The Angel of Nitshill Road

by Anne Fine

  Then, though her eyes filled with tears when she had to repeat it, she answered Celeste’s question.

  ‘He said, “What’s that foul smell? Is it you, Marigold?”’

  Celeste wrote it down. Everyone crowded round to watch as Celeste’s golden pen moved steadily across the lines of the black book, writing the date and time neatly in the margin, then everything that happened, down to the fact that Marigold was crying.

  ‘You needn’t put that in,’ Lisa said.

  Celeste ignored her. Very carefully, right at the end, she twisted the wheel round from black to blue, and printed neatly:

  WITNESSES:

  Then she looked up.

  ‘Who wants to be first witness?’

  Nobody wanted to be first witness.

  ‘We’ll just have to do a round robin, then,’ she informed them.

  ‘What’s a round robin?’

  She showed them.

  ‘Put your name here,’ she ordered Mark, pointing to the bottom of the page.

  Where she was pointing seemed very far away from anything she’d written. And he was dying to have a go with the fancy gold pen.

  ‘Can I choose the colour, and twist the wheel round myself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mark couldn’t resist. He had to fiddle the wheel round four times before he managed to stop on the right colour. But then, triumphantly, he scratched his name in glorious fern green.

  Celeste took the pen out of his hand, and gave it to Lisa.

  ‘And you sign your name here.’

  The spot she chose was right on the edge, miles away from the writing. And Lisa longed to write her name in silver.

  ‘Penny?’

  Way over the other side, where Celeste was pointing, Penny chose to write her name in gold. As she was doing it, she wondered how much the pen had cost. She’d saved quite a bit of money already, not buying any more crisps or sweets.

  ‘Paul.’

  He didn’t hesitate.

  ‘I’m first to use the red!’

  Everyone was queuing now, keen to have a go at twisting the wheel of the fancy gold pen to choose the colour for their name.

  ‘Tracey.’

  ‘Yusef.’

  ‘Kelly.’

  She called out names till there was hardly anybody left. Then:

  ‘Marigold.’

  Marigold shook her head.

  ‘Go on,’ everyone urged her.

  She shook her head again.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We’ve all written our names.’

  ‘Come on, Marigold.’

  ‘Are you scared?’

  She didn’t look scared. But then again, as usual she didn’t really look anything. And she didn’t say anything, either. She simply stared down at the ground at her feet, and shook her head again.

  Celeste turned to look for someone else.

  ‘Wayne.’

  ‘Me?’

  He was only hanging about on the edge out of sheer nosiness. Usually he was part of Barry Hunter’s gang. But that didn’t seem to bother Celeste.

  ‘Did you hear what he said, or didn’t you?’

  ‘Well, yes –’

  ‘Then sign.’

  Wayne hesitated. He didn’t know what she was going to do with what she’d written and everyone had signed. And Barry would be furious with him. But on the other hand Wayne really wanted to write his name in purple.

  One more name couldn’t matter.

  ‘Where shall I put it?’

  Celeste handed him the book. It was quite obvious where he should write his name. Once his was done, under Celeste’s report would be a perfect ring of brightly-coloured names – no first, no last; just a circle of witnesses with no leader, no head of the gang.

  Wayne signed.

  ‘There,’ said Celeste. ‘That’s a round robin.’

  They all stared at it gravely. Then the bell rang. While they were trooping into class, Penny asked Marigold, ‘Why wouldn’t you write in Celeste’s book?’

  She never expected Marigold to answer. More often than not, if you asked Marigold a question, she just pretended that she hadn’t heard.

  Not this time, though. For the first time ever, Marigold looked Penny straight in the eye.

  ‘It’s wrong,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t have written your name, either. Nobody should. Only the angel can write in the Book of Deeds.’

  Marigold walked off, leaving Penny gaping.

  Book of Deeds? What on earth?

  She glanced uneasily towards Celeste.

  Of course, with an angel, the question might not be ‘What on earth?’ at all.

  It might be ‘What in heaven?’

  8

  The Book of Deeds

  Everyone sat in a circle round Marigold.

  ‘Tell us again,’ Kelly told her.

  Marigold wriggled on the step.

  ‘I’ve told you,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you everything I know a dozen times.’

  ‘Tell us again.’

  Marigold took a deep breath and told them again. Each time she told the story she added on a little bit she’d never said before. This was partly because the story seemed to grow inside her each time they made her tell it, and partly because she wanted to keep them interested. It was quite nice to sit up on the step with everyone gathered round, listening hard. It kept her safe from Barry Hunter. And it was a bit like having lots of friends.

  She told them all over again.

  ‘I heard about it in church. There is an angel who is beautiful and perfect and stands at heaven’s gate –’

  ‘Like she stood at ours.’

  All eyes swivelled to the gates through which, at any moment, they expected her.

  ‘And this angel has a name, the Recording Angel, because his job –’

  ‘Her job –’

  ‘The angel’s job is to write everything you ever did in your whole life – whether it’s good or bad – down neatly in the Book of Deeds.’

  Last time she’d added ‘neatly’. This time she embroidered the story a little bit more.

  ‘If it was a good deed, the angel smiles writing it down.’

  ‘She smiles a lot.’

  ‘And if it’s a bad deed, the angel weeps.’

  There was a slightly embarrassed pause. No one liked to mention that Celeste never wept. Oh, they couldn’t count the number of times she’d said to Mr Fairway, ‘Don’t make me finish my sums. It isn’t worth it. I’ll just sit and howl.’ But, so far, no one had ever seen a single tear in her eye.

  Marigold knew what they were thinking, but she pressed on anyway.

  ‘But even the angel’s tears can’t wash out what is written down. Whatever the deed was, it stays in the book for ever and ever.’

  There was the usual grave silence. Ian held out his crisp bag and everyone except Penny dipped in to take one while they had a think. Then Kelly said:

  ‘Barry’s going to be in such trouble when he gets to heaven’s gate. She’s used up half the book already, writing down the horrid things he does.’

  ‘She never makes anything up, though,’ Yusef defended Celeste.

  ‘The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’ said Elaine.

  Their eyes searched out Barry Hunter. He was over the other side of the playground, all alone, kicking an old box. Over the last weeks, his gang had dwindled to almost no one. Wayne never even tried to make friends again, after being a witness in Celeste’s book. He just went off with Stephen, who was pretty fed up with always being the one sent round the back to guard the window when they blocked the lavatories. That only left Sean. And Sean was often off school.

  So Barry Hunter spent more and more of his time mucking about by himself. He was still bullying, but it wasn’t the same now that each time he tried it a dozen people came running from far and wide to watch him do his worst, all shouting eagerly:

  ‘Bags be first witness!’

  ‘No! Let me!’

  Ther
e was still plenty for the Book of Deeds, though. When Celeste opened it on any page, everyone would peer over her shoulder to read it.

  Thursday, 4 May.

  8.46 Barry Hunter wouldn’t stop putting his head under Mark’s toilet door when he needed to be private. He said it was ‘only a joke’.

  Witnesses: Ian. Wayne. Yusef. Mark.

  8.56 Barry Hunter kept bumping into people on the way to Assembly. He said ‘Stop bumping’ loudly to everyone he bumped, but it was really him bumping. Paul, Nessa and Zabeen say he wasn’t bumping hard, he was just annoying. Wayne says his bump really hurt (and he had to bump back a bit).

  Witnesses: Wayne. Zabeen. Nessa. Celeste. Kelly. Ian. Lisa. Penny. Phil. Paul. Mark. Elaine. Yusef. (And Mr Fairway gave Barry one of his looks, so he must have seen too.)

  9.50 Barry Hunter sniffed near Marigold and said, ‘What’s that horrible smell?’ twice.

  9.51 He did it again.

  9.53 And again.

  Witnesses: Lisa. Penny. Ian. Phil. Nessa. (We didn’t ask Marigold because she was upset, and she doesn’t sign anyway.)

  10.30 Barry Hunter ruined Claire and Elaine’s Fashion Show. First he hid some of the clothes behind the pipes, so there wasn’t much time left. Then, when the people in the show were taking their turns to show their fashions off, he started booing loudly. So everyone in the show got embarrassed and wouldn’t do it properly. So Mr Fairway stopped the show. (Barry Hunter wasn’t the only one to boo, but he was definitely the one who started it.)

  Witnesses: Claire. Elaine. Phil. Ian. Zabeen. Tracey. P.T.O.

  And all that was just on one page. No wonder everyone crowded round Marigold, keen to hear any tiny thing she could remember about what happened with a Book of Deeds. No wonder, when Celeste finally sailed through the gates, her gleaming frock mirroring the shine of her hair, her eyes bright with excitement, everyone (even Marigold) ran over to greet her.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  Celeste spread her hands.

  ‘Disaster! Last night I cried so much I had to peg up my pillowcase. I’m being moved.’

  ‘Moved?’

  Everyone was horrified.

  ‘Moved where?’

  ‘Moved how?’

  ‘Why?’

  Celeste settled on the step, and tucked her frock neatly around her.

  ‘Blame my father entirely!’ she told them. ‘Granny has told him time and again that trying to teach me arithmetic is like trying to plough the sea. But he won’t rest. First he harped on about it, day and night. Now it seems he’s been flitting from school to school, green with worry, looking for somewhere a dilly like me can learn to slap eight and eight together, and make fourteen.’

  ‘Sixteen,’ they corrected her, but she wasn’t listening. She was far too excited.

  ‘And so I’m to be swept off again, like a loose leaf tumbling around the world.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘When?’

  She made a face.

  ‘Almost at once. Would you believe, I’ve even had to beg for these few hours to totter in and exchange a few sad farewells!’

  In the shocked silence that followed, the ringing of the bell came almost as a relief.

  Celeste rose to her feet, sighing, and brushed an invisible speck from her frock.

  ‘Come along,’ she told them. ‘Let’s go and break the news. I shall sob so hard Mr Fairway will have to mop all the floors behind me as I go.’

  Appalled, they set off in a bunch across the playground. Her eyes still shining, she strolled after them.

  9

  ‘Only a joke. Only a game.’

  Before they reached the school door, they heard Barry Hunter shouting.

  ‘Bombs away!’

  Everyone spun round to watch as Barry swung back his foot and, giving the old box one last tremendous boot, sent it flying – up, up, up and over.

  It landed – plop! – on top of poor Mark’s head.

  ‘Bull’s eye!’ yelled Barry Hunter.

  They all stood waiting for Mark to tear the box off his head. They were waiting for the red face. They were waiting for the tears and the temper. Tracey said, ‘Bags be first witness,’ and everyone else looked round to check that Celeste was carrying her big black book and her fancy gold pen.

  Mark staggered round the playground like a robot out of control.

  Above Penny’s head, the staff-room window opened, and she heard Mrs Brown ask Mr Fairway anxiously:

  ‘Is he hurt?’

  Like everyone in the playground, Mr Fairway watched Mark swivel his head round as if he were looking for radio signals.

  ‘No,’ Penny heard him say. ‘I think he’s actually making a bit of a joke of it.’

  Mrs Brown sounded astonished.

  ‘Mark? Making a joke of something Barry Hunter did to him? Now there’s a change!’

  Just at that moment, Marigold ran up to offer Mark a guiding hand.

  ‘Am I dreaming?’ said Mrs Brown. ‘Is that Marigold who just ran up and joined in the game?’

  ‘She was telling them all a story about an angel yesterday,’ said Miss Featherstone.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Mrs Brown said. Then, glancing down, she noticed Penny just beneath the window. Quickly, Penny ran off, pretending she was going to help Marigold steer Mark away from all the people standing round clapping his brilliant robot act. The last thing she overheard was Mrs Brown saying:

  ‘Really, that child Penny’s clothes are practically falling off her! It’s time she tightened her buttons.’

  For the twentieth time that day, Penny hitched her skirt up and grinned. She wasn’t going to tighten her buttons. Not yet! Having your clothes flapping was much nicer than having them bulging.

  Now Marigold had lifted the battered old box off Mark’s head. The joke was over, so Penny joined the gang of people crowding round Celeste.

  ‘Can I be first and sign in the silver?’

  ‘Let me be yellow!’

  ‘Bags be green!’

  But Celeste hadn’t even opened the black book.

  ‘There’s nothing to write,’ she told them. ‘Everyone had a good time. If someone’s unhappy, then it goes in the book. If everyone’s happy, then it doesn’t.’

  They all thought about it for a moment. It seemed fair enough, as rules went. Much fairer, anyway, than letting Barry Hunter get away with making people miserable and then saying: ‘Only a joke. Only a game.’

  Yes. It was a good way to judge.

  Content, they watched Celeste tuck the black book safely away under her arm. Content, they followed her into the school.

  10

  Goodbye, Celeste

  ‘The bell hasn’t rung yet,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘Why is everyone in your class except Barry Hunter inside?’

  Mr Fairway sighed and put his mug down on the draining board.

  ‘Blame Celeste,’ he said. ‘Since she came, none of them have been the same.’

  Mrs Brown glanced at him thoughtfully.

  ‘Perhaps that’s no bad thing,’ she said. ‘When you remember how some of them were before.’

  He thought about that all down the corridor. It was so much on his mind that when the school secretary popped her head round the office door and said, ‘Guess who’s leaving?’ he answered right first time.

  ‘Celeste!’

  So that was why the whole lot had trooped in before the bell. To bring him the sad news. And he was sad. She was a strange little creature, but he would miss her.

  He pushed the classroom door open.

  There they all stood in a half circle around her. Celeste had even more of a glow than usual on her face. In fact, she looked radiant.

  ‘Well!’ he said, sitting heavily at his desk. ‘This is a sad day!’

  She gave him one of her celestial smiles.

  ‘I have something for you,’ she told him, and nodded to Marigold, who stepped up and gave him a black book patterned with gold. At first, from the solemn way she ha
nded it over, he thought that it must be a Bible. But then he realised it was the book he’d seen them poring over so often in the playground. And in the cloakrooms. And in class.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, and opened it to take a look inside.

  It was a shock. A horrid, horrid book. An ugly catalogue of pain and humiliation and fear and spite. He felt sick reading it. He turned over two or three more pages, feeling all their eyes on him, then raised his own to Celeste.

  ‘Is this really what you’re leaving me?’ he asked. ‘A book of tale-telling.’

  Celeste said steadily:

  ‘Granny says the rule not to tell tales was invented by bullies –’ Her sky-blue eyes met his across the desk. ‘And the people who don’t really want to stand up to them.’ He couldn’t meet her gaze any longer.

  He looked down. Another horrid passage caught his eye. He read it to the end. Oh, poor, poor Marigold! No wonder she went round pretending to be deaf, if that’s what she heard all day! And Mark! The number of times he must have been tricked into getting into trouble. And Penny! ‘Moving mountain’ indeed! And all the other things that happened to the rest. How horrible to be kept from using the lavatory, or fetching your coat! How nasty to have your things snatched and hidden all day long! Your games ruined, your family called rude names, your jacket torn and muddied.

  ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me all this was going on?’

  Those sky-blue eyes again. She didn’t answer. She knew as well as he did, as well as they all did, that he’d known everything he needed all along. But just like Marigold he had pretended not to see, not to hear, not to understand.

  He slammed the book shut so hard it made them jump.

  ‘Right!’ he said. ‘I’ve read enough!’

  This time he managed to meet her eye. He really meant what he said.

  ‘Things will be very different around here from now on.’

  ‘You promise to keep the book?’

  ‘Here in my desk,’ he promised her. ‘As long as I’m teaching in this school.’

  ‘Just to remind you . . .’

  ‘To remind me.’

  Again, their eyes met. She was satisfied. Smiling, she stuck out her hand.