by Hilary McKay
Binny had to admit it; she had been wrong about Mrs. Tremayne.
Mark was nice too. Funny and kind with James, and polite to her mother. There was the gun, but Binny, crunching sugar crystals and cinnamon, now understood that it was only needed for its bang. After all, the Tremaynes kept sheep. Obviously foxes needed to be shooed away from lambs from time to time. A bang would do that, she supposed, better than shouting.
Binny looked down toward the old railway cutting and thought of whatever might or might not be hiding there.
Perfectly safe, she thought, and licked the last golden crumbs from her fingers.
* * *
Who was that?
* * *
It was Mark, striding across the fields toward her. Mark, with no Clare attached. Mark smiling. Mark with his gun and something very large and dark in his hand.
Binny found herself running, scrambling over the tumbled stone wall, pelting toward him.
It was a bird; a rook. Mark held it by its clenched dark feet and its wings fell like stiff black banners to the ground. Its eyes were half open, heavy lidded and still bright, as if considering its fallen life.
“Hi,” said Mark breezily, but his smile had become a little uncomfortable and he glanced away from Binny’s eyes. “It’s a rook,” he said, as if giving a reason.
“But,” said Binny, appalled and bewildered. “What happened? Was it an accident? You told James you just banged. We all thought . . . Why? Why?”
She stopped. There was no sound. The wind did not blow. Dark red blood hung from the iron beak but did not drop. Binny’s gaze was locked on the rook in Mark’s hand. It seemed more than a bird. Iron and silk. Huge. Magnificent.
“What had it done?” she whispered, and she braced herself to hear what this rook, this unfurled bird of wild flight and darkness and leaking crimson had done to be blasted so far from existence.
“Well, it’s a rook,” said Mark again, and he shuffled helplessly, shifting the weight of the gun under his arm. “Vermin!” he said suddenly, and flung the rook far away, over the wall toward the blackberry bushes.
Binny’s head hit him so hard that he doubled up, choking. Her hands clawed his face and tore at his hair. She butted him again, causing him to drop his gun. It fell at her feet and she seized it and flung it after the rook. It was too heavy and clumsy to throw far. There was a nasty crunch as it hit the stone wall and Mark gave a little groan but his attention was on Binny, and his face was worried as he bent to speak to her. “Did I frighten you? I didn’t mean to frighten you. Let’s get you back to your mum. Hey!”
Tears streaming, Binny shoved him aside and her very hard and sharp elbow caught him in his eyes. He clutched his face, rocked for a second, and said, “Sorry.”
“Go away! Go away!” sobbed Binny, so he did not follow her as she stumbled back to the house, pushed open the door, wailed, “Mum! Clem! Mum!” and fell in sobs on the kitchen table.
Her family rushed to gather her up, moving plates, fielding the remains of the apple cake as she pushed it away, hugging her, saying, “What? What?”
“Mark. That gun. It’s not just to bang.”
“Oh no!”
“He shot a bird. A great big black rook. Dead. He shot it dead!”
“With his gun?” asked James, flabbergasted.
“Yes.”
“On purpose?”
“Yes, and he threw it away.”
“Threw it away?” repeated her incredulous listeners, and from the depths of her unhappiness Binny felt a great warmth growing, love for this family of hers, as outraged as she was.
“Call the police,” she said.
James gasped, wide-eyed, but Clem shook her head. The kitchen filled with regret. Her mother said sadly, “It’s allowed.”
“Allowed? Allowed?”
“Farmers are allowed to shoot things like that. After Mark appeared with his gun the other day I looked it up to see. Rooks. Crows. Foxes.”
“Foxes?” repeated James in a very high voice.
“Rabbits. And other things too. To control them.”
The last of the fight left Binny and she laid her face on her arms. Clem rubbed her back. Her mother put a cup of tea by her elbow. James asked, “Why did you let him?”
“He’d already done it.”
“Did you hear the bang?”
“No. He was just suddenly there.”
“What I’d have done,” said James, “is I’d have got there before the bang, grabbed his gun while he didn’t notice, and said ‘Hands in the air!’ and he’d put his hands in the air and I’d have shot him dead!”
On the word “dead” there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Tremayne.
Binny, although her face was hidden, could feel Mrs. Tremayne taking in the room around her. Silent Clem and angry James. Her mother, flustered out of politeness. But also the apple cake, nearly eaten. The smell of supper cooking. James’s homework with its bright pictures. Shoes left by the door so as not to track in mud.
“There you are!” said Mrs. Tremayne, looking at Binny. “I was that sorry to hear you’d been upset . . .”
Binny stirred a little but did not look up.
“It’s country!” continued Mrs. Tremayne, almost apologetically. “It’s always been done. It’s farming. We’d be overrun. Rabbits, foxes, I don’t know what. We gave up the hens years ago, for that very reason. That rook. I know, I do know, but we’ve lambs in springtime. It’s no pleasure, but there you are. Mark wanted me to see she got home safe.”
“Thank you,” said the children’s mother, and to Binny’s complete astonishment she put her arms round Mrs. Tremayne and hugged her.
Summer 1913, Part 6
“Rupe,” said Clarry one afternoon, “there’s something I want to ask you.”
“Oh yes?”
“If you promise to keep it a secret.”
“It’s Peter, isn’t it?”
“Yes. When Peter goes to school you will look after him, won’t you?”
Rupe tried to explain. How little he would see of Peter. How foolish Peter would appear, if it was known he was being looked after. How easily he would survive anyway.
“The first week or two might be pretty bad,” admitted Rupe (who had perfected the art of motionless, silent, under-pillow crying during his own first week or two). “But after that you get used to it. You learn your way around. Somebody laughs at your jokes, letters arrive. Before you know it, it’s nearly half term. Then it’s nearly Christmas. And there’s ways of getting on. It’s a pity he won’t be able to do games.”
“He wouldn’t have bothered with them anyway, even if his leg wasn’t hurt. He never did.”
“Well, once he’s through first term he’ll be all right. Second’s better. At least you know what you’re in for.”
“Aren’t you going to do anything to be nice at all?” demanded Clarry.
“It’s not very easy, is it, being nice to Peter?” said Rupe a bit huffily. “Look what happened the last time I tried.”
* * *
Just as he had promised, Rupe had brought home something spectacular for the museum. In the forbidden grounds of a large stone house he had bribed a friend to stand guard while he climbed frighteningly high up a huge elm tree. He had groped and scrambled and balanced and prayed his way up to where the branches swayed against the sky, and the shabby crows’ nests hung. There, a few days before, he had located a kestrel’s nest. There were fledglings inside; he could hear them wheezing and squabbling but it took several more minutes of perilous maneuvering before he could lean far enough over to touch them. The female bird had returned before he could lift one. She had flown at him with black onyx talons as he reached into her nest.
Rupe had rocked a bit then, up on his perch with his hand dripping blood.
“Hurry!” called his friend from far below, and when Rupe tried to reply he found his voice had turned to a croak.
Climbing down was even worse than going up. The young bird struggled, bu
ttoned under his jacket. His right hand had been viscously raked, and his face too, although not so deeply. He was shaking a bit when he finally reached the ground.
“She just missed your eye,” said his friend in admiration.
“Can’t blame her,” said Rupe.
“How many did you get?”
“Just one. There were four.”
“You might as well have taken another.”
“No.” Rupe tipped his head back to squint up through the branches. “One’s enough. Look! She’s already back at the nest.”
“Soft!” said his friend.
“Oh am I?” asked Rupe, mopping blood with his sleeve. “You going up there for another one, then?”
“Not a chance!”
Rupe had gone home smiling the smile of someone who feels themselves to be everything good: heroic, kind, generous, successful, self-confident yet modest . . .
It was evening when he had arrived back at the house. Peter was sitting on the doorstep in the last of the sunshine, reading a book. Clarry was beside him, making notes for a letter she planned to forge.
Then Rupe appeared.
“What happened to your hand?” screeched Clarry. “And your face! Where have you been?”
“Up a tree,” said Rupe.
“A tree?” asked Clarry. “A thorn tree?”
“Talons,” said Rupe, “not thorns. Guess what I’ve got!”
Clarry shook her head. Peter glared suspiciously.
“Look, then,” said Rupe, and unbuttoned his jacket.
It was Peter who spoke first.
“Have you got time to look after a young bird like that?” he asked coldly. “What with all your tennis-muck and new friends and you being so amazingly popular and busy and everything?”
Rupe’s grin faded and his eyebrows went up. “Steady on, Pete!” he exclaimed.
“Only asking,” said Peter.
“Charming! And what’s the matter with you, Clarry?”
Of all the birds that rode the winds, Clarry loved the kestrels most. She shoved past Rupe and Peter, groped her way into the house, and since this year she was too old to cut off her hair, crawled into the cupboard under the stairs.
Even there, she could still hear the boys.
“I don’t believe it! I thought you’d be so pleased!”
“No,” said Peter aloofly. “No. I’m not pleased.”
“Clarry? What about Clarry?”
“Don’t think Clarry’s pleased. No.”
“I thought you could take it back with you at the end of summer. I thought it would be fun for her to look after when you were away. We’ll give it to her. It can be Clarry’s kestrel, yes?”
“No.” Peter closed his book with a finger to mark the place, and began to walk off so that Rupe had to run after him.
“What am I to do with it, then?”
“Put it back.”
“Put it back? I nearly broke my neck getting it down!”
“Well, now you can nearly break it getting it up again, can’t you?” said Peter.
* * *
“Being nice to Peter,” said Rupe, inspecting his stiff, raked hand, which was only just beginning to heal, “isn’t easy! Neither was getting back up that tree. Peter wouldn’t have cared if I had broken my neck, and he took no care of his own.”
“Peter climbed with you? With his leg?”
“Like a madman.”
“Peter shouldn’t climb trees,” said Clarry. “He always gets panicky.”
“Oh, is that what it was?”
“Anyway you did it. And got down again.”
“Yes we did.” Rupe grinned suddenly. “And got back to find search parties trekking through the countryside looking for you!”
“That wasn’t my fault,” said Clarry, who at around two o’clock had woken up in her cupboard, crawled out and gone to bed, all without knowing that not only her family, but also every neighbor within reach, was out in the dark searching for her. She had given everyone quite a surprise when she was finally discovered, fast asleep in the only place where they hadn’t thought to look.
“It was very funny,” said Rupe. “It even made old Peter grin. Stop worrying about him so much next term, Clarry.”
“Can you have breakfast with him in the mornings, and lunch and dinner? Could he sleep in the same room as you? Can you take him round to meet people and tell them what he’s good at?”
“I’ll do as much as I can without making him look a fool,” said Rupe diplomatically.
Clarry looked at him dubiously and went back to the letter she was writing.
“Who’s it to?” asked Rupe, looking across.
“Father.”
“Telling him about your night in the boot cupboard?”
“It’s not that sort of letter.”
Clarry’s father was a hard person to write to at any time, but this was the hardest letter Clarry had ever written. For days now she had been trying out different wordings and it still wasn’t quite right.
It was a letter to save Peter.
* * *
The Headmaster
West Woods Boarding School for Boys
* * *
Dear Mr. Penrose,
I am very sorry to tell you that we will not have room for your son Peter at school this September.
Unfortunately, a large part of the school was burned down . . . No that wouldn’t do, too easy to check . . .
The problem is that we counted wrong when we were checking the number of beds . . . No, no, no . . .
Several of the masters have suddenly left . . . Perhaps that might do.
He is not the sort of boy who would be happy here . . . That was true, anyway, but was it the sort of thing that a headmaster would write? Clarry shook her head, stared up at the damp patch on the ceiling, and was inspired.
Due to leaks in our roof we have not enough classrooms . . . Wonderful! Roofs did leak. Think of the church; its roof was always leaking! They were perpetually raising money to keep the water out.
Please do not look for another school instead because we will write and tell you when our roof is mended and we have plenty of room again . . . (But of course I never will, thought Clarry.)
We advise that Peter should stay at his day school and live at home . . . Clarry read that bit again, murmuring the words very quietly.
We strongly advise . . . That was better. That would do.
“Very long letter,” commented Rupe.
“It’s nearly finished. What’s your headmaster called, Rupe?”
“The O. F. The Old Fish.”
“I mean his real name.”
“Nothing about him is real. He’s a hollow man. Why do you want to know, young Clarry?”
“I’m writing about him to my father,” said Clarry cunningly.
“Oh are you?” said Rupe, grinning. “Well, good luck! His name is Gregory. Dr. O. F. Gregory.”
“What would he put at the end of a letter? Yours sincerely, Dr. Gregory?”
“Yours insincerely, more like. Yours unfaithfully. Yours untruly, yours with sincere bad wishes.”
“Why do you call him the Old Fish?”
“You’d understand if you saw him.”
Yours faithfully with sincere good wishes from Dr. O. F. Gregory, wrote Clarry, and she looked at the words very anxiously for a long time before she folded the paper.
Rupe, who was quite good at reading upside-down writing, reached across the table and laid a fragile brown feather on Clarry’s hand. He had made it a museum card too.
One Feather
from Clarry’s Kestrel.
Which should not have been taken
from the nest in the very high elm trees.
“I found it stuck inside my jacket,” said Rupe. “I’m sorry about the kestrel, Clarry. I just thought it might help. Make him think of something else.”
“He says he will die of nothingness,” said Clarry.
“He won’t,” said Rupe. “Not while he has
you.”
Chapter Nine
Suddenly Binny’s mother and Mrs. Tremayne were friends and it seemed to have happened very quickly, and with no reference to anyone else. Binny’s mother had not consulted Binny, and it didn’t seem likely that Mrs. Tremayne had bothered to discuss it with Clare. One day they were politely knocking on doors and the next they were calling each other Polly and Molly and had maps all over the kitchen table, planning a road trip for when the final child left home.
“But James is only six!” protested Binny.
“Nearly seven,” said her mother, robustly. “Anyway, if we’re doing China and both Americas we need to start saving early. It’s called a gap year!”
“Mums don’t have gap years!” protested Binny.
“They should,” said her mother, grating potatoes for potato cakes, “every five years, to gather their thoughts, but first we’ll pay for the roof! Potato cakes, baked beans, stewed apples with cinnamon! Supper for four for less than a pound! You needn’t worry about me setting off round the world just yet, Binny!”
“How much of the roof is paid for already?” asked Binny, beginning to peel apples.
“About a third,” said her mother cheerfully, and Binny wished she was rich and could pay for roofs and vacations and ready meals and earrings glinting with diamonds like the ones her mother had worn when her father was alive.
As well as planning road trips Binny’s mother and Mrs. Tremayne talked. Whenever Binny heard them talking they were explaining their pasts, each bringing the other up-to-date with all that had happened to bring them to where they were now. Binny learned lots of things she had never known before, such as the fate of the diamond earrings, the last words of her father (“I should have told you about . . .”), the whereabouts of Mr. Tremayne (“You may well ask!”), the price of sheep (“Next to nothing”), and all the jobs her mother and Clare’s had ever done to make ends meet (which made them shriek with wild laughter). Binny’s mother also told Mrs. Tremayne the deep reasons behind the names of her children being Clemency, Belinda, and James, and Mrs. Tremayne admitted that she had thought of Mark all of a sudden, and had never had a doubt about Clare being Clare.