asked. ‘We could have got ten pounds for that old pot.’
‘He’ll be back,’ said Ignatius, smiling. ‘I could see it in that man’s eyes that he wanted it and knew what it was. I’ve seen him before, you know. He has an antique stall down on the market. You mark my words, he’ll be back.’ With that he placed the bowl back in the centre of the table.
Five minutes later, as Iggy had predicted, the man returned. He placed five ten pound notes on the table.
‘That’s my last offer,’ he said. ‘Take it or leave it.’
‘Were you to add another ten pounds,’ said Iggy, ‘I’d take it.’
‘You ought to be down the market, you kid,’ growled the man, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. ‘You’d make a ruddy fortune.’ He slapped down two crumpled five pound notes.
‘Would you like it wrapping up?’ asked Ignatius pleasantly.
‘No,’ scowled the man and strode off clutching the bowl.
Mum made me take half the money round to Mrs Sewell. She said it was only fair, bearing in mind the value of the bowl. The old lady counted the money with remarkable speed considering her arthritic fingers.
‘You perhaps could have got more for it,’ she said. ‘It might have been one of these Ming bowls and worth thousands.’
‘You told me to chuck it out,’ I said. The mean old biddy, I thought. If it had been up to me I’d have kept the money. ‘You told me you never liked it and you didn’t know what it was. Anyway, if it hadn’t been for Ignatius Plunket I would have sold it for a pound.’
‘Family of ne’er-do-wells, the Plunkets,’ she said. ‘Father’s never done a day’s work in his life.’
‘Yes, well, Ignatius is different,’ I told her. I was angry now. ‘He’s my friend and he’s not a ne’er-do-well, whatever one of those is. It was Ignatius who knew the bowl’s value and you should be grateful.’
‘Huh,’ she grunted. ‘Have you finished?’
‘No I haven’t,’ I told her boldly. ‘Any other person would have given him a reward.’
‘Reward!’ she spluttered, as if I had said a rude word.
‘Yes, Mrs Sewell,’ I said, ‘a reward. You are thirty pounds better off because of him and all you do is complain that you could have got more.’
She looked at me, screwing her eyes up, and then she gave a little smile. ‘You’re a one, aren’t you? Got a temper on you, I can see that, and you’re not frightened to speak your mind. Like my husband was, you are. He used to say things as they were. Always spoke his mind. Got him into trouble at the Council Offices on more than one occasion.’ She plucked the two crumpled five pound notes from the envelope. ‘Take that,’ she said, ‘and give half to that Plunket boy and keep the rest for yourself.’
I didn’t know what to say. I just stared at the money.
‘Well, go on, take it,’ she said, pushing the notes into my hand, ‘before I change my mind.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Sewell,’ I said. ‘That’s very generous of you.�
�
‘And you can come and see me again,’ she said almost grudgingly. ‘That’s if you have a mind to do so. Oh, and when you get home tell your father that the tin-opener he was supposed to have mended doesn’t work.’
5
THE LAST LAUGH
Mrs Sculthorpe gave one of her famous smiles. It stretched from ear to ear like the grinning frog in the tank on the nature table. When she stopped smiling we expected to see lipstick on her ears. Next to her was a pale, blond-haired boy with blue eyes.
‘Will you all look this way, please,’ said Mrs Sculthorpe. ‘And that includes you, Michael Sidebottom. Thank you. Now, this morning we have a new addition to our class.’ She turned in the direction of the new boy and her smile seemed to stretch even wider. ‘This is Jean-Paul. He doesn’t speak very much English because he’s from another country, so you will all have to speak slowly for him to understand you. Now Jean-Paul is only with us for a couple of weeks but during that time I am sure you will all make him feel at home.’
‘Where’s he from, miss?’ asked Valerie Harper, her hand waving like a daffodil in the wind.
‘I’m just about to tell you, Valerie dear, if you’ll let me finish,’ said the teacher sharply.
The new boy stared around the room with a blank expression on his face. If I’d been up there in front of the whole class with all those eyes on me I’d have been bright red. But he just stood there as calm as anything. I don’t suppose he understood a word Mrs Sculthorpe was saying.
‘Can anyone guess which country Jean-Paul comes from? His name should give you a clue.’
‘Is he from Wales, miss?’ asked Valerie Harper.
‘No, he’s not from Wales,’ replied Mrs Sculthorpe.
‘Is he from Ireland, miss?’ asked Kevin Murphy. ‘My cousin’s from Ireland and she’s got a funny name. My dad says my Uncle Sean wants his head examining calling her that.’
‘Jean-Paul is not a funny name, Kevin. In fact it’s quite a common name in his country.’
‘Miss, my cousin’s name is Attracta,’ Kevin Murphy went on.
A Load of Old Tripe Page 4