‘He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother,’ agreed the pigeon, and forgetting that he’d just been begging for his life from this very creature, he flew up and settled in on the scarecrow’s right shoulder. ‘Take a load off,’ he said. ‘A trouble shared is a trouble halved. I will be your safe haven.’
‘A haven is not what I would call it,’ said the raven. ‘More like a dumping ground.’
‘You wants to listen?’ The scarecrow sounded like a whole new stick. ‘You will unleave? It makes me happiness, it does.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said the raven. ‘His diet is terrible.’
‘Better out than in,’ the pigeon said.
The scarecrow chuckled as though it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Standing around in rain, heat and wind all the time must have had a negative effect on his sense of humour.
The raven hopped over to the strawberry patch, scanning the ground for insects and slugs. He also had a soft spot for Farmer Reece’s strawberries. Especially the soft, almost rotten ones, down near the soil, a little squashed from bearing the weight of the whole bush. Those ones exploded in his mouth like perfect balls of happiness.
‘Could you tell me, large blackbird,’ the scarecrow said, ‘how is it that those are tasting?’
The raven grunted. Disturbed meal times were high on his list of aggravations. Not only was it rude, but it was awful for digestion.
‘I is just head-thinking,’ said the scarecrow, ‘because every day I sees them. And sniffs them. And they are looking of much wonder, but I can never be eating them, of course. But I do always think of their taste. And alls the long-ears and small sparrow-wings are spending much of their time trying to eats them. They be hole-ripping in the wired fence. It makes me head-think that they must have much wonderfulness.’
‘Sparrows,’ scoffed the raven. ‘Almost worse than pigeons.’
‘Is there much wonderfulness in those berries? It would be pleasing to me if it was so.’
‘What makes you think I care?’ said the raven.
‘I thinks, handsome bird,’ said the scarecrow, ‘that you be of caring much more than you looks.’
The raven shrugged and retreated back under his cabbage leaf.
‘I imaginate,’ the scarecrow continued, ‘that those berry-eats are full of magical-tasting things.’
‘Oh yes,’ said the pigeon, always ready with his two cents, ‘they really are most delectable. Keep you regular, too, which is always a jolly bonus.’
‘They are,’ said the scarecrow, ‘of much deliciousness?’
‘Oh yes,’ said the pigeon, ‘it is like tasting a shared secret.’
‘They have,’ said the scarecrow, ‘much tantalisation?’
‘Like summer’s heart.’
‘They will,’ said the scarecrow, ‘take of you your breathing?’
‘In the most exuberant of ways,’ said the pigeon, hopping up and down.
‘Don’t get excited,’ the raven said. ‘We know what that will lead to.’
But he was all but invisible to the pigeon and the scarecrow, who were chatting away as if they’d always been firm friends. Either the scarecrow was desperate for company or just a very good actor, because there was no way the pigeon was a charming companion. The raven hopped about the vegetables, searching for worms, and listened to their nonsensical chatter as he devised ways to bring Barnabas Brittle to justice and win back his rightful place at Father Cadman’s side.
When the raven finally came out from under his vegetable roof the scarecrow was alone. The pigeon was off investigating some scummy leftovers in an old horse trough.
‘The evening be of much niceness,’ the scarecrow said. ‘It is my bestest time. Can you see?’
The sun was setting beyond the furthest perimeter of the farmyard fence. Ripples ran through the western fields of wheat, their furry tops a blaze of yellow. The heat had passed out of the day and everything seemed to slowly give a collective breath out. Shrivelled leaves uncurled, colours deepened and cornstalks bent to giggle and gossip with each other.
The raven watched it and felt his insides unravel and melt away. He was a young chick again, and the world had not yet cast its worries on him, and all the responsibility and disappointment of his later life belonged to the world outside his nest.
Soon evening would pass and the wheatfields would draw down the darkness. And then the raven would fly back through the cool, still night, the stars like tiny chips of ice falling away from the moon. And he would return to his belltower, to his sparkling treasure, and just like the scarecrow he would be alone. And then he would wake up in the morning and be exactly the same. And then, perhaps worst of all, just like the scarecrow, he would be so lonely, such an outcast that he would start welcoming pigeons as company.
He couldn’t let that happen.
The raven looked down. He looked up. He looked away, back into the sun. He looked at the scarecrow. And then, finally, he looked at his own body.
And he knew he could not fool himself. The church was all he had left. He had to find a way back in.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The raven woke the next day disgruntled and tired – he’d spent all night worrying over his predicament and how he could go about fixing it. He pushed away his treasure and winged it back to the scarecrow, noticing that the pigeon had already left his mark on one of the poor fellow’s arms.
Typical.
‘Do you mind?’ the raven said, sitting as far away from it as he could get. ‘I’ve got a lot to think over. I need the space.’
‘Oh!’ said the scarecrow. ‘I was not much waiting for your coming again. But it is welcome. Rest your end on my arm and I will be mouth-shut for your head thoughts. I take much gratefulness of your company. Only not long passed, when the sun is waking up first shiny-bright, I is trying to wave some small raven-birds over to have rest on my arm. They is over by the tree of lemons, but they looks up at I and almost die to go away fast.’
‘Small raven-birds?’ asked the raven. ‘You mean blackbirds?’
‘Theys be the ones. I do get much confusion.’
‘It’s hardly the same thing.’
‘It’s not?’
‘Personally, I wouldn’t waste my time with them. They have no credibility at all, and I don’t know why so many songs celebrate their singing. I’ve heard better sounds coming out of a dying cat.’ He spotted a worm wriggling out the collar of the scarecrow’s shirt and darted in to snap it up. ‘Kraaa!’ he said.
‘Not again!’ said the worm.
‘Oh,’ said the scarecrow. ‘I be of thanks to you. They gets in some time. It is most terrible uncomfortable. Worser than when it is rainy-shine and the hay is having much to do with itching, or when the sun is so hotness I think alls my straw is looking to make friends with flame.’
‘Yes,’ said the raven, ‘I imagine so.’ He reached up a claw and scratched his head – once, twice, three times. He stood on one foot and puffed himself out before settling down into his ruffled feathers, ready to plot Barnabas Brittle’s demise. It was a while before he noticed the scarecrow chuckling.
‘Is something wrong?’ the raven said. ‘Something funny?’
‘Oh, nots much,’ said the scarecrow. ‘I is thinking you have much charm and handsomeness indeed.’
‘That’s more like it,’ said the raven.
‘I is not charming,’ the scarecrow said. A tremor ran through his rickety old body. ‘I is not charming at all. If I is, the long-ears and the small wings would not be running away.’
‘It’s probably more to do with their mental capacity,’ said the raven.
‘I has not much to do with nice looks,’ said the scarecrow. ‘I must be of much ugliness, is what I think.’
‘Hmm,’ said the raven. He did not want to get into the merit of beauty. He had a thief to catch and a church to win back.
‘What is your thoughts?’ asked the scarecrow. ‘Is I being of much ugliness?’
‘You’re u
gly, all right,’ the raven said. ‘That’s the whole point of you. But you should see your partner over in the southern field. Disgusting. He smells like a dung pile in summer. Covered in droppings. Probably from pigeons. It’s only the crows that will go near him. Always picking at his ears. Vile.’
‘I wish somebodies would pick at my ears,’ the scarecrow said.
‘Kraaa!’ said the raven. ‘That’s a first.’
‘I is sure I had much beauty once,’ said the scarecrow. ‘I is sure I had much usefulness. Maybe also I was happy. But I cannot remember. I has been here for such a very long time.’
‘I know the feeling,’ said the raven.
‘You do?’ said the scarecrow.
‘Don’t make it personal,’ said the raven, and hopped away to peck at the radishes.
‘Well,’ said the scarecrow, ‘I thinks the fault cannot be with me. I thinks most other bodies would also be of ugliness too if they was dumped in among much fruits and vege-eats and left with only wet-shine and ice-balls and sunniness for much years and nobodies be checking on them to see if they are still of smiles.’
‘What is your opinion on the lettuces?’ called the raven from under his radish plants. ‘Worth a taste? And what do you think is the best way to catch a thief?’
‘I do so wants to be of plenty beauty,’ said the scarecrow. ‘I have much likes for beautiful things. Like Lucie Jordan. She is of much beauty, more than the sun when it melts.’
‘Who?’
‘Lucie Jordan. She be a friend to me. Do yous be having a special girl friend, handsome bird?’
An image of the weatherhen flashed unbidden into the raven’s mind. Shocked, he started up, and fell back into the radishes. The bulbs looked like her round, whirling eyes. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t have any female friends. I don’t have any friends. And that’s just the way I like it.’
‘I can be your friend.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ the raven said.
‘Is that true thoughts, the way you like it? Being always much alone?’
The raven didn’t reply.
‘She is foot-stepping past the fence of most times of the day,’ said the scarecrow. ‘It makes me feel of much warm head-thoughts to see her. But I think others, too. There is many boys that be following her.’
‘Youth these days,’ muttered the raven, head buried in the loam. ‘Yes, I know the one. Minion of that Mackenzie Trebuchet.’
‘She is of much beauty, but also of much kindness. Always she be hand-waving at me, or of smiles, or sometimes of doing up my shirt when it be pulling loose. Always she be checking me when the rain and the wind have been fighting. Many times I have practised what is the words I would like to talk to her. But I thinks that while I be here, sticking to the ground so strong, I not be having much chance.’
‘Yes, it could be a problem. Also, you’re a scarecrow – if you get my drift?’
‘No,’ said the scarecrow. ‘I be having no drifts.’
‘Bitter,’ said the raven. ‘These lettuces are bitter. No wonder they don’t have any slugs.’ He had moved on to the silverbeet when the scarecrow let out a whoop of joy.
‘Handsome bird-friend, here she be!’
‘Who? The weatherhen?’
‘No, no! My Lucie! My Lucie girl.’
The raven stuck his head out from the silver-beets. There she was, in her lace and ribbons and golden curls, pushing her way through the field gate and coming down the path, her hand brushing over the boxy hedge. On her heels was a group of boys, all gaggle-eyed and jostling each other for the best view.
‘Oh,’ said the scarecrow, ‘she is but the most beautifulest.’
Without quite realising he was doing it, the raven flew up and straightened the scarecrow’s old hat so it fell across his face in a way both mysterious and charming. Then he gave the scarecrow’s chest a few good whacks with his wings. It swelled out most impressively, full of puffed straw.
‘Stand up straight, now,’ said the raven. ‘You want to look your best.’
‘My bestest be not very good.’
‘It’s all in the carriage,’ said the raven. ‘Suffering gives such character to a creature. Everyone likes a tortured soul. And if that fails, I have an eyepatch that works wonders.’
Lucie and her admirers stopped at the gate leading into the vegetable patch. The boys were rowdy and uproarious and, all in all, quite distasteful. No surprise there. Lucie, however, was quite the little picture, perched so prettily on the bars of the gate. She looked over in their direction, and the raven saw the sweet smile that had so beguiled the scarecrow’s heart.
One of the boys leaned over and grabbed a handful of strawberries, which grew wild and abundant along the fence. He went to offer one to Lucie but caught her gazing at the scarecrow, and as he popped the strawberry into his own mouth his eyes became little slits of jealousy.
‘Check out that stupid old thing,’ he said through his stuffed mouth. ‘What an eyesore. Looks like his time was up ten years ago.’
‘I think he’s nice,’ said Lucie.
‘I think he’s rubbish,’ said the boy.
The other boys looked up now and the raven felt the scarecrow stiffen.
‘Ohs,’ the scarecrow whispered, ‘I not be liking the looks in their eyes.’
‘Leave him alone,’ said Lucie. ‘He’s not hurting you.’
‘Hurting my eyes,’ said the boy.
‘Yeah,’ chimed in another. ‘That’s the worst scarecrow I’ve ever seen. Look at his mouldy old head. Dirty thing. Looks like he’s staring right at us. That’s unnatural.’
‘Yeah,’ said the first, ‘we’ll show him a thing or two, what do you reckon? We’ll show him what a useless old bag of straw he is.’
And then, before Lucie Jordan could even open her mouth to protest, he grabbed another handful of strawberries and threw them, one by one, at the scarecrow’s face.
Startled, the raven fluttered away, but the scarecrow had to stay where he was lashed. He stood there, surrounded by whoops and laughter, as the boys threw strawberry after strawberry. As each hit their mark, a deep crimson-red sunk into the scarecrow’s burlap face and made a clownish mockery of his mouth.
‘Stop! Stop!’ Lucie tugged at their arms. The scarecrow lifted his head, just a little.
‘Why?’ said the boys. ‘It’s just a dumb scarecrow. It can’t think. It can’t feel.’
Lucie Jordan stared at the scarecrow as the strawberries went whizzing by her ears.
‘Come on, Luce,’ said the first boy. ‘Lighten up. What do you care about something like that for? It’s useless. Wasn’t even keeping that crow away.’
Suddenly the boy was ten times more distasteful than the raven had first thought. He watched as the boy nudged Lucie in the side and she giggled and tossed her head. Then she tore her gaze away from the scarecrow and looked up through her lashes at the boy.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s only a silly scarecrow. Come on.’
And without a backward glance, she skipped away.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Once Lucie was gone the boys lost interest in the scarecrow and hurried after her, licking the juices from their scarlet-stained hands.
An impossible silence fell over the raven and the scarecrow. The raven cleared away the pulpy mess underneath the scarecrow and attempted to pick off the pieces of berry clinging to his face. But the scarecrow twitched and turned his head away.
‘I is empty,’ he said. ‘Somebodies has hand-picked a spade and hollowed from my insides.’
‘Steady on,’ said the raven.
‘I is of fibres that have been much wrenched and twisted until they be friends with a knot.’
‘Less is more, I’m always told,’ the raven said.
‘I is a husk of a beetle, wanting much to be blown away until I be seen never. But heres I be bound, and I knows only shame.’
‘Will that be all, then? At least you finally got to taste the strawberries.’
The scarecrow sobbed and shook on his frame.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the raven. ‘I am sorry.’
‘I is sorry to be alive.’
Something stirred at the edges of the raven’s vision, and he looked away from the scarecrow to see Lucie Jordan running back, lacy skirts and blonde hair flying. She hauled herself over the fence posts and darted through the cabbages and the lettuces and the parsnips until she was standing in front of the scarecrow.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Her eyes picked out the scarecrow’s sadness and shone it back at him.
The raven shuffled to the left and tried to blend in with the beets. ‘Must be the theme of the day,’ he said.
‘I’m so very sorry, Mr Scarecrow,’ said Lucie. ‘I don’t think you’re silly at all.’
She flung her arms around the scarecrow’s old, musty body, and little puffs of straw escaped from his chest and separated into the sun. The raven felt a tightness whittle into his own chest. It must be the compost fumes. Totally noxious.
Lucie reached into her pocket and pulled out a frilly handkerchief. She reached up, on her tiptoes, and wiped the strawberry muck off the scarecrow’s face. Then she folded the hanky into a neat little square and tucked it into the scarecrow’s shirt pocket.
‘There,’ she said, ‘now I can see you, you old scallywag. Don’t worry about those stupid boys. I think you’re great.’
She went to shake his hand but, at the last moment, went for a kiss on the cheek, and as her pink lips found their mark, the scarecrow beamed from one end of his charcoal mouth to the other.
‘See you some other time, Mr Scarecrow,’ she said and skipped away, her skirts floating after her like the scent of a rose.
As for the raven, such intimacy was almost the death of him, and he scuttled deeper into the beets until he deemed it safe to come out.
‘Oh,’ said the scarecrow, ‘if I had myselves a heart, it would be of breaking.’
‘Well then, I guess it’s good that you don’t,’ said the raven.
‘It be a cruel, no-heart earth that is keeping I here, to only look-see and not much else, when alls that is sunniness-bright be only ever away.’
What the Raven Saw Page 9