‘Please, I want two twopenny bars of chocolate.’
Her voice was very clear and silvery.
Ecstasy rendered William speechless. His smile grew wider and more foolish. Seeing his two half-sucked Pineapple Crisps exposed upon the scales, he hastily put them into his mouth.
She laid four pennies on the counter.
William found his voice.
‘You can have lots for that,’ he said huskily. ‘They’ve gone cheap. They’ve gone ever so cheap. You can take all the boxful for that,’ he went on recklessly. He pressed the box into her reluctant hands. ‘An’ – what else would you like? You jus’ tell me that. Tell me what else you’d like?’
‘Please, I haven’t any more money,’ gasped a small, bewildered voice.
‘Money don’t matter,’ said William. ‘Things is cheap today. Things is awful cheap today. Awful cheap! You can have – anythin’ you like for that fourpence. Anythin’ you like.’
‘’Cause it’s New Year’s Day?’ said the vision, with a gleam of understanding.
‘Yes,’ said William, ‘’cause it’s that.’
‘Is it your shop?’
‘Yes,’ said William with an air of importance. ‘It’s all my shop.’
She gazed at him in admiration and envy.
‘I’d love to have a sweet shop,’ she said wistfully.
‘Well, you take anythin’ you like,’ said William generously.
She collected as much as she could carry and started towards the door. ‘Sank you! Sank you ever so!’ she said gratefully.
William stood leaning against the door in the easy attitude of the good-natured, all-providing male.
‘It’s all right,’ he said with an indulgent smile. ‘Quite all right. Quite all right.’ Then, with an inspiration born of memories of his father earlier in the day, ‘Not at all. Don’t menshun it. Not at all. Quite all right.’
‘MONEY DON’T MATTER,’ SAID WILLIAM. ‘THINGS IS CHEAP TODAY. AWFUL CHEAP!’
He stopped, simply for lack of further expressions, and bowed with would-be gracefulness as she went through the doorway.
As she passed the window she was rewarded by a spreading effusive smile in a flushed face.
She stopped and kissed her hand.
William blinked with pure emotion.
He continued his smile long after its recipient had disappeared. Then absent-mindedly he crammed his mouth with a handful of Mixed Dew Drops and sat down behind the counter.
As he crunched the Mixed Dew Drops he indulged in a day dream in which he rescued the little girl in the white fur coat from robbers and pirates and a burning house. He was just leaping nimbly from the roof of the burning house, holding the little girl in the white fur coat in his arms, when he caught sight of two of his friends flattening their noses at the window. He rose from his seat and went to the door.
‘’Ullo, Ginger! ’Ullo, Henry!’ he said with an unsuccessful effort to appear void of self-consciousness.
They gazed at him in wonder.
‘I’ve gotta shop,’ he went on casually. ‘Come on in an’ look at it.’
They peeped round the doorway cautiously and, reassured by the sight of William obviously in sole possession, they entered, open-mouthed. They gazed at the boxes and bottles of sweets. Aladdin’s Cave was nothing to this.
‘Howd’ you get it, William?’ gasped Ginger.
‘Someone gave it me,’ said William. ‘I took one of them things to be p’lite an’ someone gave it me. Go on,’ he said kindly. ‘Jus’ help yourselves. Not at all. Jus’ help yourselves an’ don’t menshun it.’
They needed no second bidding. With the unerring instinct of childhood (not unsupported by experience) that at any minute their Eden might be invaded by the avenging angel in the shape of a grown-up, they made full use of their time. They went from box to box, putting handfuls of sweets and chocolates into their mouths. They said nothing, simply because speech was, under the circumstances, a physical impossibility. Showing a foresight for the future, worthy of the noble ant itself, so often held up as a model to childhood, they filled pockets in the intervals of cramming their mouths.
A close observer might have noticed that William now ate little. William himself had been conscious for some time of a curious and inexplicable feeling of coldness towards the tempting dainties around him. He was, however, loath to give in to the weakness, and every now and then he nonchalantly put into his mouth a Toasted Square or a Fruity Bit.
It happened that a loutish boy of about fourteen was passing the shop. At the sight of three small boys rapidly consuming the contents, he became interested.
‘What yer doin’ of?’ he said indignantly, standing in the doorway.
‘You get out of my shop,’ said William valiantly.
‘Yer shop?’ said the boy. ‘Yer bloomin’ well pinchin’ things out o’ someone else’s shop, I can see. ’Ere, gimme some of them.’
‘You get out!’ said William.
‘Get out yerself!’ said the other.
‘If I’d not took one to be p’lite,’ said William threateningly, ‘I’d knock you down.’
‘Yer would, would yer?’ said the other, beginning to roll up his sleeves.
‘Yes, an’ I would, too. You get out.’ Seizing the nearest bottle, which happened to contain Acid Drops, he began to fire them at his opponent’s head. One hit him in the eye. He retired into the street. William, now afire for battle, followed him, still hurling Acid Drops with all his might. A crowd of boys collected together. Some gathered Acid Drops from the gutter, others joined the scrimmage. William, Henry, and Ginger carried on a noble fight against heavy odds.
It was only the sight of the proprietor of the shop coming briskly down the side-walk that put an end to the battle. The street boys made off (with what spoils they could gather) in one direction and Ginger and Henry in another. William, clasping an empty Acid Drop bottle to his bosom, was left to face Mr Moss.
Mr Moss entered and looked round with an air of bewilderment.
‘Where’s Bill?’ he said.
‘He’s ill,’ said William. ‘He couldn’t come. I’ve been keepin’ shop for you. I’ve done the best I could.’ He looked round the rifled shop and hastened to propitiate the owner as far as possible. ‘I’ve got some money for you,’ he added soothingly, pointing to the four pennies that represented his morning’s takings. ‘It’s not much,’ he went on with some truth, looking again at the rows of emptied boxes and half-emptied bottles and the debris that is always and everywhere the inevitable result of a battle. But Mr Moss hardly seemed to notice it.
‘Thanks, William,’ he said almost humbly. ‘William, she’s took me. She’s goin’ ter marry me. Isn’t it grand? After all these years!’
‘I’m afraid there’s a bit of a mess,’ said William, returning to the more important matter.
Mr Moss waved aside his apologies.
‘It doesn’t matter, William,’ he said. ‘Nothing matters today. She’s took me at last. I’m goin’ to shut shop this afternoon and go over to her again. Thanks for staying, William.’
‘Not at all. Don’t menshun it,’ said William nobly. Then, ‘I think I’ve had enough of that bein’ p’lite. Will one mornin’ do for this year, d’you think?’
‘Er – yes. Well, I’ll shut up. Don’t you stay, William. You’ll want to be getting home for lunch.’
Lunch? Quite definitely William decided that he did not want any lunch. The very thought of lunch brought with it a feeling of active physical discomfort which was much more than mere absence of hunger. He decided to go home as quickly as possible, though not to lunch.
‘Goo’bye,’ he said.
‘Goodbye,’ said Mr Moss.
‘I’m afraid you’ll find some things gone,’ said William faintly; ‘some boys was in.’
‘That’s all right, William,’ said Mr Moss, roused again from his rosy dreams. ‘That’s quite all right.’
But it was not ‘quite all right’ wit
h William. Reader, if you had been left, at the age of eleven, in sole charge of a sweet shop for a whole morning, would it have been ‘all right’ with you? I trow not. But we will not follow William through the humiliating hours of the afternoon. We will leave him as, pale and unsteady, but as yet master of the situation, he wends his homeward way.
Richmal Crompton was born in Lancashire in 1890. The first story about William Brown appeared in Home magazine in 1919, and the first collection of William stories was published in book form three years later. In all, thirty-eight William books were published, the last one in 1970, after Richmal Crompton’s death.
‘Probably the funniest, toughest children’s books ever written’
Sunday Times on the Just William series
‘Richmal Crompton’s creation [has] been famed for his cavalier attitude to life and those who would seek to circumscribe his enjoyment of it ever since he first appeared’
Guardian
First published 1922
This electronic edition published 2010 by Macmillan Children’s Books
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ISBN 978-0-230-75782-0 EPUB
Copyright © 1922 Richmal C. Ashbee
Foreword Copyright © 2009 Lily Broadway Productions
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Just William's New Year's Day Page 2