by Ross Welford
Problem with that was Spatch was away in Naples with his Italian grandparents, where he goes every Easter; worse – he’d invited Mo to go with him. And not me.
I pretended I wasn’t hurt when they told me, but I was. When I talked to Mum about it, she was all like, ‘Oh well – we couldn’t have afforded the air fare, anyway, so no harm done,’ but that’s not the point, is it? Spatch was a bit embarrassed, I think. He said it was because there wasn’t room at his grandparents’ farmhouse, but I’ve seen pictures and it’s huge, and besides I’d have been happy to sleep on the floor. I nearly said that, but I’m glad I didn’t.
To ‘put the tin hat on it’ as Dad says, Aunty Alice and Uncle Jasper came to visit. Aunty Alice is OK, but Jasper? Sheesh.
I know Dad wasn’t happy because I heard him moaning to Mum: ‘Can’t they stay in a hotel, for heaven’s sake? It’s not like we’ve got loads of space.’
‘She’s my sister, Ben.’
Dad just tutted and rolled his eyes.
So, day four of the holidays. Aunty Alice and Jasper had arrived that morning, and I had moved into Libby’s room, on an airbed. She was at Brownie camp for the next couple of days so at least I wasn’t actually sharing with her yet, but still …
We all sat in the kitchen among the boxes left by the removal firm. Dad’s not working at the moment, so he was at home and he made tea and asked about Jasper’s boat (it’s a ‘safe topic’, apparently). Mum fussed over Aunty Alice’s blouse. Aunty Alice is much older than Mum and Jasper is much younger than Aunty Alice, although – thanks to his beard – he looks older than both of them, if that makes sense.
After Aunty Alice had said how much I’d grown, just about the only thing directed at me was Jasper saying:
‘And what about you, son? Are you getting enough of the old fresh stuff? You look like a flamin’ ghost!’ and then he grinned, showing his long white teeth, as if he didn’t really mean it, but I could tell that he did.
Aunty Alice said, ‘Aw, Jasper, he looks lovely!’, and Mum said to him with the faintest edge to her voice:
‘He’s fine, Jasper. Aren’t you, Aidan?’
I nodded vigorously, as if by nodding I could show my uncle that I was – to borrow one of his phrases – ‘as fit as a lopp’.
He went hmphh, and added, ‘Sea air. A bit of the old ventum maris. That’s what you need, son,’ then took a noisy slurp of his tea (black, no sugar).
He talks like that a lot, does Jasper. So far as I can tell, he has no regional accent, and no foreign accent, either. At times, he sounds slightly American, and at others more Australian, when his voice goes up at the end of a sentence as if he’s asking a question? It’s hard to work out. He was born in Romania and has narrow dark eyes – almost black – behind tinted glasses, and he’s lived in lots of countries.
I asked him once where he was from. ‘Just call me a nomad,’ he said, baring his teeth. Between you and me, I’m terrified of him.
With my milk finished and having heard the words ‘prime minister’ come from under Jasper’s beard, I figured it was time to make myself scarce. Once anyone mentions the government, the conversation – so far as I’m involved in it – is not going to improve.
‘I’m going outside,’ I said, and I got a grunt of what might have been approval from Jasper.
It was good to get out of the house. I did that big breathe-in-through-your-nose thing and exhaled with a loud ‘Haaah!’
Our house is on the very edge of the old bit of the estate. There are about ten tiny houses in a row, and then the new houses start next door. Over our back fence is just woodland. The woods don’t even have a name, so far as I know. They’re just ‘the woods’ or ‘that bit of woodland beyond the golf course’.
It would be really cool if there was a gate in the back fence that I could just open and be in the woods, but there isn’t, so it’s just this wooden wall, basically, at the end of the empty, rectangular yard.
On one side is an alleyway piled up with junk and smelling of cats’ wee. There’s an old mattress, and a rusty washing machine, and a bin liner spilling old clothes. Dad says it’s the council’s job to clear it up, but they’re obviously not interested. On the other side of Junk Alley live two ladies with short grey hair, Sue and Pru, who Mum has already met and declared ‘very nice’, adding, ‘One of them is a doctor.’ (I always thought doctors were quite well paid, so I don’t know why they’re living round here.)
Their yard has been turned into a neat, paved garden, and they have about five rescue cats. (Dad snorted when Mum told us. ‘Never trust anyone with more than two cats,’ he said, which I thought was a bit mean. I kind of like cats.)
On the other side of us is another garden, a proper one with grass, separated from our yard by a rickety fence.
So on the morning it all started I was standing there with my back to the fence, staring at the old houses made of dirty bricks. Half of the houses look as though they’re not even occupied and a couple have got broken windows. No wonder our house is cheap to rent. Mum and Dad say it’s only temporary.
‘Hello, Aidan!’
I looked about, startled, but I couldn’t see anyone. Then the voice laughed: a short bark of high-pitched glee. A girl. I did a full 360, trying to work out where it was coming from.
‘Over here!’
‘Where?’ I said. And then, ‘Ow!’ as something hard hit me on the cheek. A few seconds later, something whizzed past my nose.
‘Hey! Stop that,’ I said, and the terrier-bark laugh started again. Then I saw it: the yellow tube of a ballpoint pen withdrawing through a large hole in the back fence. Someone was using it as a pea-shooter to fire paper pellets at me, and she was a good shot.
I went over to the knothole and stooped to peer through it, and almost immediately felt a hard kick on my backside. Spinning round, I saw the tiniest girl grinning wickedly and cackling. I recognised her from school, although I didn’t know her name. We didn’t share any classes.
‘W-where did you come from?’ It really was as though she’d materialised from nowhere before my eyes.
‘I’m Roxy Minto. I live next door. You’re Aidan!’
‘Erm … I know. How did you know my name?’
She gave a little snort to show that she thought it was a stupid question. ‘How do you think? Your mum spoke to my mum. I saw your removal men carrying stuff in. You’ve got a red bicycle and a white wooden desk in your bedroom. Turn around.’
‘Why?’
‘Just turn around.’ She said it with such confidence that I found myself obeying, even though I half expected another kick in the pants.
‘How do you know the bike and desk are mine?’ I said over my shoulder, but there was no reply. I turned back … and Roxy had gone. Vanished.
‘Roxy?’ Then a plank in the fence that separates our gardens swung up, hinged on a horizontal strut. She poked her head through, giggling. ‘This way!’
It was a squeeze but I made it. (Roxy’s so tiny that she passed through and barely touched the sides.) And there I was in her overgrown garden, with tatty shrubs and flowers and weeds, and an old plastic slide.
Roxy strode through the uncut lawn to a massive bush that spilt over the fence and ran tendrils up a hazel tree. She pushed a branch aside and disappeared into it. Seconds later, I heard her voice on the other side of the back fence.
‘Are you coming or are you too scared?’
I pushed aside the branch. The big bush concealed a hole in the fence that led to a path separating the back fences from the woods. Up against the fence, and completely hidden from the garden side by the bush, was a shed: one of the pre-made ones that you see on building sites.
Roxy stood in the doorway. ‘Welcome to my garage!’ she declared, in her squeaky voice, and I could tell she was proud. She reached inside for a switch and a neon sign hanging from the roof flickered to life. It said GARAGE in pink vertical letters, but the first three letters didn’t work so it just said AGE, but – I have to ad
mit – it was still pretty good.
Inside was a battered desk, a wonky swivel chair, two wooden stools and a tiny fridge in the shape of a beer can. There was carpet on the floor, a lampshade on the light and even curtains at the windows. A very battered old sofa had yellow foam escaping from tears in the vinyl cushions. I laughed.
‘What’s so funny? Don’t you like it?’
Secretly I thought it was completely awesome, but I wasn’t going to say that, was I?
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Wh … where did you get all this stuff?’
I could tell she was disappointed with my reaction, and I immediately felt a bit bad. ‘Skip-diving, mainly,’ she said. ‘People chuck so much away in them, so you know – reuse, recycle, blah-di-blah. The neon sign’s the pièce de résistance!’ She did an exaggerated French accent and waved her hand theatrically.
‘You’d never know there was so much in here!’ I said, to make up for my earlier comment.
‘Not much to look at, but plenty on the inside, you mean? That’s what they say about me!’ She hopped onto a stool and reached across to open the fridge. ‘Fancy a beer?’
‘I … er …’
‘Kidding. Hey, you know “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary?’ and she tossed me a box of juice with a straw. ‘Have a seat. Take the weight off your feet. Mi casa es su casa!’
We sat for a bit, sipping our juices. I had known Roxy for about six minutes, and already I was certain that I hadn’t met anyone quite like her before.
When I said she was tiny, I wasn’t exaggerating. She was so small that, if I was guessing her age, I’d say about six, but her behaviour suggested someone much older, more like sixteen. Her skin was the shiny brown of polished wood, with even darker freckles across her nose, and her springy Afro hair was cut roughly and short, like a boy’s. Her clothes gave nothing away: shorts, flip-flops, dirty white T-shirt, denim jacket. Standard kid-in-summer gear. Only she had to be at least eleven because she was at Percy Academy.
It was her grin that I noticed the most, though. You know how some people, when their faces are resting, look naturally grumpy? It’s not like they’re in a bad mood or anything – it’s just that, when they have nothing particular to smile about, they don’t? Dad’s face is like that. People are always saying to him, ‘Cheer up, mate – it might never happen!’
Anyway, so far as I could tell, Roxy was the exact opposite. Her mouth seemed to be fixed in a permanent smile, as if she was laughing to herself about some private joke.
She caught me looking. ‘What you starin’ at? Haven’t you never seen a toff?’ Suddenly her accent was that of a Londoner and my surprise must have shown on my face. She laughed. ‘It’s a line from Oliver!’
I must have looked blank.
‘Oliver! You know – the musical? Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. When Oliver meets the Artful Dodger, that’s what Dodger says. We’re doing it in my Drama Club. I’m gonna be Dodger. I’ve got the costume and everything!’ She pointed to a long velvet coat and a man’s hat on a peg.
That I could believe. ‘How old are you, Roxy?’
Her voice changed again, this time to a posh old lady’s: ‘How dare you ask a lady her age, young man!’ She was clearly quite the actress, this new neighbour of mine. ‘Same as you. Four weeks older, actually.’
‘You know my birthday?’
She jumped down from the stool and opened the shed door.
‘There’s a lot I know about you, Aidan Henry Linklater. And your sister, Liberty, born on February the fifth. Put the juice box in the recycling there and follow me. There’s something I need to show you.’
I followed her into the woods, down a barely visible path. If only I had known what was to happen, I might have avoided a whole lot of trouble.
But I also would never have met Alfie Monk.
Roxy stomped ahead of me through the woods, pushing aside branches, and beating nettles with a stick. We lost sight of her ‘garage’ after only thirty metres or so.
‘You know where you’re going?’ I said, trying to sound dead casual – as though I wouldn’t really care if she said ‘no’. I don’t think she heard.
The woods were shady but not quiet. So far, the spring had been much warmer and drier than usual, and the leaves and twigs crunched loudly under our feet; when we stopped, I could hear a bee, and Roxy breathing. If I cocked my head, I could just make out the traffic on the A19 shushing past – a comforting sound: a reminder that, even though it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, we actually weren’t.
Then Roxy stopped and crouched down. ‘There. Can you see it?’
‘See what?’
‘There, man! You blind?’
Lower down the steeply sloping forest floor, between the silvery-grey trees and about as far away as I’d be able to throw a pine cone, I saw it: a mossy, slate-covered roof.
I glanced over at her to check if she was joking. I mean, a roof. So what? Roxy clocked my doubtful expression.
‘It’s better when you get nearer. Come on,’ and she was off through the trees. She was no longer bashing the nettles with her stick, and she advanced quietly, glancing back to check that I was following. Then she stopped.
We had a better view of the roof. It seemed to be level with us, which was odd, till I realised it was just because we were on a steep hill: it led down to a stone-built house surrounded by thick, spiky bushes – as if someone had planted the area especially densely to discourage intruders.
‘Careful here,’ whispered Roxy, and she pointed inside a bush at a coil of rusty barbed wire; the branches had grown around it. Further along, the bushes thinned out very slightly and there was a sign, one of those ones you can buy in hardware shops that says:
BEWARE: THE DOG ALWAYS ATTACKS
‘Erm … Roxy?’ I said.
She flapped her tiny hand dismissively. ‘There’s no dog. Don’t worry. Come on!’
I followed, feeling like an obedient puppy.
We came to a gap in the bushy barbed-wire defences. It would have been easy to squeeze through it had I been Roxy’s size. All I could do was lie absolutely flat on my belly and try to shimmy forward, following her flip-flops.
Her feet and lower legs were scratched all over and stung by nettles, but she didn’t seem to care.
Then the gorse bush cleared and we were in long grass: long enough to hide us if we lay flat. That’s when I saw the house properly.
The sloping ground extended another couple of metres and then dropped away sharply to become a brick wall about the height of a person. There was a neat, paved yard with a round fire-pit made of stone. A smouldering log gave off a thin wisp of smoke that rose up straight in the still air, and a few chickens pecked around on the ground. Next to the fire-pit was a round, metal pot, blackened with age and smoke.
The house itself was made of stone bricks, mottled and misshapen with age, and topped with a roof of the mossy slates I had seen from a distance. We were looking at the back of the house; the door was one of those ones that’s split in half. The top half was open but I couldn’t see inside. The paint on the door and window frames was a bit flaky; in fact, everything about the house looked old and dry and worn.
‘So, Roxy …’ I began.
‘Shhh!’
I lowered my voice. ‘So, Roxy. It’s someone’s house.’
‘Yes!’ she whispered back excitedly.
‘And this is a big deal?’
‘Well … yeah!’
‘Why exactly? People have houses, you know. They live in them.’
‘You don’t know who lives in this one.’
Roxy paused and took a breath, building the suspense. Then she stopped, both of our eyes drawn to a movement inside the doorway.
A woman appeared, framed in the open half of the door, and scanned the bushes and grass where we lay hidden. Instinctively we both shrank back.
I only got a quick look at her before she went back into the house. How old was she? I couldn’t tell. Long s
kirt, headscarf, sunglasses.
‘That was her,’ said Roxy.
‘That was who?’ I know this sounds like I was being deliberately uninterested to tease Roxy, but I just could not work out why she was so excited about some woman in a house. Big deal.
‘The witch.’
And, at that point, I forgot all about being quiet, and said – louder than I should have, probably – ‘Oh, Roxy!’
I was genuinely quite annoyed. Disappointed as well.
Annoyed with Roxy because I was lying in the grass, a bit scared, and covered in forest gunk and nettle stings, spying on someone’s house, probably breaking some law or other, and all for nothing. And disappointed because, well …
I’d thought Roxy might be a bit different. Someone fun to hang out with. Especially with Spatch and Mo in Italy.
And then she mentioned witches, for heaven’s sake. If I want witches, or unicorns, or animals in clothes, I just need five minutes with my little sister.
‘Shhh! She is, I’m telling you. She’s, like, two hundred years old and she lives in a cottage in the woods. She even has a black cat – look!’
Right on cue, a cat – not entirely black but anyway – strolled along the top of the wall right in front of us. It flashed us a look with its striking yellow eyes, then leapt gracefully down into the yard, mewling loudly, causing a chicken to flap out of its way.
‘Have you tasted it? The house?’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Is it made of gingerbread?’
The glare that Roxy gave me could have melted an ice lolly, but I didn’t care. This was just a silly fantasy.
‘I’m going back,’ I said, and I started to get up.
‘Get down!’ hissed Roxy. ‘She’ll see you.’
‘What? And turn me into a toad? I’ll take the risk, thanks.’
What happened next may have been my fault. I’m not really sure.
As I got to my hands and knees, Roxy grabbed my collar, and pulled me back down really hard, and, for someone so small, she had plenty of strength.
‘Stop it!’ I whispered, and struggled from her grasp and, as I did so, I pushed her. She rolled down the bank, scrabbling for my hand or for grass, or for anything to stop her tumbling into the yard, which was where she was headed.