by Gwyneth Rees
‘Now you can get on with the gardening straight away, can’t you?’ she said, looking at me in a way that made me feel as if she could read my mind. As the doorbell rang she added, ‘That’ll probably be the locksmith now. I’ll take him down there and show him what needs to be done.’
‘We’ll come too!’ I said, standing up. I wanted to be there when our garden officially became a secret one. Besides, I didn’t trust Mrs Daniels not to keep a key for herself if I wasn’t there to tell the locksmith that we only wanted one key made.
To my surprise though, Mrs Daniels seemed to relax when she stepped inside the garden. While the locksmith was looking at the door, she led us round the path, nodding approvingly at the piles of dead convolvulus I had created and telling me where the compost heap was where we could dispose of any garden rubbish. She started to tell us what some of the plants were called, which really interested me, though not Alex, who went back to the door after a while to watch the locksmith work.
‘These ones are day lilies,’ Mrs Daniels told me, pointing to a big clump of the flowers I’d thought were lilies when I’d noticed them before. ‘My husband planted these. Do you know why they’re called that?’
I shook my head.
‘Because each flower only lasts for one day.’
‘Really?’ I gasped. ‘That’s not very long!’
‘No, but because there are so many flowers, all coming out at different times, the plant stays in constant bloom.’
‘That’s amazing!’ I said, staring at the big yellow flowers and thinking how unbelievable it was that they would all be dead and replaced by others by this time tomorrow.
She actually smiled at me then. ‘Nature is amazing, Mary.’
I watched her bend down to smell one of the roses I had rescued from the bindweed.
‘There are lots of different sorts of daisies, aren’t there?’ I said, as she stood up again. I pointed to some that were growing near the edge of one of the flower beds. ‘Are they the ones that Ben says throw seeds everywhere so they can come back again every year?’
‘That one is a self-seeder, yes. It’s called a corn marigold. Isn’t it lovely?’ She continued to look around the garden as if she was searching for something in particular. ‘There it is!’ She pointed to a large yellow daisy-like flower, half hidden by some other plants. The flower was huge compared to the others and it had a big dark button nose. ‘That’s a coneflower,’ she told me. ‘My husband always loved those.’
‘It’s so big!’ I exclaimed.
She nodded, carrying on along the path and continuing to scan the flower beds for familiar plants. ‘There should be some evening primrose here somewhere. They’re self-seeders too. They flower in the evenings. They’re a favourite with the moths who like to drink their nectar.’
Mrs Daniels knew a lot about flowers, I thought, as we returned to the gate. I’d have to warn Ben to be very careful if he ever got into a conversation with her about gardening.
As Alex and I sat down on the bench, waiting as Mrs Daniels spoke with the locksmith, Alex started to talk about his dad again. ‘Did you see how he went on and on about Christopher’s postcard?’ he said grumpily. ‘Everything Chris does is perfect, as far as he’s concerned!’
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I thought Alex was exaggerating, but I didn’t want to annoy him by pointing that out. After all, I tended to exaggerate too when I was complaining about Ben – like when I ranted on about how he was force-feeding me with vegetables and glasses of milk because he had an unhealthy obsession with vitamins. I hated it if anyone contradicted me when I was telling them that.
‘Christopher’s always been his favourite,’ Alex went on. ‘And it’s not like he does anything to deserve it! I mean, he didn’t decide to become clever and talented out of the kindness of his heart, did he? He was just born that way.’
‘He’s probably had to work quite hard to get that place at art school, though,’ I pointed out.
Alex glared at me. ‘How do you know?’
I remembered all the lectures I’d had from Ben about how just because you were born with brains didn’t mean you didn’t have to put in some effort in order to benefit from them – which in my case meant doing a bit of work at school instead of just mucking around with my mates. ‘Well, he obviously has to practise a lot, doesn’t he?’ I said. ‘There’s all those sketches and paintings upstairs – and now he’s painting while he’s on holiday.’ I was only trying to make Alex see that his brother did actually have to do some work and wasn’t therefore in such an enviable position as he seemed to think – but my comments seemed to be making him even more irritated. Sensing that he was about to accuse me of taking his brother’s side rather than his, I quickly changed the subject. Lowering my voice to a whisper, I told him how I had seen a light on in the tower room the previous night.
‘A light?’ he repeated loudly, which was precisely the reason I hadn’t mentioned it until now – Mrs Daniels had been in earshot all morning and Alex had a big mouth.
‘Shh!’ I hissed. Lowering my voice again, I described exactly what I’d seen last night and I also told him how I thought the key marked ‘Attic’ might open the door to the tower room. ‘Because there aren’t any other attic rooms here,’ I pointed out. ‘Are there?’
That got Alex’s attention completely. I could tell he was suddenly far more curious about the tower room than he had been before. ‘Let’s go and fetch that key and try it out,’ he whispered. ‘Come on – while Mrs Daniels is still busy here.’
We tried to slip out of the garden past the two adults who were both still standing at the door talking, but Mrs Daniels stopped us to ask where we were going.
‘Just to get some things from the house,’ Alex mumbled.
‘What things?’ She was gazing at us intently now.
‘Just stuff for the garden,’ Alex said.
As we walked away, we heard Mrs Daniels say to the locksmith, ‘I’d better go back to the house too. Come and tell me when you’re finished.’
‘Quick!’ I hissed. ‘We’d better run!’
We raced round the path that ran alongside the garden wall, past the outhouses and into the house through the side door.
‘Lock the door – then she can’t follow us,’ I said, panting.
As Alex drew the bolt across the door, I opened the walk-in cupboard and stepped inside, groping about for the light switch. The keys had been hanging on some hooks on the wall to the left of the door the last time we’d been here. As I looked for them in the same place, I let out a gasp.
‘What’s wrong?’ Alex asked, coming to join me.
‘All the keys are gone,’ I said.
‘They can’t be!’
‘They are! Look!’ I pointed to the empty hooks. ‘Mrs Daniels must have taken them!’
When we came out of the cupboard, Alex went back to unbolt the outside door, but I stopped him. ‘While she’s locked out, let’s go and check the tower room again. Maybe if we knock loudly enough, whoever’s inside will come to the door.’
‘Whoever?’ Alex queried, looking amused.
‘There must be somebody up there! Why else would she be taking trays of food up there all the time?’
‘Well, we’d better bolt the front door too then!’ Alex said, and I could tell that he still didn’t really believe me, but was happy to have some fun with this just the same. ‘Come on!’
While we were pulling the bolts across on the front door, Mr Rutherford came out of the library into the hallway. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing,’ Alex said quickly.
‘Why are you bolting the door?’
‘Um . . . well . . . in case . . .’ Alex dried up. He wasn’t very good at lying to his father, I realized, despite the way he mouthed off about him behind his back.
‘In case of burglars,’ I put in quickly.
At that moment we heard a loud banging coming from the other end of the house, and Alex and I both knew that Mrs
Daniels had reached the side door and was trying to get in.
‘What’s that?’ Mr Rutherford asked.
‘It’s . . . it’s . . .’ Alex began lamely.
‘Burglars!’ I gushed. ‘Burglars were always breaking into people’s houses in the daytime where I used to live! Ben said they were opportune . . . opportune . . .’
‘Opportunistic?’ Mr Rutherford suggested, looking at me as if he thought I was an even stranger child than he had previously realized.
‘That’s it! And Ben says you have to make sure you don’t provide any opportunities for opportunistic thieves to get into your house, so you have to keep all your doors and windows locked at all times.’
‘I think I’d better go and see who’s there,’ Mr Rutherford said. ‘They’re making rather a lot of noise for burglars. Stay here both of you,’ he added quite sternly.
I nodded, but as soon as he’d gone I whispered, ‘Come on,’ to Alex and headed straight for the stairs.
‘We’re going to get into trouble for disobeying Dad,’ Alex warned me.
‘I don’t care,’ I replied. ‘If Mrs Daniels is hiding someone in that tower room, then I want to find out who it is.’
‘Anyway, all your dad’ll do is yell at us for a bit,’ I pointed out, because that was the only thing Ben or Louise ever did whenever I didn’t follow one of their instructions.
‘He might do more than yell,’ Alex said warily as he followed me upstairs.
‘Really?’ I was surprised because I didn’t think Mr Rutherford seemed like the type of grown-up who smacked. But then, I suppose I’d never seen him when he was really angry.
But it turned out that wasn’t what Alex meant. ‘He might take away our garden,’ he said.
I stopped in my tracks. ‘He wouldn’t do that!’
‘He might. After all, he can’t take away the television as punishment, can he? That’s what Mum does whenever she wants to punish me – she takes away the portable in my room.’
‘You really think he’d use the garden to punish us?’ Losing TV viewing time was one thing, but losing gardening time was something else entirely – especially as, thanks to Mrs Daniels, our garden was soon going to be the secret one I’d always dreamed of having. I didn’t think I could bear to lose it now.
‘Like I said – he might. He knows it’s something we’d care about losing, doesn’t he?’
I frowned. ‘Maybe we’d better wait for him like he said.’
As we hurried back down to the front hall, we heard Mrs Daniels’ voice inside the house now. She was too far away to hear properly, but she sounded cross.
‘When she gets here, we’ll just say that we must have made a mistake about her being a burglar,’ I told Alex. ‘OK?’
But he was starting to grin.
‘Stop it,’ I protested. ‘We mustn’t laugh!’ I was starting to feel a bit like grinning myself and I knew I had to keep control of it this time.
Fortunately though, it was only Mr Rutherford who came back to join us a few minutes later. ‘Burglars, eh?’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘I think since you two are feeling so jittery this morning, you’d better go up to Alex’s room and play quietly for a while.’
‘We don’t play,’ Alex pointed out. ‘We’re not little kids, Dad.’
‘Oh, I see – you just act like it sometimes, do you?’ Alex’s father didn’t sound all that cross, but I could tell he was serious about us staying out of trouble for a bit.
‘Come on, Alex,’ I said quickly. ‘We can make a list of everything there is to do in the garden.’
‘Good idea,’ Mr Rutherford said. As we started up the stairs he called out after us, ‘I’ve got to drive over to the library in town in a little while, to do some research. I won’t be back until late this afternoon, so just make sure you behave yourselves while I’m gone!’
In Alex’s room I sat down on the bed while I waited for him to find some paper for us to use for our list. I spotted the sketch pad I had seen before, lying on his bedside table, so I picked it up. I quickly turned to the sketch after the ones I’d already looked at – and I laughed as soon as I saw it.
‘Alex, this is really funny!’ I turned the pad round to show him what I was talking about. It was the head and shoulders of Mrs Daniels, looking very like her. A big heart-shaped thought bubble had been drawn above her head and inside the bubble there was a smaller sketch of a man’s face – with shaggy eyebrows, fat cheeks and a curly moustache – poking out from in between two giant cabbages. ‘Is that meant to be Geoffrey?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. Do you like it?’ Alex was looking a bit embarrassed.
I nodded. Before he could stop me, I flicked over to the next page and saw a girl staring out at me. She had a small, thin face with big eyes and a very scowly mouth. I gasped. It was a drawing of me – but Alex’s brother had never even met me, so how could he possibly draw me? ‘How did your brother . . . ?’ I trailed off, not understanding.
‘They’re my sketches, OK?’ Alex said abruptly, coming across and snatching the book away from me.
‘Yours?’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘But they’re really good!’
‘Oh – so that means they can’t be mine, does it? Thanks!’
‘I didn’t mean that! I just meant . . .’ I shook my head, still staring at him. ‘I mean, you never said you could draw. You just said it was your brother who could, so I just assumed—’
‘Everyone just assumes!’ Alex snapped before I could finish. ‘They just assume that because he’s so brilliant, that means I can’t be! And the worst thing is they’re probably right.’
‘What do you mean? These are really good drawings.’
‘Not compared to his!’ Alex pointed out. ‘So what’s the point in me even trying? I know people will only compare me with Chris and say I’m not as good as him!’
I was frowning. ‘Doesn’t anyone else know that you draw too?’
He shook his head. ‘I hate my art teacher at school. I don’t do any work in his class.’
‘Why do you hate him?’
‘Because he’s always going on about how fantastic Chris is. And the first time I ever had him for art, he said the drawing I’d done was quite good and maybe I’d got a little bit of my brother in me.’
‘But that sounds like a compliment. I’d have been pleased.’
‘Why should I be pleased to have a little bit of Chris’s talent? He doesn’t tell Chris his stuff is quite good, does he? He says it’s brilliant!’
‘Your drawings are really good too,’ I told him again firmly.
‘Good, yeah. But not brilliant!’ He threw the sketch pad down on the bed as if, as far as he was concerned, if they weren’t brilliant, they may as well be worthless.
I could have told him that I thought his drawings were just as brilliant as Christopher’s but I decided that would be a lie. His sketches weren’t as finished-looking somehow as the ones I’d seen that his brother had done. And anyway, why should Alex expect to be as good as his brother already when he was only just starting out?
So instead, I said, ‘So what?’
He looked irritated. ‘What do you mean – so what?’
‘I mean, so what if your drawings aren’t as good as your brother’s yet? I mean, there must be loads of famous artists who your brother thinks are better than him, but I bet he doesn’t let that put him off, does he? Anyway, you don’t know how good you might get if you keep going, do you?’ I was remembering what Ben had said to me about school – You don’t know how well you can do unless you try! He had said that the last time I’d told him that I didn’t see myself getting any A levels anyhow since Louise hadn’t – so what was the point in knocking myself out over schoolwork? He had snapped, ‘You’re not Louise!’ before going into his big speech about trying.
‘But I can’t really go for it,’ Alex said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because then everyone will see that I’m trying to do the same thing as Chris, and they’ll
all secretly be thinking that there’s no way I can ever be as good as him! And what if . . . what if . . . ?’ He swallowed.
‘What if they’re right?’ I finished for him.
He nodded. He swallowed again before forcing himself to say, ‘What if they are?’
And I suddenly found myself seeing his point after all. I mean, it would be horrible to have everyone thinking you could never be as good as your older brother – and be hell bent on proving them wrong – and then find out that they were actually right and have them all feeling sorry for you.
But what choice did he have?
And that’s when I had my brilliant idea! ‘I know!’ I gasped. ‘Why don’t you practise in the garden? You can paint and draw as much as you like in there and nobody will see! We can take all the art stuff from your brother’s room – the easel and the paints and the canvases and everything – and you can paint while I garden. You can keep everything in the shed. We don’t need to tell anyone. It’ll be our secret!’
Alex looked uncertain. ‘But Dad bought those things for Chris. He won’t want me messing about with them.’
‘Chris isn’t here, is he? And I reckon, if you had a proper canvas to fill, you’d do it brilliantly!’ I beamed at him. ‘Oh, this is going to be so much fun! This is going to be even better than the real secret garden!’
We heard a car starting up outside and Alex went to the window to look out. ‘Dad’s just leaving,’ he said. He turned back to look at me. ‘Your idea . . .’ he began slowly. ‘. . . it’s not bad. I could practise then, without anyone else knowing . . . but do you really think we can just take all Chris’s stuff down to the garden without asking?’
‘We can’t ask!’ I said. ‘Then it wouldn’t be a secret!’
‘What is it with you and secrets?’
I thought I could answer that question for him quite easily. ‘Why don’t you come to our cottage now and we can watch my video of The Secret Garden?’ I suggested. ‘Then you’ll see how much fun secrets can be!’