The Scarecrows of Hodmedodlee

by D J Birkin

A few days later. Jenny had gotten up early, and after a large bowl of pobs, she was playing with Pinny Pipit on the kitchen table. Ma had just made a batch of marmalade buns and cherry jam cakes, and had started rolling out some pastry. Jenny playfully offered Pinny Pipit a crumb of a marmalade cake. She put it right up to Pinny's face.

  'Here you are, eat your breakfast like a good girl.'

  'NO, SHARNT.' squeaked a tiny cross voice back at her. 'YUK YUK.' it squeaked again.

  Jenny starred in surprise as Pinny Pipit stood up, put her tiny hands defiantly on her hips and looked very annoyed indeed. Ooty heard the squeaks and thinking it was a mickie he jumped up on the table to investigate.

  'Oh Pinny' cried Jenny. 'You really can talk.' and she whisked the little scarecrow up in her hands.

  Pinny squeaked and kicked and wriggled to be put down again.

  'Of course she can talk' said Ma grinning

  'Only Pinny does hate marmalade. It's blackberries that Pinny loves and I think I know why she wouldn't talk in front of you before. Because she knows she's can't help being naughty, don't you Pinny.' And Ma playfully wagged her finger at Pinny Pipit.

  'She thinks that you won't love her if she's naughty Jenny. That's why she's been so still and quiet. She's been trying so hard to be good for you.'

  It was true that Pinny had stopped running away since her first job on the narrowboat, but she was clearly starting to get bored again. Jenny watched with delight as Pinny strolled up to a saucer on the table and kicked it.

  'Me go mogelling a gen.' she squeaked crossly and plonked herself down on the edge of the saucer and began swinging her stripy legs in boredom.

  Ma had always treated Pinny like a baby. She seemed to forget that Pinny was nearly as old as she was. She had never let Pinny do any work at all.

  But Pinny didn't think of herself as a baby. All she wanted was to have a proper job like all the others. She loved the narrowboat job and couldn't wait to go mogelling again as she called it.

  'I think we need to find Pinny another job as soon as possible.' said Jenny.

  'I think you're right.' said Ma 'Give her some blackberry jam will you Jenny please.'

  Jenny smiled at Pinny Pipit. 'Don't you worry Pinny. I couldn't stop loving you even if you were the naughtiest girl in the whole world, but I don't think you are. I know you're just bored.'

  Jenny put a tiny blob of jam on the saucer and watched transfixed as Pinny Pipit did a ballerina dance in the saucer licking her jammy covered fingers, then climbed out and skipped happily all over Ma's baking, leaving tiny footprints in the flour and pastry. Ooty bend down and sniffed Pinny. Then to Ma and Jenny's amazement, Pinny clambered up Ooty's front leg and sat on his neck like she was a little Maharajah riding an elephant.

  'Mooshy mooshy.' squeaked Pinny Pipit tugging at Ooty's left ear.

  Ooty had absolutely no idea what she meant and looked as surprised as Ma and Jenny. Ma chuckled and just happened to glance up at the clock.

  'OH' she gasped 'Can't believe I nearly forgot. Jumble at eleven. Oh run and fetch the pram will you Jenny dear, we need to get in the queue early, don't want to dip out on the best stuff do we.'

  A jumble sale is a tradition in all English villages. It's usually held several times a year and usually in the village hall. People donate the things they don't want to the jumble sale so that other people can buy them who usually find out afterwards that they didn't want them either. All the money is then given to a charity like the church, or the boy scouts, and all the women in the village really just go just to have a good old gossip.

  'Why do we need to go to a jumble sale Ma?’ asked Jenny, arriving at the backdoor pushing the old black pram.

  'Clothes Jenny, lots of lovely clothes for the hodmedods.' answered Ma buttoning up her coat.

  'Last year I got all their winter coats and hats, Lolly Stick's pink party dress, Dolly Clockaclay's red shoes and those pretty fish curtains in my bathroom. Come on, we don't want to be late do we.'

  Ma and Jenny were not late. They were first in the queue when the doors to the village hall were opened dead on eleven o'clock. Before this, some of the women had been singing, 'why are we waiting.' but now they all rushed forwards and shoved each other inside, pushing and crushing like a women's rugby team. The trestle tables around the walls of the hall were piled high with books, toys and huge heaps of old clothes. The jumblers dived into the massive piles of clothes, curtains and eiderdowns like piglets in a dinner time feeding trough.

  The vicar and the boy scouts were soon busy collecting the money as items were being held up in the air and old dresses and coats were thrown across the hall.

  'Look Ella, this will fit you.' called out a jumbler.

  'Cheeky moo, looks more like your size.' shouted back another jumbler, as a big blue spotty dress flew back and forth over everyone's heads.

  'What size are your Willy's feet Edna ?' shouted a different jumbler. 'These leather boots have got loads of wear left in 'em. Look like 12's.'

  'Perfect. Chuck 'em over love.'

  And the boots flew over everyone's heads to be expertly caught in mid air by a little woman who must have been Willy's mum.

  ' 'ere Sal, these knickers are massive, they'll fit you a treat.' And all the women screamed with laughter as a huge pair of elephant size knickers sailed through the air and landed on a fat woman's head. Jenny had never seen anything like it. The women shouted, laughed, pushed and jostled each other thoroughly enjoying themselves.

  'Ma, Ma, nice bit of tweed here Ma.' called out another jumbler's voice.

  'Oh you looking for tweed then are you Ma.' joined in another voice.

  'Catch then Ma, both coming over.' and Ma leapt in the air, catching two old tweed jackets and swiftly adding them to the pile already in her pram. Jenny could see that Ma was an expert jumbler too.

  The room was very hot with all the pushy women shoving each other against the tables. Jenny was getting squashed by the crowd. Someone was also tugging at her ankle.

  ''ere, quick, get under 'ere or you'll get splattered.' Called a voice down by her feet.

  Jenny ducked under a table and sat down on the floor next to a black haired boy in a scruffy scout’s uniform.

  'Batty ol bags. Your name's Jenny ain't it, 'ere watch the ol bags shift.'

  And the boy took a slow worm out of an oxo tin and flung it up onto the table above them. He was right, the women did shift. They shifted in all directions like a stampede of wild buffalo.

  'SNAKE' screamed a woman. 'KILL IT.' screamed several.

  'LET ME OUT.' screamed the fat woman with the elephant’s knickers who'd got herself wedged in a corner.

  Jenny and the boy roared with laughter as they watched the women's feet running and jumping around the village hall.

  'Ok. Got it' called the vicar, 'It's just a slow worm ladies. No need to panic. Come on ladies....PLEASE LADIES. Let's all calm down.'

  The little Boy Scout made a tutting noise.

  'Rotten ol jackdaw, knew 'e'd spoil it.'

  'Why do you call the vicar jackdaw?' asked Jenny still giggling.

  'Durrr, cos 'is name's Daws of course, and cos e struts up and down all in black like e owns the blooming place. You're staying with Ma ain't ya.'

  'How do you know?' asked Jenny

  'Seen you about. Plus me mate Bill told me you was. Fancies you does Bill. Wanna come up the fields? I've found a brilliant camp. You can't tell no one though or Bully Beef will smash it up.'

  'Who's Bully Beef?' asked Jenny

  'Blimey Jenny, don't you know nothing. Meet me 'ere at one o'clock, I'm off for me dinner now or I'll be a deadun'. I'll bring Bill and the silly twins. We'll 'ave a right laugh. I'm Sid.'

  With that, the Boy Scout shot out from under the table and made a dash for the door, barging his way through the herd of jumblers.

  Like a pirate sorting through his treasure, Ma sorted through her jumble back home on the kitchen table, ooing and ahhing at each old d
ress like it was covered in gold and diamonds.

  'Best jumble in years.' she declared happily, holding up a yellow spotty blouse and admiring it.

  'Minnie Mommet will squeal when she sees this. Lots for you too Jenny.'

  And Ma gave her a pile of books, a tin of paints, a big baby doll dressed in a white frilly dress and bonnet and a pile of extra dolls clothes. Since Jenny now had Ooty and all the scarecrows, she'd lost interest in playing with dolls, but she thanked Ma anyway and asked if she could go out and play with Sid.

  'Sid Tucker ?' asked Ma as she turned out the pockets of an old tweed jacket.

  'I thought he must have been at the jumble when the slow worm appeared.' Ma was grinning.

  'He's a good boy really, considering who he has for a father. You go and play and enjoy yourself my dear.'

  'Sid said he's bringing Billy and the Silly twins too.' said Jenny.

  'Oh I expect he means Meg and Peg from the post office. They're nice girls. I can't tell them apart. You go and have some fun then and take some cakes with you to share with the others...and try to be back at five for tea if you can my little wren.'

  Ma kissed Jenny on the forehead and began examining a white lacy wedding dress. It had a rip in it and seemed unusually large, huge in fact. Ma chuckled and said the bride must have been a biggy. Jenny and Ooty left Ma gushing over a little shiny red handbag and mirror compact she had bought for Dolly Clockaclay, and went off to meet the other kids at the village hall.

  Meg and Peg were already sitting on the grass outside the hall when Jenny got there. They wore identical blue dresses with lemon cardigans and both had short brown bobbed hair just like Jenny. Jenny couldn't see any difference between the twins at all.

  'Are you Jen ?' They called out together.

  'Yes.' said Jenny and this is Ooty, he always comes with me.'

  'He's lovely.' said the twins together, both making a fuss of him.

  'Sid's fetching Bill, they'll be here soon.' said one twin.

  'He says he's found a camp. He's promised to show it to us.' said the other twin.

  Jenny thought it was funny the way the twins either spoke together at the same time or finished each other’s sentences, she had never met identical twins before. The twins said everyone just called them silly because their surname was Sealy and yes they did live in the post office. Their Mum was the postmistress and their Dad the postman.

  Identical twins are difficult to tell apart until you know them really well. Even then Meg and Peg's own parents sometimes struggled to remember which girl was which. Usually Meg wore a blue hair band and Peg wore a pink one. This might have helped, except, they swapped hair bands with each other about twenty times a day or hid them in their pockets.

  'Here they come.' said the twins together. 'Hi Bill. Hi Sid, get other stickin' did you?'

  Sid nodded, he was rubbing his leg.

  'I'll get that ol duffer one day, swear I will. Just managed to clip me as I shot out the door. I'll glue that rotten ‘ol stick to 'is 'ead soon.'

  'Just say when and we'll help you.' laughed the twins.

  Jenny knew that some bad parents hit their children, she also knew it was wrong. She liked Sid already and didn't like to think it had happened to him. The five children and Ooty walked off across the fields chatting and laughing. Jenny told them she had come to live with Ma because she didn't have a Mum or a Dad. Sid said she was lucky and he wished he didn't have a Dad. Billy said he didn't have a Mum but he was sad about it and wished he did have one.

  Squeezing through a gap in a chained up gate, Sid led everyone to the camp he'd found in the hedgerow. He was right, it was brilliant. Whoever had made it had done a really good job.

  The roof was made of tree branches covered in prickly green holly leaves so from the outside it just looked like any ordinary hedgerow. Meg and Peg crawled in to check out the inside.

  'This is great.' they called out together.

  'Come on Jen it's got chairs and everything.'

  The ground inside was covered in a thick layer of dried grass like a greeny yellow carpet. It smelt damp and earthy. Jenny thought the red chairs looked familiar but she didn't say anything. Ooty sniffed out a paper bag in the corner.

  'Yuk, marmalade' he thought, plus a faint whiff of mickies.

  The five children all sat around chatting for a while and deciding how they should run their new camp. Once Sid had voted himself captain, which the others knew he would do, they all went out to find more stuff for the camp. Sid and Billy found an old rusty car wheel in a ditch and rolled it back to use as a table with a plank of wood on top. The girls picked posies of wild flowers and put them in an old rusty tin to decorate the table. Then Jenny handed round the bag of current cakes.

  'Ow come.' Sid asked Jenny with his mouthful of cake 'You don't go to school? I'd be a deadun if I didn't go. The old duffer says it keeps me from getting under 'is feet.'

  Jenny told him she was starting after the Easter break.

  'Already knew that.' said Billy. 'Jen told me first.'

  'Oh well in that case.' teased Sid. 'Invite us to your wedding.'

  Billy went pink and pushed Sid off his chair.

  The girls were all sitting cross legged on the floor.

  'When you do start, you can be in our class if you like.' said Meg and Peg together putting their arms around Jenny's shoulders.

  'Thanks' said Jenny, 'I hope the teacher lets me sit with you.'

  Jenny was so pleased to have some friends at last. She liked all of them, playing camp was great. Jenny had never done it before. She had to swear not to tell anyone where it was or you couldn't be in the camp club. '

  Jenny said 'I swear.' and spat on her hand like Sid told her. Then everyone shook her hand. She was then officially in the camp club with the rest. Peg then picked some ivy leaves and everyone had to wear them as secret camp club badges. Jenny poked her's into her cardigan like a brooch.

  By late afternoon everyone was getting hungry again and decided it was time to go home. As they walked across Farmer (Bully) Beef's field, Sid pointed to Tattie Bogle.

  'See that scarecrow. E pinched me when I was little. Gives me the creeps do scarecrows.'

  'Don't be daft.' said Billy, 'Scarecrows don't pinch. I helped Jen and Ma shift a few the other day and none of them pinched me.'

  'Do too' insisted Sid.

  'I was only 'aving a look in it's pockets and it pinched me ear. Me Dad called me a liar and chased me up the stairs, but I had pinch marks and me ear was bright red.'

  Jenny didn't say a word. She guessed Sid was telling the truth. Tattie Bogle probably thought Sid was a just another pesky scrag and probably did pinch him.

  Often on the supper rounds now, Lolly Sticks and Dickie Perch would be missing from their posts.

  'I bet they're holding hands in a ditch somewhere.' Ma would say.

  'I can smell a touch of love in the air.' And she would sniff the air like she did before the great storm. Ma was usually right when she sniffed something. Jenny had sworn to her new friends that she wouldn't tell anyone about the camp and Jenny always kept her promises, but secretly she wondered if Lolly and Dickie were the ones who had put Ma's chairs in the camp...but of course she didn't tell on them.