Polly Brown

by Tricia Bennett

  All the girls in the group turned to each other quite terrified, for they were most concerned as to whether it was one of their bodies he required, and more to the point, why? They all knew the story of Abraham and his son Isaac from their religious education studies. Did he seriously want to sacrifice one of them? And if so, which one? In unison, they all shuffled further back from where Uncle Boritz stood.

  “Bring forth the offendant!” he angrily shouted.

  “Don’t you mean the defendant, dear?” Aunt Mildred mumbled, tugging on his trouser leg before retreating further back into her seat.

  “Yes, and before anyone has the impudence to ask who the defendant is, let me make it perfectly clear. I am referring to Polly Brown,” he snapped, at the same time pointing a finger in Polly’s direction. “So bring her here right now!” he thundered.

  Two of the elder boys leapt up from the floor and in an instant, swept Polly clean off her feet, dropping her down on the floor right in front of Uncle Boritz. Pitstop then slowly circled her and sniffed her body. Polly cautiously picked herself up from the floor and stood before her accusers. She hung her head low, biting her trembling bottom lip.

  “Mildred dearest, please come here and take over. There’s a good woman,” Uncle Boritz ordered.

  Mildred once again arose from her chair and walked over to where her husband stood. On this occasion, she did not need to ask her husband what to do, for if she was given the honor of being called to her husband’s side, it could only mean one thing. She therefore leaned over to remove one of her hard blue leather shoes. As usual, Polly’s cries of pain could be heard throughout the long corridors of the castle. When her ordeal finally ended, with all punishment satisfactorily administered, Polly stood. She held her head down as she shook and cried. Both guardians continued to hurl every imaginable insult in her direction. It worked.

  Polly slumped to the floor and placed her hands over her ears. For she knew the physical scars would fade in time, but the cruel words and insinuations always entered deep into her heart and mind and would stay as a very unwelcome guest to torment her every single day and night of her young life.

  Uncle Boritz stood towering over Polly’s limp, profusely shaking body. He was, thank goodness, extremely satisfied. Seeing Polly lying on the ground in a little ball and whimpering pathetically assured him that he had produced the desired effect of crushing her tender spirit to fine dust. Having achieved his goal, he licked his thick lips with great relish, announcing with great pleasure that she was to be placed on R.O.P.E. for a further two months.

  “Children, stay well away from her, unless of course you want to catch her most unpleasant condition,” he stated. “She is a real mental case, and I have it on the greatest authority that this malady has blighted many of her ancestors, and therefore it runs in her family. Should any of you choose to ignore this warning, then you do so at your own peril. For it is likely that, within a short period of time, you too will become infected. This will almost certainly mean being removed from here to be taken to a special hospital where screams similar to those you have just heard coming from Polly will constantly be heard throughout the building day and night. For all who live there are, without exception, quite mad!” he cautioned, lowering his voice to little more than a whisper as a fiendish smile played on his lips.

  All the children sat frozen with horror as, with great relish, he continued to scare the living daylights out of them. Uncle Boritz was feeling most satisfied that his mission was almost accomplished.

  “Once inside, you are almost certain to remain incarcerated in a padded cell. And for those of you not clever enough to understand what the term incarceration means, let me inform you right now. It means to be locked away forever.”

  The sound of loud gasps could clearly be heard as the jaw of each child present visibly dropped, as they now grappled with feelings of absolute terror and determined to heed his extremely serious warning. Despite the eerie silence, they all unanimously agreed with Uncle Boritz to keep well away from the beastly, lice-ridden, maggoty Polly Brown.

  Polly was finally ordered to get up from the floor and get out of their sight. She hurriedly obeyed. As she limped out of the room, out of the corner of her eye she spied Uncle Boritz walking over to where Gailey Gobbstopper sat on the floor. Pulling out a bag of sweets from his pocket, he placed them in her outstretched hand.

  “Good work, Gailey,” he said with a smile as he gave her an encouraging pat on the head. “Thank you for letting me know all that you heard them talking about, and let me use this opportunity to remind you, and all present, that careless talk costs lives.”

  Gailey blushed slightly before tilting her face upwards to smile back at him, most delighted to have been of assistance. He then turned his full attention to all the children who had endured many hours in the study.

  “Now children, if you will all come with me,” he said cheerily, beckoning them with his outstretched hand to follow him out of his study. “We will go to my private store cupboard and find some goodies as a special treat,” said Uncle Boritz, suddenly feeling in a very generous mood. The children broke out into rapturous shrieks of laughter and merriment as they all huddled together and excitedly agreed that sweets would ease the discomfort they endured sitting for many bottom-numbing hours as jurors. They had, after all, been forced to listen to a case in which they had very little interest.

  With chocolate bars in their hot little hands and bottles of fizz to suck through straws, it would be only a matter of minutes before the more than grateful children would fail to even remember any of the events they had just witnessed! Uncle Boritz left the room like the Pied Piper with the children dancing behind him as they made their way down the long corridor, heading towards his permanently locked and very private store cupboard. Pitstop slunk along the corridor at the heels of his master, convinced that he too was in for a big treat—a big juicy bone that he could enjoy sinking his long, sharp teeth into. He much preferred mauling and crunching bones to a chocolate bar.

  Alone and fighting back the tears, Polly falteringly climbed the long, wooden staircase and headed for the dormitory. She wanted to be left alone, so she silently prayed that none of the other girls would come in, for privacy was something of a luxury that she rarely had. Polly picked up Langdon and, cuddling him in one arm, flung herself onto her bed and pressed her face tightly into the elephant as well as the pillow. She wanted to scream and scream, but nothing would come. She felt furious and angry with Gailey, for she knew only too well that it was always her who spied on everyone and then ran quickly to her master to tell tales. She had done it so often, and for what? A miserable bag of sweets! When she didn’t have a spicy tale to tell, she made one up. Polly had little doubt that if anyone would enter the room, it would be Gailey. Gailey took great pleasure in tormenting Polly.

  Hardly a day passed without her cruel taunts, and Polly found it so difficult to understand what made Gailey act like this. She would have found it much easier to understand if she had been one of their guardians’ own children, but this was not the case. Gailey was in care as a foster child, just the same as Polly. She would tell Polly that she was a loony, just like her brothers; or that she would grow up to be a bag lady, just like her mother; or worse still, that she was so ugly, no one could possibly ever love her. Just like Aunt Mildred and Uncle Boritz, she found the greatest pleasure in inflicting pain on others, particularly Polly and her older brother Thomas.

  An hour or so passed before Polly reappeared from under her blanket and sat up on her bed. She peered into the jar that stood on the bedside cabinet. Oliver the caterpillar was still in the jar, weaving and winding his way over the leaves and therefore completely unaware of the drama that had unfolded downstairs in the study. He just continued on as usual, munching and crunching his way through the lettuce leaves that had now sprung large holes. At that moment Polly wished to be a caterpillar, for she patiently observed that all Oliver had to do was pig out on lettuce leaves and sl
eep. Nothing more and nothing less! No one bothered him. No one called him names and hurt him. He just lived to eat and rest.

  Suddenly, the door of the dormitory opened, and she looked up. Polly let out a deep groan, for her unwelcome visitor was none other than Gailey Gobbstopper, the tormentor.

  Chapter 6

  OLIVER’S RATHER CLEVER DISAPPEARING ACT

  THE NEXT FEW weeks saw Polly hard at work scrubbing floors, peeling endless potatoes, cooking, and feverishly working her way through mountains of ironing. By the time evening arrived she felt utterly exhausted, but she had one final task—to polish thirty or more pairs of shoes for school the next day. The shoes were all lined up on a long table in a freezing cold, dimly-lit basement. Polly found the only way to get through the job was to brush the shoes as hard and furiously as she could, for this helped to keep her warm. Luckily for Polly, she did get help with this chore. It came from a lady who frequently visited the castle and did little errands and tasks for a few hours a week. When she wasn’t at the orphanage she was an inmate at the local mental hospital. Polly knew her as Cecilia Crabtree. She was a very troubled woman in her late forties, and she informed Polly on many occasions that her illness had much to do with a nervous disorder. Not that they talked much, for Cecilia was, in Polly’s eyes, far too gone for such things. They usually stood side-by-side in absolute silence, brushing the shoes until they shone.

  However, Cecilia was prone to sudden outbursts, which would make Polly almost jump out of her shoes. These episodes always came without warning. One minute she was quietly polishing shoes, the next minute she would throw her head back, cursing and shouting insults. Polly often looked up to see if someone was dangling from the ceiling or swinging from the light shade, but there was never anyone there. If there was, Polly was definitely unable to see them. The lighting in this particular room was poor, and she knew her eyesight was bad, but not that bad.

  Polly eventually came to believe that Cecilia was actually talking to God, and furthermore she was very angry with Him. Polly understood this completely, for she had real issues with Him as well. However, she chose to deal with her problems quite differently. She would sneak out of the house and go to the nearby graveyard before she started to yell at Him! She preferred to do such things in private. As with Cecilia’s outbursts, Polly’s conversations with God seemed very one-sided. She would tell Him she couldn’t take any more pain and she wished she’d never been born. What’s more, she never failed to draw His attention to the starving children in Africa, demanding to know what He was doing about it! Polly had so much to get off her chest that she could be there in the graveyard for hours at a time giving Him a real dressing down. Although venting her frustration helped to make her feel a little better, she still always ended up crying and begging for His help, especially at night times when she hid under the bed cold and frightened. So when all was said and done, none of Cecilia’s very odd behavior bothered Polly in the slightest, for she felt the deepest sympathy for her.

  However she did have one objection, and a large one at that: she was constantly having to duck to avoid being sprayed by the fountain of spittle that shot up in the air from Cecilia’s mouth as she yelled. For as the droplets flew through the air, much of it landed on Polly! Many a shoe-cleaning session ended with Polly rushing to the bathroom to wipe her face with a cloth. She had to admit that she found this to be most objectionable!

  As the weeks on R.O.P.E. dragged on, Polly was very tired by the time she climbed the oak stairs for bed, so much so that she forgot about her jar with the caterpillar. Then came a day when, upon peering into the jar, she discovered that little Oliver was no longer there. Polly felt panic welling up inside. She picked up the jar and emptied the contents onto the bedside locker. There was nothing except dried up lettuce leaves. She sifted through these and discovered a long, seriously shriveled piece of what looked like a dried up carcass. She carefully picked it up between her fingers to take a closer look, and it immediately started to crumble. Were these the remains of her caterpillar? Had she unintentionally killed Oliver? Did she starve him to death by failing to provide him the nutrition he required from fresh green leaves? “Oh dear! Poor Oliver,” she thought most sadly to herself. Polly felt very guilty that she had neglected this poor defenseless creature, and now it was dead. How on earth could she face Hodgekiss, and, even worse, would he ever forgive her for such a terribly wicked act of cruelty?

  Suddenly she heard a little flutter past her ears. She looked up, and there flitting through the air was the most beautiful orange and gold butterfly. Polly looked at the carcass and then at the butterfly before suddenly remembering what she had once learned in a biology lesson at school. In an instant she realized that Oliver was not dead at all, but had been transformed into this new, most beautiful creature. She sat for a few moments transfixed as she watched it flutter from one wall to another. She found it hard to believe that this maggoty insect was now a graceful, delicate thing of immense beauty. Within seconds of that thought she realized she needed to catch it so that Hodgekiss wouldn’t be angry with her and they could still be friends.

  Polly watched as it fluttered through the air before coming to land on the light shade, drawn by the light. She knew she had to act quickly if she was to have any hope of catching it. The problem was that she was so small and the light shade was so high up, and therefore well beyond her reach. Being a quick thinker, she grabbed the only chair in the room and placed it on her bed. After climbing onto the bed she attempted to climb up onto the chair. It was difficult, for not only did she feel a little shaky, but the chair also appeared fragile as she stood wobbling to and fro. She was disappointed to discover that she was still unable to reach the light shade. So she climbed down from the chair, jumped off the bed, and left the room.

  When Polly finally returned, she was carrying yet another chair. This she dutifully placed on top of the other chair before attempting to climb both chairs to reach the light. Polly had obviously never been to the circus, otherwise she would have learned from the clowns that stacking wobbly chairs on top of each other was not a bright idea and she would certainly be doomed to failure.

  She proceeded to mount the chairs, eventually reaching the top chair, and then wobbling to and fro with her arms outstretched, she took an almighty swipe at the light shade. She missed. The chairs, with herself still hanging on, tumbled off the bed and crashed to the floor. Polly was momentarily dazed but remained undefeated as she again mounted the chairs to give it another go. Sadly the results were the same, with Polly and the chairs coming to rest on the floor. It took several attempts before she finally gave up, momentarily admitting defeat.

  Polly sat on the floor for several minutes, wondering how on earth she could possibly reach up to the ceiling light. She would have given up right then, but the thought of upsetting Hodgekiss with bad news concerning the whereabouts of Oliver gave her renewed determination to find a solution to the problem.

  Suddenly, she had what she believed to be a very bright idea that was almost certain to work. She left the room and came back a few minutes later holding a rather large pair of Aunt Mildred’s bloomers, which she had retrieved from the washbin! As Polly held them high into the air and swished them to and fro, the bloomers successfully filled up with air like a hot balloon. She was so delighted with the results that she wasted no time in putting the chairs back on the bed, and once she had found her balance, she began frantically waving the bloomers through the air until she successfully gave the light shade an almighty wack, sending the shade into a spin. Seconds later found Polly crashing to the floor with the chairs once again coming to rest on top of her. Nursing a very sore head, she looked to see if she had succeeded in trapping the butterfly in Aunt Mildred’s bloomers. There was no sign of Oliver. She looked up at the light shade and didn’t see him there either. She peered once more through the legs of Aunt Mildred’s baggy bloomers just in case she had accidentally missed him. He definitely wasn’t hiding in either leg. Sh
e was very dismayed and disappointed not to have caught him.

  If he wasn’t on the shade or in Aunt Mildred’s oversized bloomers, where precisely was he hiding? As she pondered this question, she thought she heard a little flutter. Looking up across the room, she saw that the mischievous little thing had come to rest on the dormitory wardrobe. She stood up and crept quietly over to where it hovered, feeling a sense of impending victory. She crept cautiously towards the wardrobe, hardly daring to breathe, her eyes firmly pinned on the playful little mite that would soon be safe in her grasp. Polly inched closer and closer, but when she found herself just a hair’s breadth away from containing it between her cupped hands the butterfly had the audacity to take off, fluttering straight towards the open bedroom window. She raced to shut the window, but it was too late! The mischievous rascal flew out into the dazzling sunlight and to freedom. He was indeed gone forever! Polly stood open-mouthed and mortified before letting out a loud groan that insufficiently expressed the depth of her disappointment and despair.

  Slumping onto the floor, she told herself she was now in big trouble with Hodgekiss. He would never forgive her for letting his pet escape. Even worse, she felt certain he would now happily join the growing list of people who hated her. She therefore wished with all her heart she had never accepted the jar, complete with Oliver, from Ralph! Feeling extremely despondent, she picked up Langdon and Eton from the floor, and, with a friend under each arm, she crawled under the bed covers to lament Ollie’s sad and very sudden departure.

  Months passed by without any sightings of Hodgekiss or Ralph, and Polly continued to feel her usual lonely self. Every time the doorbell rang, she raced with high hopes to open the front door to see if the visitor was either one of them. Her hopes were always dashed. Plenty of rag-tag men turned up during the time of their absence, and Polly always dutifully made them the usual, but she was unable to hide her growing disappointment and no longer enjoyed her conversations with these sad and lonely strangers. There even came a time when she no longer bothered to race to the door, preferring to leave it to one of the other children.