The Quigleys at Large

by Simon Mason

  He wasn't sure how long he'd been dressing up when he noticed the silence. Before, there had always been faint noises coming from Miss Petz's classroom, where Ben's choir was practising. Now he couldn't hear them. He removed the silver plastic skirt from his head to listen better. No, there were no noises at all. The whole school was perfectly hushed. He glanced nervously up and down the empty corridor. It looked less friendly than before. For the first time, it seemed somehow wrong that he was there. He thought to himself that he ought to go before it was too late. And it was then that he heard the footsteps.

  At first he thought perhaps they weren't real footsteps. Sometimes, when he was nervous, he imagined noises that weren't there. But, as he listened, the footsteps came nearer.

  He crouched down and tried to blend in with the lost property box, which he very nearly did because he was wearing so much of it. He began to think things to make the footsteps stop, really big things like, I'll be nice to Lucy the whole of tomorrow and all next week, if only this isn't happening. But it was no good. The footsteps came slowly nearer. And finally, as he watched, a figure came round the corner.

  ‘Peachey!' Will cried. The boy in the corridor jumped and looked all round and shouted, ‘I didn't do it! I wasn't even thinking of it!’

  Will stood up and waved. ‘Over here, Tim!’

  Tim stared at Will in horror. ‘It's me!' Will called. Tim recognized him and rushed down the corridor. ‘Watch out,’ he panted as he ran. ‘There's someone else in here. He just shouted out. Sort of low and horrible. Vicious and low and horrible and vicious.’

  Will realized with surprise that Tim was a bigger dreamer than he was.

  ‘Tim,’ he said. ‘That was me.’

  Tim thought about this. After a while he said, ‘Why are you dressed like that?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like a jumble sale.’

  Will took off the lost property, which he had forgotten about. ‘I left my coat, so I came in to get it,’ he explained. ‘And then I sort of got carried away. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Left my bag. I was going past, and I saw the door open, and I came in.’

  They were so pleased they hugged each other.

  ‘Your dad's here,’ Will said. ‘Or, at least, he was.’

  Tim was uninterested in this. ‘He thought I didn't know where my bag was,’ he said with disgust.

  Will nodded. ‘They didn't believe I knew where my coat was.’

  ‘They never believe you. That's one of the things about them.’

  They walked along the corridor towards the hall.

  ‘How long have you been here?' Will asked.

  ‘About half an hour.’

  ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘I went upstairs and played with the fire extinguisher for a bit. I wasn't going to steal it, I didn't even think of it. Anyway,’ he added, ‘I couldn't get it off the wall. What about you?’

  ‘Same sort of stuff,’ Will said. ‘I watched your dad singing. That was good, his mouth's much bigger than I thought. It's a good mouth,’ he added, in case Tim thought he was being rude. ‘Oh, yes, I got my coat too, I keep forgetting that. And then it got quiet,’ he said.

  Tim nodded. ‘I don't like things this quiet.’

  Will said, ‘I can't hear any singing at all, can you? Maybe they're having a rest.’

  They listened. The school seemed very big and empty all around them. Bigger and emptier than before. They walked close together.

  ‘Weren't the doors to the hall open when we came in?' Tim said, when they got to the end of the corridor.

  ‘Someone's shut them,’ Will said.

  They looked at each other.

  ‘Do you think your dad's still here?’

  ‘I don't know.’

  ‘Do you think anyone's here?’

  They began to walk faster. They jogged through the hall, then ran from the hall to the main door, and when they got to it they found that it was locked.

  They stood panting, looking through the glass panel at the yard.

  Will sighed. ‘Now I'm going to be late home,’ he said. ‘And I promised I wouldn't be.’

  Tim pulled at the door handles and gave the door a kicking, and when he was tired, he said, ‘We're locked in. We're going to be locked in all day,’ he said. ‘And all night,’ he added.

  If Will had been on his own, he would have been frightened. But he had Tim with him, and he knew straightaway that it was very important not to be frightened, so as to be able to think of a plan.

  ‘It's OK,’ he said. ‘We just have to think of a plan.’

  ‘I don't like plans much,’ Tim said. He began to kick the door again.

  ‘Wait,’ Will said. ‘I know. We can phone my mum and dad. There's a phone in the office.’

  They ran together to the office, and when they got there they found that door locked as well.

  ‘I'm going to go back to the main door,’ Tim said, ‘to see what happens if I kick it a bit more.’

  ‘No, wait,’ Will said. ‘I know something else we can do. We can climb out of a window.’

  Tim liked that, but the nearest window wouldn't open.

  ‘It's locked too,’ he said. ‘These catches won't move.’

  ‘Let's try another one,’ Will said. ‘They can't all be locked. I mean, there are hundreds of windows in this school. Who would go around locking them all?’

  They tried thirty-seven windows, and they were all locked.

  ‘I've thought of a plan now,’ Tim said. ‘We can smash a window. That'll open it.’

  Will looked doubtful. ‘Well, I don't think I'd actually want to smash one,’ he said.

  ‘I would,’ Tim said. ‘But, Tim, we don't know how to smash windows.’

  ‘It's pretty easy. You have to be careful to knock out all the jagged bits afterwards so you don't cut your wrists off. But then you just climb through.’

  He began to tap expertly round the edges of the window pane. Will realized he was serious. ‘Easy, Tim,’ he said. ‘Tim?’

  ‘What?' ‘I don't think I've told you before that I don't like loud noises.’

  ‘Stand back.' Tim rolled up his sleeves, looked at his wrists, then rolled his sleeves down again.

  ‘And we could get into trouble, Tim. Our names could go in the book.’

  Tim didn't say anything, he was too busy taking off his football socks and putting them on his hand to make a sort of boxing glove. He took a deep breath and began to swing his arm round and round.

  Will put his fingers in his ears and closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again, Tim was tottering up and down the corridor, holding his hand in front of him, very red in the face. He had taken the socks off his hand, and his hand was very red too. The window wasn't broken, though there was a sort of smudge in the middle of it.

  Will went over to Tim and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Never mind, Tim,’ he said. He used a sympathetic voice that reminded him of Dad. ‘You hit it really hard, I couldn't have hit it that hard. It's not your fault it didn't break. In fact, I think I remember someone telling me all the windows in this school were made with special glass from Russia which you actually can't break. It's unbreakable.' He felt very relieved.

  When Tim had finished crying, he wiped his face with his socks and began to look around. ‘All I need is a brick,’ he said. ‘A brick or an iron bar, or maybe a metal chair, to throw through it.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Will said suddenly. ‘What's that noise?' They listened. ‘Voices,’ Will said. ‘Outside. Quick!' They crowded to the glass panels of the doors, and looked out onto the road.

  ‘Look, it's Dani and Sandy!' Tim said.

  Their friends were walking along the pavement. They saw Dani run across the grass verge to the school railings where the other bike was chained up.

  ‘Here it is!' they heard him call to Sandy. ‘I told them I knew where it was. They wouldn't believe me.’

  ‘And here's my hat,’ they hea
rd Sandy shout back. ‘They said it was lost for good. Now I'll show them.’

  ‘Look,’ Dani said. ‘Someone else has left their bike here. People leave their stuff everywhere.’

  ‘Hey!' Will and Tim shouted together. ‘Hey!' Dani and Sandy looked up and down the road.

  ‘In here!' Tim and Will shouted. When Dani and Sandy saw them, there was terrific excitement all round. Dani and Sandy climbed the railings and jumped up and down outside, and Tim gave the door another kicking, and Will showed Dani and Sandy how Tim had punched the window and hurt his fist and had to go and sit down.

  When they'd all calmed down, Sandy asked if they were coming out to play.

  ‘We're locked in, you idiot,’ Tim said.

  ‘Oh,’ Sandy said. ‘I thought you were just pretending.’

  ‘Chill, boys,’ Dani said. ‘We'll rescue you.' He was very calm. He wasn't locked in.

  ‘How?' Will said.

  They were all silent for a while.

  ‘What about tunnelling?' Sandy said. ‘I saw this film once.’

  Dani retreated a little way and scanned the school front. ‘Boys,’ he said. ‘It's really quite simple. Just leave it to me.’

  Sandy gave him a leg up to the window sill, and Dani clung to the wall. After a while he fell off.

  ‘What were you trying to do?' Will asked.

  Dani explained that if only he could get hold of the guttering, he could pull himself onto the porch roof, climb up the roof to the top, swing across to a nearby window, heave himself up onto the main roof and search for a skylight, which it would be easy to smash his way through.

  They all considered this plan. Eventually Will said that they were trying to get out, not Dani get in.

  Sandy said he thought explosives would be useful. ‘I saw this film once,’ he said. ‘And they made dynamite by weeing on this grey stuff.’

  For half an hour they thought up plans, and Tim occasionally kicked the door, and Dani tried five times to get beyond the window sill, and finally Sandy said, ‘Oh well, I don't think anything we do is going to work. I'll go home and get the key off my mum.' There was a pause after he said this. ‘What do you mean, “get the key”?' Will said.

  ‘Mum's chairperson of the school governors,’ Sandy said. ‘And she has to organize meetings after school and stuff. So, of course you have to have a key if you do that sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh.' There was a vague air of disappointment.

  ‘Unless anyone can think of something else,’ Sandy said.

  Nobody could. Sandy went.

  When he returned with his mum, everything seemed to speed up again. She unlocked the door and Will and Tim bounded out as if newly released to the wild, and all four boys leaped around the yard, whooping and telling each other what had just happened, even though they had all been there and knew it all already.

  Then Will suddenly said, ‘Hang on. What's the time?’

  ‘One o'clock,’ Sandy's mum said.

  Will slapped his forehead. ‘I'm going to be late, and I promised I wouldn't be!' He ran for his bike.

  He went at top speed down the road and across the wooden bridge, and down the cycle track by the vicarage, and into Parkside Road, and down the road to his house, almost without breathing, and flung himself through his front door.

  ‘Here I am!' he shouted, when he could.

  Lucy came into the hall. ‘Are you late?' she asked.

  ‘No,’ Will said casually, panting.

  Mum came into the hall, looking at her watch.

  ‘Not very,’ he added. Mum was staring at him, and Dad came down the stairs, looking distracted.

  ‘Good God,’ Dad said.

  ‘What?' Will asked nervously.

  ‘Well. I didn't think we'd see that again.’

  ‘You did know where it was, all along,’ Mum said.

  For a moment he was confused. Then he remembered his coat, which he was wearing, and his whole face went pleased.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, and his voice slowed down and had a sort of a grin to it. ‘Told you I knew where it was. I mean, it's all to do with not forgetting things and not getting into a dream, isn't it?’

  Both Mum and Dad were smiling and shaking their heads as he swaggered past them into the kitchen.

  ‘By the way, did you have a good time?' Dad asked.

  ‘Pretty good,’ Will said. ‘All things considering.’

  ‘Good boy,’ Mum said. ‘And you gave Dani his invitation?’

  Will turned. ‘What invitation?' he said.

  Mum at the Fête

  Mum had her wisdom teeth out. She came home from the hospital carrying them in a little plastic bag. They looked like dice with legs.

  ‘Sick,’ Lucy said.

  Will was interested in how much Mum was going to get from the tooth fairy.

  ‘I don't think fairies deal in such large amounts of tooth,’ Dad said. ‘What we really need are people who deal in black market ivory.’

  Mum said she felt fine, but Dad was worried about her and said she had to spend a couple of days in bed. ‘Peace and rest,’ he said. ‘Having your wisdom teeth out is a serious operation.' He told the children that they had to be quiet in the house for the next two days. He had that determined look, the slightly cross-eyed one.

  ‘Two days?' Mum said. ‘What am I going to do with myself for two whole days?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Dad said. ‘That's the point. We're going to do everything.’

  Will and Lucy took it in turns to carry orange squash up to her. They took her twelve beakers of squash on the first day, and fifteen beakers on the second, so as to cheer her up. She didn't look cheered up. She looked bored.

  ‘I'm definitely going to get up for the school fête on Saturday,’ she said.

  Dad said he'd think about it. In the meantime he did what Mum usually did. He took Will and Lucy to school, and picked them up from school, and gave them tea, and gave Lucy's friends tea, and gave Will's friends tea, and took Lucy to her ballet lesson, and took Will to his clarinet lesson, and did Lucy's spellings with her, and helped Will with his science revision, and made Lucy's packed lunch, and unstitched the piece of shapeless towel that Will had been working on at school for four weeks and turned it into a Tudor hat, which is what it was supposed to be.

  ‘I liked it the way it was,’ Will said. Will and Lucy thought Dad was taking things too far. It was hard for them, being calm and quiet all the time.

  On Thursday night they fooled around when they were getting into bed, and Dad got cross. ‘Quiet!' he whispered fiercely, tucking them in. ‘Mum's probably asleep.’

  They fooled a bit more. Dad hissed again.

  Will thrust his finger up to Dad's face. ‘Look at that,’ he said. There was a small dark ball of something on the end of one of his fingers.

  Dad recoiled. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Bloody snot,’ Will said with satisfaction.

  Dad expressed his disgust, so Will flicked it onto the carpet.

  ‘What did you do that for?' Dad said furiously.

  Lucy scrambled over. ‘Where is it?' she said excitedly. ‘Where did it go?’

  ‘For God's sake!' Dad yelled. ‘You have to be quiet!' Mum appeared at the top of the attic stairs, looking interested. ‘What was it?' she asked. ‘Where did it go?’

  Dad sent her back to bed. The next night it was the same. Will and Lucy had been quiet ever since they came in from school, and by bedtime they didn't have any more quietness in them.

  ‘Hey, Dad!' Will said from the top bunk. ‘Do you know what I learned today? I learned to sing in Hebrew.’

  ‘No, Will!' Dad said, but Will had already wrapped himself in his duvet and begun to sway from side to side, singing in a loud but tragically low voice, ‘Dosh, mosh, kabbosh …' and Dad shouted so hard he said afterwards he thought he'd damaged his throat.

  Upstairs they heard Mum laughing.

  On Saturday, the day of the school fête, Mum woke early and said that she would make pancakes f
or breakfast, and Dad said, ‘No.' Even though he was feeling tired after doing everything that Mum usually did, he got up and went down to make the pancakes himself.

  The first pancake burned and Dad tossed it fairly accurately into the bin. The second one burned and he missed the bin. The third got tangled up and looked like knickers, and Dad gave it to Will.

  ‘This isn't a pancake,’ Will said.

  ‘What is it then?' Dad said sharply.

  Will thought hard. He found it difficult to describe the knicker-pancake-thing. ‘It's a lump of despair,’ he said at last.

  After they had cleared the table and thrown away the frying pan, they practised skipping, because Lucy had entered the skipping competition at the school fête. She was going to do it with her best friend, Pokehead.

  ‘Can Mum come down and practise with me?' Lucy asked.

  ‘I know skipping,’ Dad said. ‘I know all about skipping. I was skipping champion twelve times on the trot when I was younger.’

  Lucy frowned at him.

  ‘Twelve,’ Dad said. ‘Or was it thirteen?’

  He tied one end of a spare piece of electric flex to the radiator in the back room, and turned the other end.

  ‘You have to sing the song as well,’ Lucy said. ‘Do you know the song ‘Two Six Nine'?’

  ‘I know it all right,’ Dad said. ‘You jump, I'll sing.’

  He turned the electric flex, and Lucy jumped, and Dad sang:

  Two six nine

  The goose drank wine

  The cow danced a jig and the

  fish went blind.

  Lucy stopped jumping. ‘Those aren't the words,’ she said crossly, and at that moment Mum came into the room. She was dressed and looked very well, and she took the electric flex from Dad, who didn't say anything.

  ‘Are you ready?' Mum said to Lucy. And, as she turned the flex, she began to sing in a loud, clear voice:

  Two six nine

  The goose drank wine

  The monkey chewed tobacco on the