Sobbing, arms round each other, heads bowed and not looking at the man who held all their lives in his cold, grasping hands, and not looking either towards where they had so frantically and uselessly dragged at the earth the night before, they began to return to the sad little row of shoddy brick cottages that were their homes.
No, they wouldn’t make a fuss.
Once their thin backs were turned away from him, Mr Reginald Grimp stepped down from his box and gestured to his manager to pick it up. He tried to suppress a smirk.
“I think that’s settled then, don’t you agree, Harris?”
“Oh yes, Mr Grimp. It was very good, very good. Sympathy with strength. Very good indeed!”
Reginald liked his response.
“Come and have a glass with me,” he said generously. “We deserve it after such a night! You’d better not dock their pay for the time they didn’t put in yesterday, even though I’ve let myself in for shoving up a bit of a school room. Can’t push them too far…we do need them to dig out the coal even if they’re too stupid to realise it.”
Harris sniggered obediently as they made their way, at a safe distance, round the broken ground and up to Mr Grimp’s impressive mansion on the hill.
As they went, Grimp treated Harris to a lecture on why it was madness to educate the working classes. To teach them to read and write. It would ruin the country in the end, he was sure of that. And Harris grunted agreement. He had to.
Nine
Sunday morning, half past nine. I call up the stairs to Mum, “Going down to play footie with Dan.”
The big school key is tight in my hand. I shan’t need the hammer because the wood is all loose now, and anyway, Dad’s banging away at something in the shed. I’ve got the family torch, though, in the inside pocket of my anorak, and my little one in my jeans pocket
“Wait!” Mum screeches. “What are you wearing?”
“My old jeans,” I say.
“A miracle,” she says. “Are you growing up at last?” and she comes thundering down the stairs, stopping near the bottom to sit on a step.
My hand goes quickly into my pocket to hide the key. Now what?
I can tell that she’s going to say something else but doesn’t quite know how to start.
“Tony,” she says, “about Dan. You’re real friends, aren’t you.”
She knows I am. Always have been. So what? I nod.
“You know he’s a bit…different…don’t you. Not exactly the same as the other kids?”
I’m thinking, What’s she on about? Everyone’s different from everyone else aren’t they? It’s the difference I like in Dan. But I’m trying to keep up.
“D’you mean…reading and writing…that stuff?” I ask. “And football? He can do it all if nobody shouts at him or makes fun of him. He can tell the time on his new watch, and he nearly scored a goal the other day…then he fell over and laughed his head off!”
“Yes, yes,” Mum interrupts, “he’s great but he has got a special sort of problem. It’s even got a name. Have you ever heard of something called Down's Syndrome? No? Well it’s what he’s got. There are quite a few kids born with that…it’s why he’s got rather a round face and he’s a bit slow at things -”
Now it’s my turn to interrupt.
“He looks all right,” I shout. “There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s a great laugh. He’s always happy, not like that skinny Phil Rogers who keeps pushing stuff off his desk and being horrible to him. I’m going to get him for that, next time!”
“OK, OK,” Mum says. “Good, you like him and look out for him. He’s happy. Great. All I wanted to say was that he might not be quite as strong as he looks.”
I go to speak but she hushes me.
“You didn’t know that he had a heart op. when he was two, did you. Why should you know. Anyway, he did. Kids like him often do have a bit of a weakness that way. May – his Mum – said the other day that she doesn’t worry about him when he’s with you. I was really proud of you when she said that.”
“He’s tough,” I say, sort of defending him, like I always do. “If he leans on me I can’t push him over. He likes wrestling but I always win because he starts laughing. We’re going to be mates for ever!”
“That’s not the point -” Mum begins, then she stops. “Oh clear off ,” she says. “Have fun.” She looks straight into my eyes and adds, “But take care, remember!”
Then she gets up, gives me a shove in the chest, smiles, and goes back upstairs, calling over her shoulder, “Don’t be late for dinner, it’s chicken today.”
As I go down the road, hearing the church bells chiming, holding the key tight in my pocket and feeling the torch digging into my leg, I think about what she just said. I do know what she meant, sort of. Dan does need a bit of looking after. It’s not just the kids from up the hill – they’re not that bad really – but he isn’t afraid of anything, except being shouted at. I reckon he’d follow me anywhere, even into something dangerous, like a river or a fire or up a tree. And so I do watch out for him and I definitely won’t have him bullied.
But after all that, how do I stand about taking him underground? I tell myself that it should be all right. I was OK yesterday and we needn’t go far. Plus I’ve got the big torch for me and the little one for him so we’ll be able to see where the shaft goes – if it goes anywhere, that is. I conveniently forget the decayed white pit props.
He’s outside his house, kicking a ball against the wall. I shout out, “Dan the Man!” and he misses the ball completely so that it rolls past him to me.
“Yo, Tony Bony,” he yells, and laughs until his eyes run. I have to laugh too. He makes me happy.
“Are we playing football?” he asks when he stops wheezing.
I run to the ball and bang it against the wall; when it bounces back I trap it, dribble it towards him with a few fancy steps, stop in front of him, dribble it up to him and he sticks out a foot. I let him tackle me and I fall over and roll about on the ground until the torch jabs me in the ribs.
“Foul!” I yell. “Ref – red card! Send him off!”
Dan shouts, “Yo! Yo!” and kicks the ball straight into my stomach. He laughs so much that he bends over double, banging his hands together.
I get up, clutching my belly and toss the ball into his garden.
“No,” I say. “Not this morning.” I whisper in his ear, “We’re going underground. Sh! Don’t tell anyone!”
He stops laughing at once and looks serious. Then he looks at his feet as if there might be a way down there. Next he stares at me, puzzled. I’m keen to get going now so I don’t stop to remind him.
“Come on, Dan the Man,” I say. “Let’s do it!”
“Let’s do it! Let’s do it!” he echoes and we belt off down the road until we’re close to school.
Now I stop him, wait until a couple of churchgoers in their Sunday best have gone off round the corner, and then slip through the gate and into the shelter of the hedge.
“Sh!” I hiss and he puts his finger to his lips like I do. I slide the big key into the lock and turn it, push down the latch, shove the door and in we go. This time I remember to take out the key and I lock the door on the inside for extra safety.
“Tony, Tony,” Dan whispers, “why are we going to school…on Sunday?”
“Remember the tunnel,” I say. “Under –”
“Our desk!” he shouts and I shush him quickly, but still impressed that he remembered what he’d seen on Friday.
He looks upset for a moment, because I spoke a bit sharply to shush him, but then I pull out the little torch and show him how to switch it on. He shines it in my face and chuckles when I put up a hand to shield my eyes.
“Save the batteries,” I say. “Put it out, Dan.”
“All right Tony,” he says, immediately serious and sticking his tongue out a bit, like he does when he’s concentrating.
We go into the classroom and down towards our old desk. The room smells chalky
, dusty, woody. The smell of school. The owl stares, as motionless as ever, from its shelf and the globe shines dully but never turns. The whole room is like that at this moment - a still and silent world and we are the only living creatures in it. I feel uneasy, we shouldn’t be here. Well, of course we shouldn’t but it’s what Mum said that’s troubling me most. “Take care,” she said, and it was Dan she was talking about.
I look at him doubtfully, and he beams back at me.
“Come on Tony,” he says, “let’s do it,” and then he’s dragging the desk aside and thumping down on his knees to pull up the first floorboard. He’s remembering all right and because he’s happy I feel that everything’s going to be all right. It’s just another game.
I get down to help him and soon we have a nice big opening to go in and out of. I’m excited again. I tell him to wait a moment while I slide through, find my footing and switch on my big torch. Then I give him a hand to slither down, and join me. A step at a time, facing forwards this time, we make our way down to the bottom. It doesn’t seem so weird now I’ve got company.
I give Dan the little torch and show him how it goes on and before I can stop him he’s off along the shaft. Quickly I follow, with a last anxious look at where the daylight is shining down through our exit point. It’ll be OK, I reassure myself, we’ll just have a look round and then climb back out and play football.
I call out, “Dan, Dan, wait for me. Let me go first. I know the way.” My voice seems too loud as it bounces back from the walls around us.
Obediently, he stops and I catch him up.
“I like the torch, Tony,” he says. “It’s everso dark down here. It’s a good torch.”
Now I lead the way, walking slowly and quietly. The place has an odd atmosphere, like being in church; it makes you go softly. Dan can feel it too and he shines his torch around him, puffing and grunting a bit as if he’s being surprised all the time.
When we come to the ghostly white pit-props he reaches out a hand to touch one, but I stop him. “Don’t” I say, and he snatches his hand back. He stands, looking upset, so I quickly explain, “They’re holding the roof up.” That’s stretching the truth I think. It’s more like the roof is holding them up!
He looks up at the roof, not far above us and nods his head, several times, to show me that he understands. The light from his torch bobs up and down. “All right Tony,” he says seriously. “I promise I won’t touch them.
We come to the place where the roof has fallen and he helps me move a few more chunks of rock and coal aside to make an easier way through. I drag one quite heavy piece out of our path and let Dan clamber on ahead of me. I nearly say, “This is far enough, Dan,” and stop him, but I do want to go further, especially now we’re into a new bit. He keeps turning his round smiling face towards me. He’s loving it. So I make a very, very big mistake! We go on.
Actually it’s easier walking after the roof fall. We go slowly, looking around in wonder. There are more of the fungus-covered props and I even see an abandoned boot lying there. I wonder if a museum would like it. But now the floor is getting rougher, and there are some dodgy looking gaps under our feet and over our heads. A powerful feeling is growing in me that we should be turning back. I slow down but Dan happily keeps going. Like I said, he has no sense of danger at all. He thinks it’s OK just because I’ve brought him here.
“Dan!” I shout, and my voice echoes scarily. “Stop!”
But he’s already stopped because he doesn’t know which way to go. I see that he’s reached a fork, the shaft splitting to the left and the right.
Here’s where we must turn and go back. If we go on we could get lost and never found. Or the roof could fall in on us. I’m facing the fact that of course I shouldn’t have brought Dan down here. Mum wouldn’t be proud of me at all if she knew.
While I’m thinking all this, Dan has gone on a few more steps along the right hand tunnel, stumbling over the increasingly broken up surface. I feel a touch of panic rising in me. There could be a sheer drop in front, or anything. I’ve got to get him out, now!
But he’s already stopped. He’s standing there unmoving. Now he turns, a dark shape in the light of my torch.
“Tony! Tony!” he calls.
He must have seen something, but I don’t know what it is. I shine my torch on him, past him, but there’s nothing to see. Just broken rock and cracked walls disappearing in shadows and darkness. So what’s he found? I think of dead bodies! Rats! Miners’ skeletons! All I want now is to get out, fast, and take him with me.
Almost crashing down on the rubble I blunder up to where he’s standing, and then I stop too. I know I have to be dreaming!
Ten
We’re somewhere else! Instead of the cracked rock and rubble and blackness, warm sunlight dazzles me from a blue and white sky. A spit of rain flicks against my cheek and I’m gripping Dan’s arm in amazement. There’s a rainbow arching across the clouds. I shield my eyes from the sun and see more. We’re standing at the edge of a patch of grass looking at a garden full of flowers round a cottage with a thatched roof. By the porch there’s a person doing something to the door.
I think, we mustn’t be seen, we shouldn’t be down here, and I step back quickly, dragging Dan with me. But now we’re in darkness again, with our torches showing only black walls and a broken floor. I rub my eyes as if they aren’t working properly, but that only makes them gritty and the sunlight and the sky and the cottage have still gone. Dan is puffing a bit as if he’s trying to sort out what he’s just seen.
Cautiously, one step at a time and hanging on to Dan, I move forwards. In two steps we’re in the light again. I jump back and the scene vanishes. I don’t get it, it’s not as if we went round a corner. We just walked into it and then back out of it. Again, slowly, I move us forward and we’re there again; the same scene, the same warm sunshine. But this time I do risk staying there, squinting in the bright light, trying to sort out what’s going on. When I hear Dan begin to speak I shush him gently. We stand there staring at the view.
I take in the garden and a hedge with washing spread on it. A stone cottage with a thatched roof coming low down over a window. I feel Dan jump when a big black bird screeches and flies up above the roof and I hear voices, like chanting, coming from the cottage. My eyes focus on the figure in the doorway. It’s a woman in a long black skirt and a big white collar. Her hair’s piled up in a bunch on her head. She looks as if she’s fighting something in the doorway…then I realise it’s the door that she’s fighting, jerking and tugging at it, as if it’s jammed.
I think that it’s like watching one of those films on TV where people are all dressed up in old fashioned clothes like they wore hundreds of years ago, or like a history place we went on a trip to where they had kept old cottages and you could go inside and we had pieces of ginger cake by a log fire and there were baby pigs in the sty joined on to the cottage.
Dan starts to whisper, “That lady - ” but as he speaks she straightens up and pushes some stray hair away from her face. She takes in a long deep breath, turns her head and looks directly at us, across the garden. There’s a desperate look on her face but it changes to amazement when she sees us. For a moment nothing happens, nothing moves, but now a big smile spreads all over her face. She is so pleased. Her arm shoots up and she waves like mad for us to go over to her. I feel a huge urge to do as she’s asking and cross the garden to the cottage, but it’s all too weird. Somehow I hold back, still clutching Dan. She waves again, even more urgently this time.
Still I’m standing here, fixed to the spot. I don’t know what’s happening. It isn’t a film and it all looks real but it can’t be! We’re in a coal mine, I’m thinking, we’re underground, under our school. We’re not Doctor Who. We’re not time travellers! We’re just two kids in class six. This isn’t happening, the whole thing’s impossible!
But there she is, just standing like we are, waving to us across the garden. Now she raises both arms, as if she’s ap
pealing to us, and she begins to hurry forwards with her dress swishing through the grass.
I’m scared and I take half a step back but already she’s running, lifting her long skirt with one hand as her feet fly over the lawn. And we’re running too. Because before Dan knows what’s happening I’ve turned him and we’re stumbling our way back into the darkness. I don’t give him time to think about it as we clatter along the shaft, our torches making crazy shadows dance around us.
I feel like a hunted animal as we pass the white pit props and clamber over the fallen boulders until at last we’re under the nice ordinary light coming down from the classroom above.
Dan’s trying to say something and he’s not making it easy as I shove and drag him up the slope with loose coal slipping away under our feet. I’m feeling sick with panic.
At last we’re at the top and I heave him up through the gap in the floor. I follow him so fast that I nearly get my fingers squashed under his big feet as he stands up. He turns and gives me a pull and I end up sitting on the edge of the hole, shaky, panting and choking with dust. It’s a wonder we’ve both still got our torches but we have. I put out mine and Dan does the same with his. It’s so good to be back in the classroom.
“Tony,” Dan pants, “that lady wanted - ”
I interrupt him. “Dan,” I say. “What did you see?” I’m just not believing what I think I saw.
“That lady,” he says. “In the garden. And that lady wanted us to help her. She couldn’t open the door. She was waving to us. Tony, why didn’t we stay and help her? I did want to… Some kids were saying their tables like we do with Mr Piggott. Why did you make us run away?”
That’s quite a long speech for Dan. He had taken in more than I had and he was quite upset. The whole thing must really have got through to him. But I don’t say anything for a moment. I’m so confused. I mean, I know we were underground, and the path was breaking up. We can’t have come out anywhere, and there’s nothing like that cottage round here anyway. But I’d felt the same pull that Dan had. For a moment it had been almost impossible to resist that waving arm. It was only that I knew I’d done something really, really wrong to take Dan underground that had made me dive into the darkness and hurtle back out into the real world.
Dan and the Teacher Ghost Page 3