Before the flame reached his fingers, Luke swung himself up from the other side of the lorry. He was out of breath too, and flung himself into the cab with such a clatter that he startled a great black crow off a nearby roof.
“Thank goodness!” they both said. And both laughed.
“Phew!” said Luke. “It’s Wedding now isn’t it? I saw one of his ravens this afternoon. What happened?”
David explained what had happened. Luke, as he told him, kept chuckling in a surprised, appreciative way. “He did you proud, didn’t he?” he said. “He must have taken a fancy to you. But isn’t that just like him to jump you into a contest when you thought it was all over! And I must say I wish you hadn’t agreed.”
“So do I now,” said David. “Perhaps the best thing is if I don’t strike a match until Monday, and you keep well hidden.”
Luke would not hear of it. Like David, he thought it would make a very poor contest. He propped his feet high on the steering wheel of the lorry, folded his arms on his chest and pooh-poohed the idea. “Nonsense,” he said. “Wedding may be clever and he may have a great many powers, but he always had to rely on me when it came to real cunning. I rather fancy slipping by under their noses. You just distract that bird and get well away from the house and we’ll be all right.”
“How do I distract it?” said David. “Arrange for Mrs. Thirsk to beat up old Chew every time I want to go out?”
Luke grinned at him past his own knees, since his feet were propped above his head. “Ravens,” he said, “are very greedy birds. And another thing—he probably only knows you by your clothes and the color of your hair. Try fooling him by looking a bit different.”
David found it very cheering, the way Luke never seemed daunted by any difficulty. He thought nothing, either, of David’s worry about Aunt Dot writing to Mr. Fry.
“I can handle your Aunt,” he said. “I expect I can deal with this Mr. Fry of yours too. Not to worry.” Then he became more serious and looked at his uptilted feet rather intently. “What did Wedding say about this revenge I’m supposed to have taken?”
“Nothing,” said David. “He wouldn’t say what it was.”
“And I wish I knew what it was,” said Luke. “I really long to know. Because I didn’t do anything that I know of. I wanted to, like—well, you can imagine the way you’d want to do something really horrible and get your own back. I kept thinking of things. But what can you do when you’re tied up and need both your hands to stop the snakes dripping poison on you?”
“Nothing,” David said, feeling a little sick. He looked at Luke’s pale freckled profile and hoped he would not want to say any more about his prison.
“Somebody did something, and they blamed it on me,” Luke said bitterly. “They always blame it on me.”
“Just like they blame me,” David said. “I say, Luke,” he said, because he had suddenly thought of Mr. Wedding’s advice again. “You don’t need to be grateful to me for letting you out, you know. I did it quite by accident.”
“So you did,” said Luke cheerfully. “And you happened accidentally to stand up for me to Chew and then quite by mistake to Wedding. Come off it, David. If I’m not grateful now, I never will be. What shall we do for the rest of the evening?”
10
THURSDAY
The next morning, as David expected, Mr. Chew was digging at the back of the house and the raven was hopping among the geraniums at the front, looking for worms.
David went back to his room and thought. Then, for the first time in his life, he dressed by choice in his neat clothes, to establish his image with the raven. It made him later than usual for breakfast. All his relations were there. Uncle Bernard took his watch out and glanced meaningly from it to David, but to David’s relief he did not say anything.
Mrs. Thirsk, after her battle with Mr. Chew, was looking decidedly stormy. She thumped down David’s sausages and, as her habit was, glared at him to suggest that it was all his fault. David supposed she was right. If he had not let Luke out, none of the rest would have happened.
Uncle Bernard for once had a real disease. He told Astrid hoarsely that she had better not come near him or his sore throat would be the death of her—scoring one and one bonus point, both unfair, because the time for the contest was supper, not breakfast. Astrid was taken by surprise and for a moment could not think of a disease at all.
“One of your heads,” David suggested, in a purely sporting spirit.
Astrid glared at him. And David discovered a surprising thing. Mr. Wedding’s advice seemed to have been working slowly on him overnight. Now he knew he need not be grateful to her, Astrid could glare at him all she pleased and he did not mind. He simply ate his sausages and even knew that underneath, Astrid did not care what he had said. She was really quite glad he had saved her having to answer Uncle Bernard’s sore throat.
Mrs. Thirsk meanwhile stood stormily by the door. “I’ve thought it over,” she announced. “And my notice stays given unless that Chew leaves.”
“Then I think, Ronald—” said Aunt Dot.
“Now come, Mother!” said Cousin Ronald. “I can’t sack the best gardener I ever had.”
“Either he goes or I go,” said Mrs. Thirsk.
“In that case—” Aunt Dot got up and went majestically to the French window. “Come here, my good man,” she called. Mr. Chew shuffled down the lawn and stood inquiringly at the window. “Now, Ronald,” said Aunt Dot. “Tell him.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort!” said Cousin Ronald.
“Then I go,” said Mrs. Thirsk.
“And good riddance!” said Cousin Ronald.
“Ronald!” exclaimed Aunt Dot.
“I am really too ill for all this shouting,” complained Uncle Bernard. “Dot, I must ask you to send Mrs. Thirsk away or I shall be prostrated.”
“Quite right, Father,” said Cousin Ronald. “She started it.”
“I did not!” said Mrs. Thirsk.
“And him too,” said Uncle Bernard, pointing fretfully at Mr. Chew. “Sack them both.”
Cousin Ronald thumped the table. “Now you’re being absurd!”
Mr. Chew stood with his little eyes flickering from person to person. David could have sworn he was enjoying setting them all quarreling.
“Ronald, do be quiet,” Astrid said. “My head’s coming on with this noise.”
“Oh, everything brings your head on!” Cousin Ronald shouted, turning on Astrid. “Go away if you can’t stand it.”
“I’m going,” said Astrid, and she got up and went out.
David bolted his last half sausage, for now, if any time, was his chance, while Mr. Chew was occupied in grinning beadily at his quarreling relations. “Can I go too?”
“Don’t interrupt, David. Yes, if you wish,” said Aunt Dot.
David shot from the dining room and through the hall. Quietly, he opened the front door and stepped out. The raven stopped searching for worms and watched him from behind a geranium.
“Do you like worms?” David asked it.
“Yes, if there’s nothing else going,” it answered.
“What do you like to eat best?” said David.
The raven looked at him with unmistakable interest, evidently wondering what kind of food David was good for. “My favorite food,” it said, “is a nice fresh carcass. But those are hard to come by these days.”
“How about biscuits?” suggested David.
“I eat most things,” the raven said hopefully.
“Here you are then,” said David, and he held out a crumbly half biscuit left over from the packet Astrid had given him.
“Thank you,” said the raven. With great dignity, it climbed from the flowers and marched across the drive to David. It took the biscuit with something of a peck and a snap, which made David take his hand away quickly. “Much obliged,” it said indistinctly, and after that the biscuit was gone. The raven looked up hopefully, but David had only two biscuits left and his plan meant using them
later. He went back into the house, and, very pleased with himself, galloped up to his room to change. In the dining room, Cousin Ronald and Aunt Dot were loudly abusing Uncle Bernard. He could hear them right upstairs.
When he was changed, David carefully put the matches in one pocket of his jeans and the last two biscuits in the other. If he strewed them down the drive, four half biscuits should surely keep the raven occupied until he had got clear away. He went downstairs and through the front door again. The raven was rather busy hauling a mighty worm from the left-hand bed.
David, with great cunning, asked it: “Do you like biscuits?”
The bird’s eye came round to look at him. “You asked me that before,” it said. “I do, but I prefer worms. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Sadly, David watched it drag the worm clear and finish it off in two swallows. So much for his clever plan. The raven was obviously going to know him whatever he looked like. All the same, he waited until the bird came stepping gravely toward him over the drive. He could not cheat it of its biscuits, for it had treated him very fairly after all. He laid the biscuits in a small pile in front of it and went back into the house.
The quarrel was still going on in the dining room. David could hear Mrs. Thirsk saying she was not going to put up with such treatment any longer. And he heard Mr. Chew’s voice too. He went out of the side door and into the garden. Given a bit of luck, he might get over the wall without being seen from the dining room.
But the raven was now in the middle of the lawn, dragging out an even bigger worm.
David said a bad word under his breath and hurried to the front door.
In the middle of the drive, the raven was just finishing the last biscuit crumb and looked up at him hopefully as he came out. “Any more?” it said.
“No, sorry,” said David. “I say, are there two of you?”
“Yes,” said the bird. “There are always two of us.”
“Thank you,” said David, and went indoors again. By this time, he was full of deep, surly anger against Mr. Wedding. No wonder he had set such a short time limit. He couldn’t lose. Or could he? David stopped short at the foot of the stairs. Mr. Wedding had said David had not mustered all his resources yet, and that was true.
Slowly, thoughtfully, David turned and went along the passage to the kitchen. He was forbidden to go there, but it was a resource all the same. It was a dismal, blank room with white machines humming away round the walls and full of the dismal smell of Mrs. Thirsk’s cooking.
David went to the clean white refrigerator and looked inside. He thought, as he looked, that it was a pity that Aunt Dot would never be brought to understand the difference between bad things you just did and bad things you simply had to do. Aunt Dot would call this bad, impartially. The nearest thing he could find to a nice fresh carcass was a joint of mutton, waiting to be turned into bad food. David took it out and, with a gasp, because it was cold and clammy, pushed it up the front of his shirt and fled with it to the drawing room. There he buried it carefully behind the silk sofa cushions to wait. Then, feeling very grim and daring, he went upstairs and knocked on the door of Cousin Ronald’s and Astrid’s bedroom.
“Who is it?” Astrid said peevishly.
“David,” said David, and held his breath. Astrid sounded in the kind of mood when she would tell him to go away. In which case he would have to manage with the joint of mutton alone.
“Oh, come in if you must,” said Astrid. And when David went in, she asked unpromisingly: “And to what do I owe the honor?” She was sitting at the dressing table putting in her contact lenses. There were dresses strewn everywhere, as if she had been trying them on, but she did not look as if she had been enjoying herself. Her face was white and pinched and discontented.
“I want to ask you a favor,” David said daringly.
“I thought as much,” said Astrid. “You only look friendly when you want something. You’re just like the rest of them.”
“I don’t think I am,” said David. He felt very uncomfortable. It was quite true that the only times he had ever thought of being nice to Astrid were when he wanted something—as he did now. He told himself that Astrid had never been nice to him either, but that did not prevent him feeling so uncomfortable that he thought he would go away without asking.
“Oh, don’t look so sheepish,” said Astrid. “I’m in a bad temper, that’s all. What do you want? The moon, or only half of it?”
David smiled. “A quarter of it’ll do.” Now he was not grateful to her, he was beginning to see that Astrid was not so bad really. Perhaps that was why he had thought of asking her to help. “It’s about Luke,” he said. “I was supposed to meet him at the recreation ground at ten, and it’s gone ten now. I wondered if you could drive me there.”
“I’m surprised Your Majesty doesn’t take a taxi,” said Astrid. “O.K., if it’s Luke I’ll do it. Anything’s better than sitting about here. You’ll have to wait, though, while I change to a handbag that goes with this dress. I’ll be down in five minutes.”
“That’s very kind of you,” David said gratefully.
“It is, isn’t it?” said Astrid, and she got up and shook about seventy useless objects out of a blue handbag into the middle of one of the beds. David reckoned that five minutes might see them all collected again, but you never knew with Astrid.
He went slowly downstairs. There were sounds from the dining room as if the quarrel might be ending. David hoped devoutly that they would not all be out and looking for the mutton before Astrid had collected her things. He sat on the stairs and waited three minutes. The quarrel still grumbled on. David got up and went to the drawing room, where he unburied the mutton from the cushions and carried it over to the window. The raven was now sitting on the gatepost.
“Hey!” David said cautiously. “I’ve got something better than biscuits this time. Here.” He threw the mutton toward the gate. It landed on the drive with a sticky thump.
“Meat?” said the raven.
“Yes,” said David. He stayed to watch the raven glide down beside the joint and then hurried out into the hall again, just as Astrid came downstairs, carrying a white handbag and jingling her car keys.
“Ready?” she said.
“You back out,” said David. “I’ll only be a second.”
Astrid went out of the side door to the garage. When he heard the garage door go up, David darted out also, to carry out the third cunning stage of his plan. The second raven looked up as he came running up the lawn, and flew away from him into a rosebush.
“It’s all right,” David said to it. “I was only coming to tell you that the other raven has a joint of meat on the front drive.”
This raven did not speak to David. It was in too much of a hurry. It went up out of the rosebush with a clap and a scramble. David watched it wheel between the chimneys and plunge out of sight over the roof with an angry squawk. He laughed. Those ravens were not going to think of following Astrid’s Mini for some time. He ran back down the garden and got into the car.
Astrid backed past the house and the front garden. To David’s delight, the ravens were quarreling fiercely, tugging the mutton this way and that along the drive. Several passersby were looking over the gate, for joints of mutton do not lie on people’s drives every day.
“What huge birds!” said Astrid. “What have they got?”
“It looks like a lump of meat,” said David.
“I wonder where it came from,” said Astrid, but she did not stop to investigate. She put the Mini into forward gear and drove up the road.
“It is kind of you to drive me,” David said thankfully.
“Don’t mench,” said Astrid. “What else have I to do? You should ask me oftener, David. To tell you the truth, I feel so sick of everything that I’d go anywhere, do anything, like the adverts say. I suppose it was my own fault for getting so set on going to Scarborough.”
“That was kind of you too—not to go,” David said awkwardly.
/> “Not my decision,” Astrid said, turning into the main road. “Your Uncle Bernard didn’t want to go, and what he wants he gets. Mind you, I never saw why you shouldn’t have come too, but no one ever listens to a word I say, so that was that. Honestly, David, sometimes when they all start I don’t know whether to scream or just walk out into the sunset.”
It had never occurred to David before that Astrid found his relations as unbearable as he did. He asked with great interest, rather experimentally: “Why don’t you do both? Walk into the sunset screaming?”
“Why?” said Astrid. “Because I’m a coward, David. I’ve no money, or I’d have gone years ago.”
“I’d go,” said David, “if I was old enough, whether I had any money or not.”
“I’ve guessed that all right,” said Astrid. “Bottom of the pecking order, that’s you. I’m next one up. We ought to get together and stop it, really, but I bet you think I’m as bad as the rest. You see, I get so mad I have to get at someone.”
“I get at Mrs. Thirsk,” said David.
“More fool you. And she makes things pretty unpleasant for you, doesn’t she?” said Astrid. “Oh, wasn’t it marvelous when the Abominable Chew hit her with the spade? I nearly raised a cheer!”
“And me,” said David. By this time, he was feeling so friendly toward Astrid that he said: “You know, you ought not to play so fair in the illness contest. Uncle Bernard’s always getting bonus points for pretending to be sorry for you.”
Astrid burst out laughing. “Well I never! The things you notice!” She laughed so much that she did not see the Wednesday Hill traffic lights turn green and David had to tell her. “So what do you advise me to say?” she said when they were moving again. “Mind you, I do get awful headaches,” she added, in case David should think it was only a game.
“Yes, but you should say they’re infectious and Uncle Bernard shouldn’t come near you,” said David. “And that sort of thing.”
Eight Days of Luke Page 9