by Jan Mark
‘A likely story,’ said Victor, under his breath.
But the Spitfire was taking off.
As it went by, Victor swarmed up the gate and waved madly. ‘Scramble!’
In answer to his call a second Spitfire took off and soared above them. On the firegate Victor turned in giddy circles following their path over the trees. The first Spitfire began to climb but the second circled the field and skimmed low over the runway, upside down.
‘That’s the Victory Roll,’ said Victor as the fighter righted itself and climbed again, veering to the left as it passed over them.
‘If we’d come yesterday,’ he said, ‘we’d have missed all this. Here that come again. That’s going to land. Oh, don’t, don’t,’ he cried, in real pain at the thought that it might be over so soon.
The Spitfire climbed once more.
‘I think he heard you,’ said a voice at his elbow. Granny and the baby had come back from watching the horses. The baby hid its face and growled every time the Spitfire passed, but Granny, like Victor, was gazing up at the planes.
‘My husband flew one of those,’ she said. ‘I used to stand in our garden and watch them come back. They weren’t supposed to do Victory Rolls, but sometimes …’
Victor looked down at her, from the gate.
‘Did he come back?’ he asked.
Andrew had been wondering the same thing, but hadn’t liked to ask.
‘Usually,’ said Granny. ‘Once he baled out and once he ditched. He wasn’t killed, if that’s what you mean. He’s at home now, cleaning out the gutter. The sparrows are nesting in it.’
Victor winced at the thought of a Spitfire pilot cleaning out his own gutter.
Another voice remarked that the first Spitfire was now at six thousand feet. It was the radio, yammering to itself on the bonnet of the car.
They looked up and saw the Spitfire, a dark cross, outlined against the clouds.
‘There’s a Lightning at the end of the runway now,’ said Andrew.
‘About time,’ said Victor, leaning over the gate, to see. ‘Whatever is that doing?’
Instead of positioning itself for take-off, the Lightning was turning round and round on the spot, like a fly that has fallen into the bath.
‘Perhaps the pilot is having a fit,’ said Andrew.
‘I think he’s waiting for something,’ said Victor. ‘See those dots?’
Above the end of the runway a row of dark dots was moving towards them. As they came closer, Andrew counted seven aircraft, strung out in a line. He could not identify them as any he had seen before.
‘Oh,’ said Victor. ‘Oh, no. Jaguars.’
The seven Jaguars drew nearer, achingly slowly, and flew over the airfield, curving away behind the trees, still in the same, purposeful line.
‘I don’t think they’re going to land,’ said Andrew, craning his neck to watch them go. They were beautifully new and shiny, and slightly unreal, like the models in Victor’s bedroom. Victor leaned back against the gate and watched the Spitfire, still cruising above him.
‘They’ll be back,’ he said. ‘They’ll land. They wouldn’t have come all this way for nothing.’
Behind them, the seven Jaguars made a wide, confident turn and swept back across the airfield. They were in no hurry. They turned again, making a last lap of honour before taking possession. Then the line broke and they spread out, one behind the other, for the final approach.
Victor was still watching the Spitfire.
‘The Lightning’s moving,’ said Andrew. Victor looked over his shoulder.
‘That won’t take off now,’ he said. ‘That’s going to lead them in.’
Above the shrilling of the Jaguars’ engines they heard again the thunderous snarl of the Lightning. It passed slowly down the field and the first Jaguar landed in its wake, dropping elegantly on to the runway, its parachute snapping open behind. Perfectly distanced the other six followed it until they were all on the runway together, led by the Lightning.
The Jaguars were lean and beaky aircraft, their cockpits high off the ground, balanced above spindly legs. As each one rolled by Andrew caught a glimpse, underneath it, of the Lightnings, lined up with their backs to the newcomers. They looked heavy and clumsy and very, very old.
He glanced at Victor and saw that he, like the Lightnings, had turned his back on the Jaguars. He was looking down the lane.
‘Everything go,’ said Victor. ‘Everything go that you like best. That never come back.’
‘Let’s go home,’ said Andrew. ‘There’s nothing more to see. Shall we go?’
They took the bicycles from against the fence. Andrew stole a last look over his shoulder and saw another grey tailfin sliding furtively into the hangar.
When they reached the crossroads by the pub with the propeller on the wall, Victor said, ‘We never had that coffee. I could do with that now.’
They leaned the bicycles against the hedge and Victor took the vacuum flask out of his saddle bag. He poured the coffee into the lid and offered it to Andrew.
‘You first, it’s supposed to be yours,’ said Andrew.
Victor took a long and noisy swig and held out the lid again.
‘Go on, finish it,’ said Andrew. ‘I’ll have the next lot.’
‘I’m not poisonous,’ said Victor, but he took back the lid and drank down the coffee.
‘This is the same as yesterday,’ he said. ‘Weren’t you going to get instant coffee?’
‘I meant to,’ said Andrew, ‘but I forgot. I went straight home again.’
‘Did you, now,’ said Victor, looking at him. ‘Well, I like this fine.’ He tipped his head to get at the dregs and the coffee went up his nose, choking him. Andrew rescued the flask before he could jerk out the rest of the contents and Victor sat down on the grass to finish his seizure in comfort.
‘What are you doing?’ said Andrew. ‘Trying to be a whale? You’ll be blowing it out of your ears next.’
Victor laughed and blinked and sniffed. He drew the length of his sleeve across his face. Andrew couldn’t see whether he was wiping his mouth, his nose or his eyes.
17. What a Way to Go
Victor stayed away all weekend. Andrew took a couple of casual strolls past the end of the loke, once alone and once with Edward, hoping that the sight of the pram would lure Victor out. He saw no one but Victor’s father, prowling through the dusk with his shotgun.
On Saturday night a gale blew up and tore down a branch from the oak tree at the end of the Skeltons’ garden. When Andrew looked out of the landing window next morning he saw Victor’s bedroom window peering beadily through the gap, and that night, when it grew dark, he saw the bomber’s moon, glowing behind the curtains.
He pointed it out to Mum.
‘Now you can signal to each other,’ she said. ‘You’d better learn Morse and I’ll buy you an Aldiss lamp for Christmas.’
‘I know some already,’ said Andrew. ‘I don’t know if Victor could learn it though.’
‘He could if he wanted to,’ said Mum. ‘He might know it anyway. Don’t jump to conclusions.’
‘His writing looks like Morse,’ said Andrew. ‘All those full stops. I’ll ask him when I see him. If I see him.’
‘Why shouldn’t you see him?’ said Mum. ‘He’ll be around when he feels like it. Strange though it may seem, he’ll get used to the idea of the Jaguars. You’ll be going to Coltishall to see them instead. It’s no good telling him that now, though. He wouldn’t believe you.’
‘I never thought he’d take it so bad,’ said Andrew. ‘I suppose he kept pretending it wouldn’t happen. And it’s only aeroplanes, after all.’
‘What does he love better than aeroplanes?’ said Mum. Andrew shrugged.
‘Queen Kong, perhaps. I don’t think so.’
‘Well, he’ll be round to see her even if he doesn’t come to see you,’ said Mum.
Andrew thought this was poor comfort. On Monday afternoon, when he opened the back door and s
aw Victor kneeling by the patent, monococque, guinea-pig pen he remembered what she had said.
‘Hello,’ said Andrew. ‘Are you visiting us or the guinea pigs?’
‘I’m visiting you,’ said Victor. ‘But I had to say hello to Queenie first. I thought that if she got to know my footsteps she might whistle when she heard me coming.’
‘Are you going to train her to fetch your slippers too?’ asked Andrew, and then saw that Victor had been serious about wanting Queen Kong to whistle, when she heard his footsteps. He refrained from telling him that so far Queenie hadn’t uttered a sound.
‘Guinea pigs aren’t very clever,’ he said. ‘It might be a little while before she knows you.’
‘I’ve brought your books back,’ said Victor. ‘And the thermos.’
‘There was no hurry,’ said Andrew, afraid that Victor was returning the things to save having to come round again.
‘You might need them,’ said Victor. ‘Especially the thermos. I thought we might go to Marham tomorrow. That’s where the Victors are. That’s a long way.’
‘Your namesakes,’ said Andrew. ‘Won’t we have to take lunch? I’ll ask Mum to make us something.’
‘I hope she do,’ said Victor. ‘My mum won’t. She’s not happy at the moment. A bit of our oak tree blew down on Saturday and went through the greenhouse. That didn’t do the tomatoes any good.’
‘I noticed,’ said Andrew. ‘I can see your bedroom window from our landing. I thought we could signal to each other. Could you learn the Morse Code?’
‘I know that already,’ said Victor. ‘Don’t look so surprised. My brother taught me that when he was home on leave. He rigged up a buzzer between his room and mine but my dad tripped over the wire and fell downstairs. We had to take it away.’
‘I know a little,’ said Andrew. ‘SOS and I am listing to port, I got that out of a book. Could you teach me? Mum said she’d buy me an Aldiss lamp for Christmas. I’m not sure what that is. I think she was joking.’
‘I reckon she was,’ said Victor. ‘That’s one of those big signalling lamps. I know, when that get dark tonight I’ll put the hundred-watt bulb in and signal with the light switch. You see how much you understand. I’d better get back now. Dad’s putting new glass in the greenhouse after tea. I’ve got to help him.’
Andrew saw Victor to the gate. As he was leaving he paused and held up his hand.
‘Do you hear what I hear?’
‘Lightning,’ said Andrew. They both looked up.
From the direction of Coltishall came a single Lightning. When it was immediately overhead it tilted and went into a vertical climb.
‘Forty thousand feet in two and a half minutes,’ whispered Victor.
It went up and up, hung for a second, then the nose came down and it fell in a long, solitary dive, until it levelled out and aimed itself homewards.
They watched it as long as it was visible above the horizon, and didn’t speak until the thunder had died away.
‘I wonder if that was the last Lightning of all,’ said Andrew. It was a more splendid memory than the tamed and shabby tigers, slinking into the hangar and begging to be forgotten.
Victor grinned, his old and famous grin, and made a searing dive with his hand.
‘Well, if that wasn’t, that ought to have been. What a way to go out, eh? Whaaaaaaaam!’
1943 Born 22 June in Hertfordshire
1954 Jan attends Ashford County Grammar School in Surrey
1961 She begins studying at the Canterbury College of Art
1965 She achieves a National Diploma in Design. She then starts working as an English and Art teacher at Southfields School in Kent
1969 In March she marries Neil John Morrison Mark
1974 Becomes a full-time writer
1976 Thunder and Lightnings is published in April. In the same year Jan wins the Carnegie Medal for Thunder and Lightnings
1982 Becomes the Writer in Residence at Oxford Brookes University, formerly known as Oxford Polytechnic
1983 She wins the Carnegie Medal again for her novel Handles
1986 Jan’s novel Trouble Half-Way is a runner-up in the Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction
1993 Starts working as the Editor of The Oxford Book of Children’s Stories
1999 Begins work as a creative-writing lecturer at the University of Reading
2005 Her manuscripts are donated to Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books in Newcastle upon Tyne
2006 Jan dies on 16 January, aged sixty-two
2007 The Museum Book, Jan’s last work, is published after her death by Walker Books
Interesting Facts
Jan’s full married name was Janet Marjorie Mark. She had two children: a son called Alex, and a daughter named Isobel. She loved cats, gardening and listening to music by the Penguin Café Orchestra. She also loved visiting the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
Jan wrote more than fifty books, short stories and plays. For every project she would write three drafts. She enjoyed writing her first drafts by hand, and used her old typewriter to type up the rest of the drafts.
Where Did the Story Come From?
Jan wrote Thunder and Lightnings for a competition run by Penguin Books in 1974. Her inspiration for the story came from her own surroundings: when she was young, she and her family moved into a village in Norfolk, not far from an airbase at RAF Coltishall, and she would hear the Lightning fighter planes above her house. The characters of Victor and Andrew began to form in her mind, and a visit to RAF Coltishall, on the day the Lightnings were due to be phased out, gave Jan the story’s core theme of letting things go and moving on. Jan won the writing competition, and her prize was having her book published.
Guess Who?
A He had been promised the attic room for his own, but he noticed that the window was broken. He wondered what kind of a view he would get through it and turned round to look.
B They were tired of being moved about and hung from his hands like old fur gloves when he lifted them into the pen.
C His triple jump was a quintuple jump at the very least and his javelin twirled in the air like a drum major’s baton, before landing, point up, behind him.
D ‘When I’m in Norfolk I like to draw aircraft.’
E She was also the tallest, which was why she was driving, with the seat pushed back as far as it would go, instead of navigating in the passenger seat, which was pushed forward to make room for the crate of beer bottles behind it.
ANSWERS:
A) Andrew
B) The guinea pigs
C) Victor Skelton
D) Mr Coates
E) Andrew’s mum
Words Glorious Words!
Here are some words and meanings from the story. You can also look them up in the dictionary or online for fuller explanations!
expectant waiting, and hoping, for something to happen
galleon a type of warship
gramophone an old-fashioned music player that plays records
hangar a large building used to store aeroplanes
Lightning a British aircraft used by the Royal Air Force from 1959 until 1988
Messerschmitt a German fighter plane used during the Second World War
Morse code a secret code made up of lights and sounds
percolator a type of pot used to make coffee
R.A.F. Royal Air Force, formed at the end of the First World War
trough a tub from which animals can drink water
Quiz
Thinking caps on – Let’s see how much you can remember! Answers are on the next page. (No peeking!)
1 Which animals do Andrew and his family bring with them to their new home?
a) Guinea pigs
b) Dogs
c) Hamsters
d) Rabbits
2 What is the subject of Victor and Andrew’s project?
a) Cars
b) Birds
c) Aeroplanes
d) Trains
/> 3 What is the name of Andrew’s new house?
a) Tailor’s Farm
b) Tiler’s Cottage
c) Turner’s Corner
d) Tulip Tower
4 What is the name of the cat that visits Andrew’s house?
a) Geoffrey
d) George
c) Ginger
d) Fred
5 What does Victor paint on his walls?
a) Sheep
b) Stars
c) Flowers
d) Clouds
ANSWERS:
1) a
2) c
3) b
4) c
5) d
On 21 January the supersonic airliner Concorde makes its first commercial flight from London’s Heathrow airport.
The UK wins the Eurovision Song Contest with Save Your Kisses for Me sung by Brotherhood of Man.
British racing driver James Hunt becomes a Formula One World Champion.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak start a new company called Apple, making and selling computer kits.
The movies King Kong and Bugsy Malone are released.
Interesting Facts
This 2016 edition of Thunder and Lightnings has been published to mark the fortieth anniversary of the first publication date in 1976.
Puffin Writing Tip
Write a letter every day, even if it’s only a very short one! Think carefully about who you’re writing to and how it should be written!
If you have enjoyed Thunder and Lightnings, you may like to read The Silver Sword, by Ian Serraillier, in which three children journey across war-torn Europe to find their parents.
Ian Serraillier
THE SILVER SWORD
‘Every jolt takes us nearer to Switzerland,’ said Ruth. ‘Think of it like that, and it’s not so bad.’