The Tale of Angelino Brown

by David Almond

  Angelino giggles.

  “Dog poo!” he repeats.

  “Yes, dog poo!” says Jack. “Yuck!”

  Then he picks at some crumbs of chocolate cake and licks them off his fingers. He shrugs. He knows they won’t do anything like that.

  “So what can we do?” he says.

  He looks at Nancy.

  They all ponder. What should they do with characters like these? What would the Acting Head Teacher do? What would the Professor do? What would Sergeant Ground do?

  “Ms Monteverdi,” says Alice, “would probably say that these two silly creatures were once two very nice little boys.”

  “Is Alice right?” says Nancy. “Were you once very nice?”

  K shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says.

  “Of course you don’t really know. You were too young to remember. But you probably were. All boys when they begin are very nice indeed!”

  “Like me!” laughs Jack. “I was once very nice!”

  “And still are, Jack,” says Nancy.

  She smiles at him. Jack blushes. She blushes.

  The phone rings. Nancy picks it up.

  “Yes? Who am I speaking to? The Pope? The Chancellor of the Exchequer?”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “Oh, your name is Badger, is it?” she says. “Ah, you’re a man of the circus, are you? … Yes, the Boss is here but I am speaking on his behalf… Oh, you have a special cage, do you? And what do you think an angel is worth? … Is that all, Mr Badger? … Ah, you will go higher! Well, let me tell you, Mr Badger, you will go a good deal higher when I kick your silly bum. Now go away and find something sensible to do with your life.”

  She clicks off the phone.

  “What a silly world you live in!” she says to the two impostors. “I think you should go back to the very start. You should go back to being little boys and start again.”

  “So do I,” says Alice. “I think you should come to school with us on Monday and meet Ms Monteverdi.”

  “Excellent idea!” says Nancy. “Come on.”

  Kevin and Henry hesitate.

  Angelino glares at them.

  “OK,” whispers Kevin.

  “OK,” says the Boss.

  “OK,” says Nancy. “Now, let’s get out of this ridiculous place.”

  Back they all troop through the city streets, across an estate of red-brick houses, past shops and chapels, supermarkets, fishmongers and banks, through narrow streets and towards the city’s bustling heart.

  Angelino flies beside them.

  Kevin and Henry trot unhappily behind.

  “Come on,” says Jack. “Let’s run!”

  They cross the park where they met up this morning. Jack skips and swerves on the grass as if he has a football at his feet, as if he’s dribbling past invisible defenders. He laughs with the joy of it, with the joy of having Angelino back, with the joy of having escaped from Basher Malone. He lashes an imaginary ball into an imaginary net.

  “Gooaaaaal!” he calls. “Yesssss!”

  He punches the air.

  Nancy and Alice cheer and applaud.

  Angelino flutters and swoops through the brilliant sunlight.

  Kevin and Henry just watch. Jack shows them his Barcelona badge, his football shirt, his Number 10.

  “I’m Lionel Messi!” he tells them.

  The pair look blank.

  He groans.

  “You don’t even know who he is, do you?” he says.

  They shrug. They sigh.

  “Lionel Messi!” says Jack. “Lionel Andrés Messi! The greatest footballer the world has ever seen!”

  “I don’t know much about football,” says Henry.

  “Nor me,” admits Kevin.

  Jack is astounded.

  “Don’t know much about football! Did you never play it?”

  “Sometimes,” says Henry.

  “Once or twice,” says Kevin. “But not very well.”

  “Sometimes?” says Jack. “Once or twice? What have you been doing all your lives?”

  He swerves and runs again. He scores, he leaps, he punches the air.

  “You’ll play on Monday!” he says. “You’ll play with us on the field and you’ll understand! Goaaaal!”

  They hurry onwards.

  “Where first?” asks Alice Obi.

  “To Bert and Betty’s house!” says Nancy.

  “Yeeessss!” calls Angelino. “Yeeeeessss!”

  Out of the park, along a few more streets, past the bus depot, and here they are at last, in Bus Conductor’s Lane, at Bert and Betty’s door.

  All the curtains in the house are closed.

  “Would you like to ring the bell, Angelino?” asks Nancy.

  Angelino flutters, hovers, reaches out with his little hand and presses. No answer. He presses again. They all listen. Nothing. Then they hear slow footsteps in the hall. Angelino shivers, flutters, holds his breath. And then the door opens and Betty Brown peeps out, and she cannot believe what she sees there.

  “Oh, Angelino!” she cries. “Bert! Just come and see who has come back to us! Oh, Angelino! Angelino! Welcome home!”

  And the little angel flies into her arms.

  Everyone crowds into the little house. They open the curtains and let in the light. They gather in the living room. Betty dances, holding Angelino in her arms. Bert stands and grins, and tears of joy are tumbling from his eyes.

  Kevin and Henry linger in the half-lit hall.

  Betty looks, and sees them there.

  “Kevin Hawkins!” she says. “Were you involved in this?”

  Kevin looks down at his feet and starts to cry like a frightened little boy.

  “Were you?” says Betty.

  “Yes,” whispers Kevin. “I’m sorry, Mrs Brown.”

  “I am shocked!” she says. “I am … flabbergasted!”

  She looks at Bert; he is flabbergasted too.

  “Tea,” she says at last. “Tea and cakes and cheese-and-onion pasties and—”

  “Midget gems!” says Angelino.

  “Yes, midget gems and jelly, and you two silly people in the hall, come in here and sit on that sofa and don’t get in anybody’s way!”

  So they all set to work. They lay the table with dishes of lovely food, with a jug of pop and a pot of tea. They sit down together and get stuck in, and they take no notice of the sofa-sitting pair until they have feasted together. Then the children tell Bert and Betty the tale of Angelino’s rescue and of the horrors of Basher Malone.

  “What a pair of Villains you two are,” declares Betty.

  “And what a trio of Heroes you three are,” says Bert.

  Betty wipes her lips with a napkin.

  “Despite all that,” she says, “I don’t think they’re truly wicked.”

  “They’re certainly not truly good,” snaps Bert.

  “Maybe not,” says Betty. “But who is?”

  Bert smiles and takes her hand.

  “You are, love,” he whispers.

  “Silly man.”

  They look at each other like a pair of young lovers for a moment. Angelino flutters over their heads. Nancy watches and imagines what a beautiful painting this would make.

  “We think they’ve led each other astray,” says Nancy. “We think they’ve been growing up all wrong. We thought we might take them to school on Monday.”

  “Nice idea,” says Betty. “But what would Mrs Mole say? And the Professor? And the Government Advisor?”

  “They’d probably say it was ridiculous,” says Alice. “But I bet they won’t even notice. They seem all bewitched and befuddled and bewildered by their Very Important Educational Meetings.”

  “And Ms Monteverdi would welcome them into her Art room with open arms,” adds Nancy.

  Betty sighs. She thinks of Angelino. She thinks of Paul. She thinks of how much love she has in her heart for them both. She whispers something to Bert. He blinks in surprise.

  “Are you sure?” he whispers back.
/>   “Yes, Bert. I am.”

  She sits up straight.

  “I think,” she says to Kevin and Henry, “that you both need a bit of mummying and daddying. Am I right?”

  They say nothing.

  “Is she right?” says Bert in a very stern voice.

  “Yes,” they mutter.

  “Yes, indeed,” says Betty. “So I think that the pair of you should stay here with us for the weekend.”

  The pair gasp. Are there tears in their eyes?

  “But before anything else,” says Betty, “it’s about time you said sorry to this little angel.”

  They mutter something.

  “Speak up!” orders Bert.

  “Sorry, Angelino,” say the pair.

  “Say it like you mean it!”

  “We’re very, very, very sorry,” say Kevin and Henry.

  Angelino dances in the air and grins.

  He gives a little fart.

  “And,” says Betty, “it’s time to thank these fine children for saving you from the monster and from your own silly selves.”

  “Thank you, children,” say the imposters.

  Bert glares at them.

  “Thank you,” they say again, and they really seem to mean it, they really, really do.

  “Good!” says Betty. She folds her arms. “So! You two silly nitwits will stay here with us. You will both have baths and cocoa and an early night. Tomorrow you will tell us the stories of your lives. And then I’ll take you into school on Monday morning with Angelino. Do you agree, Bert?”

  “Yes, love,” says Bert.

  He folds his arms as well. He puts a very stern expression on his face.

  “And if there’s any bother from either one of you, you’ll be in deep, deep trouble. Understand?”

  “Yes, Bert,” say Kevin and Henry together.

  “Yes, Bert!” giggles Angelino. “Yes, Bert! Yes, Bert!”

  And he gives a tuneful little fart.

  “And mebbe,” says Betty, “you’ll turn out to be decent lads after all.”

  Time is passing. The day is rolling on.

  Jack Fox puts another midget gem into his mouth.

  “Me dad’ll be wondering where I am,” he says.

  Nancy looks at her watch.

  “And my mum,” she says.

  “And mine,” agrees Alice Obi. “Time to go.”

  They all sigh. They don’t move.

  “What an amazing day,” says Nancy.

  “An amazing day in an amazing life,” says Betty Brown.

  She hugs them all.

  “Go on, then,” she says.

  They hesitate. They hug her back. And then they go off to their homes.

  So. St Mungo’s School, on Monday morning. The Government Advisor Cornelius Nutt arrives in his big black shiny car. He makes his way through the knots of playing children. He is wearing his neat grey suit and his shiny black shoes and a very impressive striped tie. He has a briefcase in his hands, and a Very Serious and Important expression on his face.

  A nervous Mrs Mole welcomes him at the school door. Professor Smellie is at her side. He, too, is wearing a grey suit and shiny black shoes and a neatly fastened tie. His hair has been very carefully brushed.

  “Good morning, sir,” says Mrs Mole.

  “Good morning, madam,” says Nutt. “I trust you slept well.”

  “Very well, thank you, sir,” she replies. Though, to be honest, she looks as if she’s spent a night in a room full of monsters.

  “Excellent!”

  The Professor clears his throat. He nudges Mrs Mole.

  “I should inform you, sir,” says Mrs Mole, “that I have promoted the Professor to D-Deputy Head Teacher.”

  “Excellent news!” responds the Advisor. He shakes the Professor’s hand. “Congratulations, Smellie. The appointment of people like yourself into positions of authority will transform education in our country. Well done, Mrs Mole.”

  “Thank you, sir,” whispers Mrs Mole.

  She tries to smile, but instead she gasps. She shudders. She has just caught sight of an angel in jeans and a checked shirt flying above a football game at the far end of the yard.

  The Acting Head Teacher tries to compose herself. She needs to guide these two men inside, quickly. Her knees knock, her voice wobbles.

  “Please come this way,” she whispers. “Ms Cludd has prepared a room for us and…”

  She can’t move. She can’t believe it. Hawkins is out there too, running wildly about with the footballers. It’s him. She’s certain of it.

  “There will be coffee,” she manages to say. “There will be—”

  “Excellent!” says Nutt. “Lead on, madam.”

  She can’t move.

  “I do admire your suit, Smellie,” says the Advisor to the Professor. “This is just what these half-wild children and their incompetent teachers need to see. They need something to look up to. Something to aspire to. Something to help lift them above the level of their narrow little lives.”

  The Professor blushes. He smiles.

  “Mrs Mole?” says the Advisor.

  She is staring out into the yard. It is Hawkins. He is bent over with his backside in the air. And the angel is—

  “Mrs Mole!” says the Advisor again.

  He sees what she is looking at.

  “That boy,” he says. “He seems rather older than the other pupils.”

  “Kevin has grown up quickly,” she whispers.

  “What on earth is he doing?” says the Professor.

  “I think,” whispers Mrs Mole, “that he is playing ‘We Three Kings’.”

  The three of them stare out together through the glass door. They see an angel fly above the bending boy. They see the angel bend over in mid-air and stick his bottom out, copying the boy. They hear the children below him roar with laughter.

  Mrs Mole, Professor Smellie and Cornelius Nutt say nothing.

  They are silent and still.

  They stare together for long, long moments into the void, in which there are no laughing children, no farting Hawkinses, no angels.

  Then Samantha Cludd calls them.

  “This way, please,” she says. “There is coffee inside, and biscuits, and a lovely leather chair for each of you.”

  They follow her obediently towards a door. There is a notice on it:

  They step inside. It is good to leave the school yard and the void behind. Yes, it does look very clean and comfortable in here. There is a nice big desk and lovely soft leather chairs. There are pens and pencils and sheets of paper. There is a photograph of the Prime Minister and his wife on the wall, and another of the Queen. There is a photograph of the Secretary of State for Education, the rather handsome chap named Narcissus Spleen. The Advisor glances sideways at Spleen. Admiration and ambition stir within him. That is what he, Cornelius Nutt, aspires to be, the next Spleen, the very next Secretary of State for Education. And beyond that? He cannot restrain himself from looking at the picture of the Prime Minister himself…

  “Make yourselves comfortable,” says Samantha Cludd.

  They do that. Smellie and Cornelius Nutt sit down proudly.

  Poor Mrs Mole shivers as she takes her chair.

  Samantha softly shuts the door behind them.

  “A piece of cake!” says Ms Monteverdi. “Looks like they haven’t seen you. And even if they have, they’re so befuddled they can’t believe it. This way to the Art room, folks!” She leads the children towards her classroom door.

  Samantha Cludd stands in their way. She points at Kevin.

  “Is that who I think it is?” she snaps.

  “I have no idea who you think it is,” says Ms Monteverdi. “I have no idea what you think about anything inside that very peculiar brain of yours. This young gentleman is, in fact, Kevin da Vinci, a well-known artist from the deep and sunlit South. Am I correct, Signor da Vinci?”

  Kevin gasps. Nancy prods him.

  “I thought you were a Master of Disguise!” she
hisses.

  “Zees ees correct!” blurts out Kevin. He’s astonished at himself. He had no idea that he was about to say such a thing until he heard it springing from his mouth. “And zees,” he says, turning to Henry, “eez my colleague, Signor Henry Picasso. You may av heard of im?”

  “No,” says Samantha Cludd.

  “Zat,” says Kevin, “eez your misfortune. We ave been sent ere by the Grand Union of European Artists to paint zees angel inside zees school.”

  “What?” says Samantha. “That silly little wingy thing?”

  “Oh, signorina,” says Kevin, “you demean zees gorgeous and unique creature. You deed not know about zees?”

  “I did not,” states Samantha Cludd.

  She stands her ground.

  Henry Picasso steps forward.

  “Signorina,” he says softly, “as anyone told you zat you ave zee profile of a classical goddess?”

  “Me?” says the School Secretary.

  “Yes. You. You bring to mind zee work of Mozzarella and of—”

  “Antipasto!” suggests da Vinci.

  “Indeed!” agrees Picasso. “Zee great Antipasto. Signorina, I would love zee opportunity to paint you.”

  Samantha Cludd blinks.

  “Me?” she whispers. “Me, Samantha Cludd?”

  “Yes, signorina. You!”

  Samantha’s face softens.

  “When?” she asks.

  “Today, of course!” says Picasso. “Zat is, unless you ave anything more important to be doing.”

  Samantha looks towards the closed door of the Very Important Educational Meeting Room.

  “Well…” she says. She ponders. “I will need to do my hair and put some make-up on…”

  “Come just as you are,” says Picasso. “You look wonderful already.”

  She blushes.

  “OK,” she says softly.

  “Zees eez wonderful!” says Kevin da Vinci. “Ms Monteverdi, onward to zee Art room!”

  And so they all go, with the angel dancing happily above their heads, into the sunlit classroom.

  They put canvases onto easels. They spread great sheets of paper on the long tables. They find paints in tubes and in palettes and sticks of charcoal and pencils in all grades of hardness, and clay and plasticine, and they put aprons on and they sit on tall stools and ancient wooden chairs and from the very start the large square room is a lovely blend of colour, of form, of dust dancing in brilliant shafts of light, of creatures called children and creatures called adults, and of a single creature called an angel who flies above and around them all and seems to fly within them all too.