The Farm Beneath the Water

by Helen Peters

  Another woman came over to join the group around Dad. She was small and wiry, with cropped chestnut hair and brown-rimmed glasses.

  “The really important argument, I think, from a geological perspective,” she said, “is that it’s a totally unsuitable site. It’s an extremely shallow valley – if, indeed, it can even really be called a valley – and that would mean—”

  “Hannah,” cut in Dad, “could you clear some of these plates away?”

  “– huge earthworks all round the perimeter,” continued the woman, “which would not only be unsightly, but—”

  “Hannah!” snapped Dad. “Can you take these plates to the kitchen, please?” Hannah raised her eyebrows. “OK, OK.”

  He handed his cup and saucer to Lottie. “Thank you, Lottie.”

  “Cheek!” muttered Lottie, as they went into the hall. “If he wants waitresses, he should pay wages.”

  “He was trying to get rid of us,” said Hannah.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That woman was saying something he didn’t want us hearing.”

  “Why, what was she saying? Hey, don’t look at me like that. I just drifted off a bit at that point.”

  “Fat lot of use you are. I’m not totally sure either, but something about earthworks. Whatever that means. And it being a totally unsuitable site.”

  “Unsuitable for what?”

  “I don’t know. But he didn’t want us listening, I’m sure he didn’t.”

  “Let’s go in again. Clear some more plates. And I promise I won’t drift off this time.”

  They walked back into the sitting room. But before Hannah had time to tune into the conversation, the civilised atmosphere was torn apart by a piercing scream.

  Hannah wheeled around. A ginger guinea pig had emerged from under the tea table in the centre of the room. And before Hannah could take this in, a hand shot out from under the tablecloth and grabbed at the guinea pig.

  It missed. The guinea pig scuttled across the room. Jo’s curly head burst from the white linen and knocked the edge of the table. In terrifying slow motion, the table crashed spectacularly on to the carpet. People shrieked and jumped out of the way as tea flew out of cups, saucers shattered, sugar scattered across the sofa, the cake stand smashed on to the floor and scones rolled in all directions. And, before anybody could get a grip on the situation, the Beans scrambled from under the tablecloth, scooped up the guinea pig from where it had frozen in terror under the china cabinet, and fled from the room.

  There was a horrified silence. The guests stared, wide-eyed, at the devastation. Eventually, Hannah said, in a small, strained voice that did not sound like her own, “Shall I get the hoover?”

  “No!” barked Dad. “Don’t get the blasted hoover! Just leave everything alone, will you?”

  * * *

  The visitors left quite quickly after that. And Lottie decided she would find something to eat at home, after all.

  Dad ordered Hannah to track down the Beans. She found them in the first place she looked: the empty pigsty that was the headquarters of the Great and Mighty Society of Bean. Their faces were taut and pale and they followed her to the kitchen in terrified silence.

  “What on earth did you think you were playing at?” shouted Dad.

  The Beans said nothing.

  “Well?”

  Sam cracked first.

  “We were spying,” he muttered, squirming under Dad’s glare.

  “What?”

  “They’ve got a spy club,” Hannah explained.

  “A spy club? I thought you had a pea club or something.”

  “Bean Club,” said Jo. “The Great and Mighty Society of Bean.”

  Dad made an impatient noise. “The point is, what in Heaven’s name were you doing hiding under the table in the sitting room with a guinea pig when I had important visitors in the house?”

  “We wanted to find out,” said Jo.

  “Find out what?”

  “Who they were. You don’t tell us anything, so we had to spy.”

  Dad gave an exasperated sigh. “They’re just people who are interested in the farm, that’s all.”

  “Why are they interested in the farm?”

  Good question, thought Hannah.

  Their father looked very tired suddenly. “No particular reason. Now, which one of you lot has hidden the superglue?”

  * * *

  As she passed through the hall on her way to bed, Hannah noticed that the sitting-room light was on. The door was ajar. She slipped through it to turn the light off.

  She froze with her hand on the switch. There, in the middle of the floor on his hands and knees, was her father. At first she thought he was picking up crumbs, and she wondered why he wasn’t using the vacuum cleaner.

  Then she realised what he was doing.

  He was moving very slowly across the carpet, picking up tiny pieces of Mum’s precious tea set with his right hand and transferring them to his left, which already cradled a handful of fine china shards.

  So that was why he had wanted the superglue.

  Hannah understood completely. Whenever anything of her mother’s got broken, Hannah felt like another little part of Mum had slipped from her grasp forever.

  She hovered for a while, not sure whether he would want to be disturbed. Then she said, “Can I help?”

  He lifted his head. There were dark shadows under his eyes.

  He didn’t speak for a minute. Then he said, “The pieces are so small.”

  “The light’s too dim,” said Hannah. “I’ll get a torch.”

  She fetched the torch from the scullery and shone it on the carpet. But Dad’s huge rough hands still struggled to pick up the fragments.

  “Here,” she said. “You hold the light and I’ll pick up the pieces.”

  They worked in silence. The carpet was rough and scratchy and the threads clung to the shards of china, making tiny tearing sounds as Hannah extracted them. She placed each one gently into Dad’s hardened, work-calloused palm.

  “I think that’s all,” she said at last. “Shall I have a go at mending them?”

  Dad leaned his hand on the arm of the sofa and stood up slowly. He met Hannah’s eyes and gave her a small smile.

  “Go on, then.”

  She opened her palm and he tipped the broken china into it. “You’ll probably make a better job of it than I would.”

  “Hopefully, when it’s done,” she said, “the cracks won’t show too badly.”

  “Just do your best,” he said. “That’s all you can do.”

  He turned to leave the room, but then he turned back, as though he’d suddenly remembered something.

  “How did those try-outs go? For the school play? Did you get the part you wanted?”

  “Er, no, not exactly. I mean, I am in it, but just a tiny part.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame. Well, never mind, eh? More fool them. Right, better go and check those calves.”

  “Oh, I don’t think people with non-speaking parts need to bother coming to the meeting,” said Miranda, as Hannah and Lottie approached the hall doors on Tuesday lunchtime.

  “Miss Summers said everyone should come,” said Hannah.

  Miranda shrugged. “You’ll be wasting your time. But suit yourselves.” She strutted into the hall.

  “We will,” said Lottie sweetly, “but thanks for giving us permission.”

  In the hall, dozens of people already sat on the floor in little groups. Hannah and Lottie scanned the room for friendly faces.

  “Hey, Roberts, hey, Pudding Face.”

  Jack was ambling in with Ben and Jonah. Lottie scowled. “What are you doing here, loser?”

  Jack pressed his hand to his heart. “Aw, you are so sweet.”

  “He’s going to do sound and special effects,” said Ben.

  “Special effects? It’s Romeo and Juliet, not James Bond.”

  “Well, it might need livening up a bit. Anyway, I haven’t made any decisions yet. I’m n
ot sure I’ll have the time. And I keep strict working hours. Every third Wednesday, 3–5pm, leap years only.”

  “See you the year after next, then,” said Lottie.

  Jack’s face crumpled. In a high, quavering voice, he said, “You are so mean, Lottie Perfect. Sometimes I get the feeling you don’t even want me in this play.”

  Hannah laughed. Lottie raised her eyes to the ceiling.

  Miss Summers called for everyone’s attention. Priya looked over and waved to Hannah and Lottie to join her and some other girls in their class. Hannah hesitated. Miranda and her friends were sitting just across from them. But Lottie was already walking towards Priya, so Hannah followed her.

  “Thank you very much for coming,” said Miss Summers, when everybody had sat down. “It’s fantastic to see you all here. Today’s meeting will mainly be about backstage work, but first I’ve got a few exciting announcements to make.”

  People turned to their friends and started whispering. Miss Summers waited for the room to settle before she continued.

  “Firstly, you might remember that I said we were inviting a professional director to judge the house play competition. Well, I can now reveal that we are incredibly lucky that a very well-known theatre director, who has had many successful productions in the West End and around the country, has agreed to come and be our adjudicator. Her name is Josephine Baxter.”

  “Ooh!” said Miranda. “How exciting!”

  “Just making sure everyone knows she’s heard of her,” muttered Lottie to Hannah.

  “The second announcement,” said Miss Summers, “is a rather exciting new development. You know that local estate agents have sponsored our school fair for the past few years. Well, we’ve just had an offer from another local company to sponsor our very first Key Stage 3 house plays. I’m not able to give any details now, because a representative from the company will be coming into assembly soon to tell you more about it, but I can say that, as well as a rather impressive trophy, they’ve offered us an additional prize for the winning play – something that involves a day out of school for the entire house.”

  There was a buzz of excitement all around the room. A day off school was a prize worth winning.

  Miss Summers clapped her hands for silence.

  “And now,” she said, “for the final announcement.”

  The room quietened.

  “When I introduced the house play competition at the beginning of term,” said Miss Summers, “I said we would have older students from each house directing the plays.” She paused. “Well, the Heads of House and I have had another think about that. The older students have a lot of opportunities to take on responsibility, rightly of course, but we thought it would be rather exciting to hand this project entirely over to Key Stage 3. And so, after a lot of thought, we have decided to choose a person from each house to direct their play.”

  Lottie nudged Hannah and pointed at Miranda, who was sitting up very straight, looking expectantly at the teacher.

  “She thinks it’s going to be her,” whispered Lottie.

  “It’ll be a Year 9, won’t it?” said Hannah. Please let it be a Year 9, she prayed. Please don’t let it be Miranda.

  “The people I’m going to ask are all students who have experience in theatre groups,” Miss Summers continued, “and, if they’re willing to take on the big responsibility of directing a house play, I think they’ll do a great job.”

  Miranda’s friend Emily nudged her. Miranda smiled smugly. She had belonged to the Linford Youth Theatre for years, and they always won the Youth Drama competition in the Linford Art Festival.

  Lottie turned to Hannah, looking terrified. “She wouldn’t, would she? She wouldn’t choose her to direct and play Juliet?”

  “I really hope not,” whispered Hannah. The prospect of being directed by Miranda for the next two months as well as watching her play Juliet was truly depressing.

  “Obviously, I’ll be there to provide support and advice whenever they need it,” Miss Summers was saying, “but it’s a very big job the four directors will be taking on and they will need your wholehearted cooperation.”

  Miranda was arranging her hair carefully over her shoulders.

  “So,” said Miss Summers, “without further ado, these are the students we would like to direct the house plays. For Conan Doyle’s production of Macbeth: Alex Jackson!”

  Hannah didn’t know Alex, but he was clearly a popular choice, judging by the cheers from Conan Doyle House.

  “For Kipling House’s production of The Tempest: Zara McIlroy!”

  Zara looked astounded and delighted. Her friends whooped and hugged her.

  The Milne House director was named next, a boy called Gabriel Ince. He went bright red when his name was announced.

  “I don’t think it will be Miranda,” whispered Hannah. “They’re all Year 9s.”

  “Fingers crossed,” murmured Lottie.

  “And last but not least, Woolf House,” said Miss Summers.

  Miranda sat up even straighter, looking eagerly at the teacher.

  “The person we’ve chosen is…”

  Miranda started to get to her feet.

  “Hannah Roberts!”

  Hannah stared. What had Miss Summers said?

  Lottie hugged her, shouting, “Yes! Yes!”

  Hannah sat there, open-mouthed and speechless. People were turning and looking at her, clapping and smiling, but she couldn’t take it in. It was as though she were watching the world through a window.

  And then she saw Miranda.

  Miranda’s cheeks were bright red. Her face was contorted with rage.

  Miss Summers raised her hands for silence. “I’d like all the directors to stay behind at the end, please. There’s no obligation to take on the role, of course, but this is a wonderful opportunity and I hope you’ll rise to the challenge.”

  “She put on a play in a shed,” spat Miranda to Emily. “In what universe is that a theatre group?”

  Emily squirmed. “Well, that play was the runner-up at the Linford Arts Festival, so…”

  Miranda ignored her. “It must be because Miss Summers feels sorry for her. Just because her mother died, everyone thinks they have to be nice to her. And honestly, that was years ago.”

  As Miss Summers started to explain about rehearsal schedules, Lottie gave a deep, contented sigh. She leaned towards Hannah. “The look on Miranda’s face when Miss Summers said your name!” she murmured. “If nothing else good ever happens in my life, I shall die happy, just remembering that.”

  On Friday afternoon, Hannah and Lottie, school bags on their shoulders, ducked under the fence at the side of the farm track and walked down North Meadow towards the thicket of thorn trees and bushes in the bottom corner.

  Fat ripe blackberries hung from the brambles that grew over the bushes. Hannah picked one and offered it to Lottie.

  Lottie shook her head. “No, thanks.” She was deeply suspicious of food that wasn’t sealed in plastic.

  With the tips of her thumb and forefinger, Hannah parted a seemingly impenetrable tangle of brambles. The girls squeezed through the gap. In front of them lay the narrow path through the bushes that they had made last winter.

  “We’ll have to dismantle the whole set,” said Hannah. “We’ll need every inch of space to rehearse the big fight scenes.”

  “We’re so lucky to have the theatre for extra rehearsals. Miss Summers isn’t giving us anywhere near enough time to rehearse at school.”

  “If people don’t mind coming all the way up here,” said Hannah.

  “I don’t think they’ll mind, if it gives us more chance of winning.”

  “Even Miranda?” Hannah felt a bit sick, as she always did when she thought about directing Miranda.

  “Who cares about her?” said Lottie. “Do you really want her to come here anyway?”

  Hannah wished she could be as unaffected by Miranda as Lottie was. Miranda hadn’t spoken to her since Miss Summers’ announcement,
but she had taken every opportunity to whisper and snigger with her friends, while throwing sneering looks in Hannah’s direction. Hannah tried to ignore it, but it was hard not to let it get her down.

  Everything else about the play, though, was really exciting. Since the meeting, Hannah had spent every spare moment thinking about her production. With the birthday money she had saved, she’d bought a purple ring binder and a set of dividers. The first thing she put into the ring binder was a copy of Miss Summers’ half-hour version of Romeo and Juliet. The script was photocopied on to one side of the paper and the facing pages were blank for Hannah’s director’s notes on the actors’ movements and gestures. The rest of the file was divided into sections: costume, props, lighting, sound, hair and make-up.

  “Not that I’ll need to write much about costume,” she told Lottie, “since you’re doing everything. I’m so glad Miss Summers put you in charge. I can’t wait to see your drawings.”

  “I’ll bring my sketchbook into school tomorrow,” said Lottie, ducking an overhanging branch, “if I finish the designs tonight.”

  The secret path wound around the edge of a long, low wooden shed, covered with ivy and invisible from outside the thicket. It had a corrugated iron roof and a sliding door at each end: a stage door and a front-of-house door.

  Hannah felt the familiar surge of joy as she ran her hands over the black metal sign screwed to the stage door. “The Secret Hen House Theatre”, it said, in curving wrought-iron letters. The sign was bordered by a pattern of brambles, with the silhouette of a chicken in the bottom left-hand corner. Dad had given it to her as a present for saving the farm last spring.

  Hannah slid the stage door open and stepped into the dressing room. A costume rail made from a broom handle was suspended from the beams with baler twine. Against the opposite wall stood their dressing table, an old chest of drawers that the Beans had discovered in a cowshed. Cleaned up, it housed their jumble sale jewellery and the make-up donated by Lottie’s mum. An oval mirror was propped on top of it.

  The thin wooden walls of the dressing room were bare except for one framed photograph. It showed Hannah’s mother standing in North Meadow, holding baby Hannah. Hens pecked around her feet. In the background of the photo was a long, low shed, surrounded by bushes. This shed.