The Farm Beneath the Water

by Helen Peters

  “Wait a second, I’ll dry it.”

  Jo cracked an egg on the side of a jug and pulled the two halves of the shell apart. The egg plopped on to the table.

  “Whoops. Missed.”

  The egg slithered off the edge of the table and on to the floor, where the yolk broke and oozed into the white.

  “Get a cloth and clear it up,” said Hannah.

  “I’ve got a better way than that.” Jo walked to the scullery door and called, “Rags!”

  Rags bounded into the house, her tail wagging furiously.

  “Here, Ragsy, here!”

  Rags scampered across the kitchen and gobbled up the pool of broken egg.

  “See,” beamed Jo. “She has so many uses.”

  “Wow,” said Sam. “This is a really good one. Look, Hannah.”

  He was scrutinising a small metal disc lying on a tea towel. To Hannah’s surprise, it did actually look like an old coin.

  She picked it up. Lottie peered at it over her shoulder.

  It looked like it had been cut by hand, by somebody who wasn’t that good at cutting. There was a circle marked on the metal, but on one side of the circle the coin had been cut outside the lines. Inside the circle were what looked like symbols, but Hannah had no idea what they represented. One of them seemed to be a pear with fronds growing out of the top where the stalk should have been.

  “Did you really dig this up, Sam?”

  “You know we did. In South Meadow, where we found the other things.”

  Hannah turned it over. She drew in her breath. Stamped on the coin’s face, as clear as if freshly minted, was a beautiful image of an elephant. And underneath the elephant, in capital letters, was stamped one word.

  CAESAR.

  “Caesar?” said Lottie.

  Hannah stared at the Beans, her mind racing. “And you’ve found other stuff, too?”

  “If you ever took any notice,” said Jo, “you’d know.”

  “Where is it?” asked Lottie. “The stuff you’ve found?”

  “In our museum.”

  “Show us.”

  Hannah and Lottie started up the back staircase.

  “It’s 50p entrance, remember?” called Jo, running up the stairs behind them.

  “I haven’t got 50p,” said Hannah, “and this is too important to mess about.”

  “It’s not messing about. These are valuable treasures.”

  “Careful in here,” said Sam, as Hannah opened the door to his room. “I’ll get it. There’s winter barley in this field.”

  He tiptoed around the edge of the frayed carpet, took a green shoebox from the bottom of his wardrobe and brought it to Hannah. She lifted the lid.

  Inside the box, on a bed of tissue paper, sat two coins and three tiny model animals. Hannah picked up the first coin. It was very worn but she could make out the figure of a man. He must be an emperor. There were letters around the edge, but she couldn’t read them.

  She looked at the coin Lottie was examining. This one was much less worn. It showed the figure of another man. At the side, Hannah could clearly read: HADRIANVS.

  “Hadrian?” she said. “As in Hadrian’s Wall?”

  “Wow,” said Lottie. “I can’t believe you really found these.”

  “The animals are the best,” said Sam.

  Very gently, he picked from the box a little metal tortoise and placed it in Hannah’s palm.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked.

  “In South Meadow. Near where we found the coins. I found this cockerel there, too, and this ram. I think they’re olden-days toy farm animals, like Grandfather’s ones that Daddy has in his office. Only I think these are newer. Grandfather’s are made from lead and lots of the animals’ legs have got snapped off.”

  “They’re very sweet,” said Hannah, replacing the tortoise, “but these coins are amazing. Imagine, they might be two thousand years old. And those archaeologists said they’d found nothing?”

  “They were looking in the wrong place, you see,” said Jo. “We did tell them.”

  Hannah and Lottie looked at each other.

  “More evidence,” said Hannah. “This is brilliant.”

  “We need to show them to an archaeologist,” said Lottie. “Not one of the Aqua ones. A proper one. To tell us if they’re genuine.”

  “How will we find an archaeologist?”

  “You could ask Sophie,” said Jo. “She works at the university, doesn’t she?”

  Lottie and Hannah stared at her.

  “That is actually a really good idea,” said Lottie.

  “I know. How much are you going to pay us?”

  “Honestly,” said Lottie. “You two are obsessed with money.”

  “So would you be,” said Jo, “if you didn’t have any.”

  “Will you get Sophie’s contact details from your dad?” said Lottie, as she and Hannah clattered down the back stairs. “Then we can get in touch today. Come round to mine this afternoon if you like.”

  Hannah’s stomach tightened.

  “Oh, er, thanks, but I … I can’t, you see. Someone’s … er … someone’s coming up this afternoon.”

  “Oh? Who?”

  Hannah squirmed. She knew from experience that if she wasn’t honest with Lottie, there would be dire consequences.

  “Jack,” she muttered.

  “Jack? Why?”

  “I didn’t invite him,” Hannah said desperately. “He offered. To take photos of the farm. And film footage. To make a sample. To see if we wanted to use it in the play, you know? He’s offered to put together some music and images to help get across our points. And I think that might work really well. You know, to tell the story of the farm?” She knew she was babbling now. “Jack’s really good at film stuff. Jonah said. And he offered…”

  She tailed off, wilting from the force of Lottie’s scowl.

  “So,” said Lottie, “you’re trusting Jack to come to the farm, after he practically destroyed it last time, and you want him to have a massive part in our play, even though he’s completely unreliable and a total waste of space?”

  “Don’t be like that. I know we said we wouldn’t let him come here, but this is different, isn’t it? He’s coming to help.”

  “Help!” Lottie gave a scornful laugh. “Listen to yourself! Wasn’t he meant to be helping with Romeo and Juliet? Wasn’t he meant to be putting together music and images? And did he do anything? Did he do one single thing to help?”

  “But this is different.”

  “Too right it’s different. This is a play that we’re doing to save your farm. It’s a play that could get us all expelled. And just because you fancy him, you’ve told Jack he can practically run the show.”

  “I do not—” Hannah began, but Lottie’s glare stopped her from finishing the sentence.

  “And if he ruins the play? And gets us all expelled? How are you going to feel then?”

  “He promised he’d be good.” Even as she said this, Hannah realised how lame it sounded.

  “Oh, did he? Well, that’s all right, then. I’m completely reassured.”

  Lottie walked out into the yard. Hannah followed her. “Listen,” she said, desperate not to fall out with her friend, “it’s only a sample. He might not even turn up. You know what he’s like. It might not be any good. And if it’s all rubbish, or if he just messes about, we can ditch him, can’t we? It’s just that he had some really good ideas, and if they work, it could be amazing.”

  Lottie quickened her pace.

  “Fine. You do whatever you want. I’m going home. I’ve got a costume to make.”

  Hannah’s mood for the first fifteen minutes of Jack’s visit veered between tongue-tied awkwardness, pinch-me-I’m-dreaming exhilaration and sudden plunges into guilty misery when she thought about Lottie. But once she settled down and got used to the fact that Jack was actually here, on her farm, walking around chatting to her and taking photographs, she became fascinated by this whole new side of him that
she was seeing. Because the Jack behind a camera lens was a completely different Jack from the one she had always seen at school.

  They started in North Meadow, where Jack took long-distance shots, panoramas and close-ups.

  “Mmm, blueberries,” he said, when they came to a cluster of blackthorn bushes covered in dusky-blue sloes.

  “Try one,” said Hannah innocently. “They’re really nice.”

  She held her breath as Jack popped one into his mouth.

  A second later, his face creased up in disgust and he spat the remnants of the berry violently out on to the grass.

  “Ugh, what the heck was that?” he spluttered.

  Hannah was doubled up laughing. “Your face! It was a sloe, you dingbat. Have you never tasted a sloe before?”

  “Well, I never will again,” said Jack, shoving her shoulder. “Thanks a lot, Roberts.”

  “Hey! You nearly pushed me into the hedge.”

  “Would’ve served you right. That was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten. It’s sucked every bit of moisture out of my mouth.”

  “Sorry. That must have been a bad one. They’re not usually that bitter. Here.” She plucked a plump sloe from the bush. “Try this one.”

  Jack flicked it out of her hand. “What do you think I am, some kind of idiot?”

  “Sorry. No, I really am. Here, try a nettle. They’re delicious.”

  “Ha ha.” Jack crouched down and lifted his camera. “Nice view of the stream here.”

  “We get kingfishers along it, but you don’t see them that often. We should go to a couple of the ponds as well.”

  “How many ponds are there?”

  “Eleven. And they’re full of wildlife.”

  “I’ll take some pictures of the trees, too. Those ones over there are massive.”

  They walked up to the wood, down through the fields, past two of the ponds and back across North Meadow, Jack taking film footage and pictures all the way.

  “So, how’s the stealth play coming on?” he asked.

  “I don’t really know. I mean, it’s so weird, writing a play where the person with the main part doesn’t have a script. I’m writing all these lines and then leaving blanks. But what if he doesn’t say what we want him to say?”

  “He will, if you ask the questions right. You know the kind of thing he’s going to say, don’t you? You said the stuff in that brochure they sent round was exactly the same as what he said at the meeting you went to. So he’ll probably say exactly the same stuff again.”

  Hannah laughed. “Yes, you’re right. He does have a script, doesn’t he? All that stuff he spouts, it’s all scripted. We just have to prompt him.”

  Jack stopped to photograph a towering holly tree, its deep-green leaves and bright-red berries so shiny they looked as though they had been polished.

  “Can you take some footage of the animals in the yard now? They’re all rare breeds and they’re all farmed properly, no horrible battery cages or anything. And the calves are so photogenic, with those lovely big eyes.”

  Jack hesitated. “What about your dad? Won’t he mind me being in his farmyard?”

  “No, it’ll be fine,” said Hannah, sounding a lot more confident than she felt. Dad was probably in the yard somewhere and she had no idea how he might react to seeing Jack.

  On the way to the calves, Hannah suddenly had a thought that made her insides freeze.

  The burnt-out barn! It was right next to the calves’ barn.

  What should she do? It would sound weird if she suddenly told Jack they shouldn’t film the calves after all. But if she took him to the burnt-out barn, would it look as though she was deliberately making him face the consequences of what he’d done?

  And so he should, said Lottie’s voice in her head, and she felt another twinge of misery at how she and Lottie had parted.

  But Lottie shouldn’t be so ridiculously anti-Jack, should she? If she could see how helpful Jack had been today…

  They turned the corner. And there it was, right in front of them. The blackened shell of the burnt-out barn.

  All that was left were the steel uprights. The rest was just a flat empty concrete space. Nettles had already pushed their way up through the gaps in what had been the floor.

  Jack stopped dead. Hannah didn’t breathe.

  After what seemed like minutes, she risked a glance at him.

  His face was white. He looked frightened.

  “I didn’t realise…” he said, and Hannah had to strain to hear him. “I didn’t think it was so big…”

  He took a step across the soot-blackened floor into the vast empty space.

  And then, around the corner, a bucket in each hand, came Dad.

  Hannah’s stomach contracted. What would Dad do when he saw Jack? What would Jack do? Would he run away, like he had done when the fire started?

  Dad barely glanced at them. He carried on walking towards the calves’ barn.

  And then, to Hannah’s amazement, Jack walked right up to her father.

  “Hello, Mr Roberts.”

  Dad looked at him blankly. He didn’t seem to recognise Jack. He seemed to be looking right through him.

  “I’m Jack Adamson. It was me who burned your barn down. Me and Danny.”

  Still Dad didn’t react.

  “I never apologised to you. I … I don’t know why. I’ve just seen it. I’m so sorry.”

  Dad grunted. “Bit late for that now.”

  “He’s trying to make up for it,” said Hannah. “He’s taking photos of the farm. To show people what will be lost if it gets flooded.”

  “Oh, is he? Well, he’d better take a photo of that, then.”

  He jerked his thumb to the left, towards the pig field. Hannah looked, and drew in her breath. In the corner of the field stood a huge white portacabin, as big as a bungalow.

  “What is it?”

  “See for yourself. They’ve stuck a sign up.”

  Hannah walked towards the portacabin. Taped inside one of the windows was a large piece of paper. In massive black capital letters, it said: SITE OFFICE. In the top right-hand corner was the Aqua logo.

  So Aqua had decided to set their office up here.

  For a moment, Hannah felt only relief. They weren’t going to demolish the theatre!

  When she glanced at her father’s drawn, tense face, though, guilt flooded over her. What was she doing, feeling relieved?

  But then the guilt turned to anger. Why should she feel guilty? She wasn’t the one who had dumped a massive great building on her dad’s pig field.

  “When … when did it come?” she asked. As if the time of arrival mattered. But she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Articulated lorry brought it up this morning,” said Dad.

  “And didn’t you know?”

  He gave a bitter laugh as he picked up his buckets. “Oh, they don’t need to tell us. The landlord’s granted permission and that’s all that matters.”

  The clomp, clomp, clomp of his boots echoed across the yard as he walked away. Jack stood motionless. The silence seemed to go on forever.

  “Do you want to take some photos of the swallows’ nests?” asked Hannah, and she hated how high and fake her voice sounded. “They’re amazing. Did you know the swallows come back to the same nests every year, all the way from Africa? How do they do that? It’s like a miracle, isn’t it?”

  “Actually, I’d better go. Homework and all that.”

  “Oh, yes, sure,” said Hannah, who knew perfectly well that Jack made it a point of honour never to do homework. “Well, thanks so much for coming.”

  “No problem. See you.”

  He mooched off up the track, head down, hands in his pockets.

  Hannah suddenly felt exhausted. But she needed to speak to Dad.

  He was leaning over the wall of the pigsties at the bottom of the yard, the buckets at his feet, scratching his favourite sow behind the ears.

  “There you are, Gertie,” he
was saying, as the pig grunted with pleasure. “Good girl. Good girl.”

  Hannah stood beside him.

  “It’s going to be all right,” she said. “With the reservoir, I mean. I’ve got a plan.”

  “Have you? What’s that, then? Yes, that’s right, old girl, you like that, don’t you?”

  “I can’t tell you exactly, but it’s good.”

  He gave her a brief sharp look before turning back to his pig.

  “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good. Because I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment without you getting into trouble on top of everything else.”

  Hannah crossed her fingers firmly behind her back.

  “Don’t worry, Dad. Everything will be fine. I promise.”

  In a classroom off the hall, Miranda was in full flow.

  “Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow,

  That I shall say ‘Good night’ till it be morrow.”

  She placed one hand on her heart and, with the other, blew an extravagant kiss to Ben, who winced.

  “Great!” said Hannah. It was so much easier to direct Miranda when the actual performance was never going to happen. “That was perfect.”

  “I know,” said Miranda, arranging strands of hair around her face with her fingers.

  Behind them, somebody gave an enormous sniff. They all turned. In the doorway, wiping imaginary tears from his eyes, stood Jack.

  “I’m sorry,” he gulped. “That was just so moving.”

  Ben threw his script at Jack. “Shut up, Adamson.”

  Jack ducked. “What? It is moving. Or is that just me? Is it meant to be a comedy?”

  “Jack, get out,” said Hannah. “We’re trying to rehearse.”

  Jack looked thoughtful. “Maybe it is just me. I’m very easily moved. I cry at cat-food adverts. If, you know, the cat looks really hungry, or has really big eyes.”

  “Jack! We’re having an important rehearsal here.”

  “Go ahead, don’t mind me. I only came to give you this.”

  He handed Hannah a memory stick. She took it, her heartbeat speeding up as her fingers brushed his.

  She looked at him. “Is this…?”

  “Just a sample of the kind of thing you might have in the background. Sounds, visuals, you know – what we were talking about on Saturday.”