by Janis Mackay
When I walked home that night in the dark and the fog, I wasn’t one bit frightened, or one whit frightened, as Agatha would say. And later, when I flopped into bed, I imagined Agatha curled up all cosy in my sleeping bag by the fire, hearing mice close by nibbling away on crumbs of bagel. And I knew she wasn’t a whit frightened either.
***
It was the second last day of school and Mrs Veitch said if we helped her to clear the cupboards and sort through all the felt pens and chuck out the ones that didn’t work anymore, she would show us a film after lunch for a special treat.
Seeing as how I was in her good books now, I sidled up to her in the middle of the pen-sorting job and asked what kind of film it was.
“Oh, a lovely old-fashioned one,” she said. “It’s from a wonderful book by Charles Dickens. You remember? I’ve told you all about him.”
I vaguely remembered but nodded like I knew perfectly. “Anyway,” she went on, “you’ll enjoy it, I’m sure. It’s in black and white.”
“Maybe I could bring my cousin,” I blurted out, thinking it sounded just the kind of thing Agatha would love, and she shouldn’t go back home without seeing a film. If we could ever get her home.
“Randolph all packed then, is he?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
“Well, I’m sure we can pull up a chair for your cousin. When he goes back to London, we don’t want him saying us Scots were unfriendly, do we?”
I hurtled over to the den at lunchtime. We feasted on egg sandwiches and biscuits. While Agatha ate, I told her about the film.
She didn’t look too pleased.
“It’s old fashioned,” I said, “like a play, and it won’t be violent or noisy. And it won’t smell.” Of course, I didn’t actually know what it would be like. “It’ll be great fun,” I said, polishing off the last biscuit.
“Will Agnes be there?”
“I suppose so,” I said, trying to remember if she had been at school that morning.
“Her father looked greatly perturbed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Miss Big Words?”
Agatha laughed. “Unhappy. All jumpy. Fretful. Anx–”
“I get it,” I said. “So, you coming?”
She bit her nail for a moment but in the end I convinced her to at least give the film a try. “You can just close your eyes if it frightens you,” I said.
As we ran over the wasteland I tried to explain how films work. Agatha looked baffled. “Sledges I understand,” she said.
“Yeah, well, it takes a bit of getting used to,” I explained, hoping like mad she wasn’t going to scream or faint or burst into tears.
“We’ve reserved the best seat in the house for you, Randolph,” said Mrs Veitch. “Come on up here now. Don’t be shy.” She beckoned for Agatha to sit right at the front.
“He can sit beside me,” I called out. “He doesn’t…”
“Nonsense.” Mrs Veitch sat poor Agatha down and told everyone else to be quiet. I was at the back, watching Agatha glance around, looking for Agnes probably.
The room went dark. A whirring noise started up. It got louder. Numbers flickered on a screen. Violin music blared. A trumpet sounded. The words
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
flashed up onto the screen. Some children cheered. Mrs Veitch told them to settle down.
I was biting my bottom lip so hard I could taste blood. I kept my eyes glued to the back of Agatha’s head. I saw her hands clamp over her ears. I heard her gasp. I could pretty much bet her eyes were shut tight. She sat so rigid I doubt she was even breathing.
For an hour and a half she stayed that way. Mrs Veitch was so glued to the film, I don’t think she noticed. After about ten minutes of me holding my breath and not seeing anything of the film, I started to relax. Agatha wasn’t going to scream. She wasn’t going to fall off her chair. I unclenched my fists, and watched the screen between bursts of checking on Agatha.
I’m a modern boy. I liked the film, even though it was a bit old-fashioned.
In the commotion afterwards, when Mrs Veitch put on the lights and wound up the screen, I grabbed Agatha by the wrist and whisked her out.
“Sorry about that,” I said when we were safely out in the playground.
“Oh, but it was a marvel indeed,” she said. “I did hear the speaking voices. Sometimes I peeped between my fingers and saw the moving pictures. Oh, I am right glad that Mr Scrooge came good in the end. I wept for the lame little Cratchet. Didna you?”
“But, I thought you were totally freaked out by it?”
“I am adapting to the future,” she said, and winked at me. “But pray, tell me, now that Mr Scrooge has given charity to Mr Cratchet, the lame little boy will grow stronger, won’t he? Please, say he will? Oh! I couldna bear it if he weakens and dies. I fear my heart will break.”
“He’ll be ok,” I assured her.
She looked seriously relieved. “Thank heavens.”
Just then Will and Robbie came charging across the playground. “You had your hands over your ears half the time,” Robbie yelled, giving Agatha a high-five. Then he swung round and gave me a high-five. “We heard,” he said, and whistled. “Word’s out you stood up to Crow.”
“Yeah,” said Will. “You’re the best Saul.”
I shrugged and looked at Agatha. “Well, I got some help.” Then Will and Robbie turned their admiring looks onto Agatha.
“I just rolled my eyes,” she said. “Saul was the one who put the fear of God into him.” Then she looked around. “Pray, where is Agnes? Do you know?”
Robbie shook his head.
“She sometimes has to stay at home and look after her granny,” said Will.
Robbie and me stared at him. “How come you know so much?” we asked.
“My granny told me.”
“And where is Agnes’s home?” Agatha asked him.
“Dunno,” Will mumbled, except he looked like he did. “I think maybe they stay in a caravan – er – behind the petrol station.”
Me and Robbie threw each other a look. Everybody in Peebles knew about the caravans behind the petrol station. Even Crow would give them a wide berth. Fancy Agnes living there!
“Let us go then.” Agatha looked eagerly at me, then Robbie, then Will.
The three of us shrugged. We looked at our feet. We scratched our heads. We coughed.
“Ok,” said Will. “Let’s go!”
26
It was half past three in the afternoon, and already it was starting to get dark. Of course, it was going to the caravan site that was freaking me out, but the dark didn’t exactly help. “It’s a long way,” I said, dragging my heels. “It’ll take ages. And it’s going to be dark soon. Like, really dark.”
But Agatha was striding ahead next to Will, along the gritted pavement that headed out of Peebles. Robbie and I looked at each other, frowned, and followed them. “I think she’s really old,” Will was telling Agatha. “My gran says she’s about ninety-five.”
Agatha was nodding her head. Boy could she walk fast when she wanted to. I was practically having to run to keep up. “As I am going home soon,” Agatha announced, to all of us, “it wouldna feel proper to leave without bidding her farewell. I have also happily made your acquaintance,” she smiled at the three of us, “but Agnes is the only girl I have made a friend of in the future.”
We were hurrying past the sign that said
Welcome to Peebles,
historic Borders town,
winner of Scotland in Bloom 2005
The garage was in sight. Its bright neon sign blazed in the dim December afternoon. Agatha, I noticed, wasn’t doing as much gazing around as usual. Maybe she was getting used to bungalows and streetlights and cars and buses, or maybe she was in a terrible hurry?
“Slow down,” I said, panting. It wasn’t that I was knackered, but we were practically at the creepy caravan site. Robbie wasn’t looking too happy either. I could see him fiddling with his phone, like he was about
to tell his mum to come and pick him up.
“Right, well, we’re here,” Will said, and he wasn’t sounding too ecstatic either. “Um, I think there’s a way in over there.” He pointed to the car wash.
Me and Robbie stared at him. “Behind it,” Will explained and led the way.
Agatha hurried by his side and me and Robbie followed, our shoulders bumping up against each other. “If things get nasty,” Robbie whispered, “I’ll phone the police.”
Agatha looked back, waving for us to hurry up. Keeping close together we slipped round behind the car wash and suddenly there it was. The place looked like a tip. One streetlight shone down on three caravans, two old vans and a broken-down rusty sports car. It wasn’t what you’d call a holiday caravan site. It was more like a dump. The snow was slushy, but I could see someone had made a snowman. It had a brown woolly hat on. I recognised that hat. I was pretty sure the fiddle player had worn it.
A light glowed at the window of one caravan. The other two caravans were in darkness. “Why do they live here?” Robbie hissed in my ear. He sounded seriously worried. “Like, why would anybody want to live here?”
Will shrugged. I was going to say something about homeless people, when suddenly music floated out into the air. “It’s him and his fiddle,” Will whispered. “Listen!”
We did. Agatha, Will, me and Robbie just stood still and listened. We looked like statues, or people under a spell. The fiddle music floated around and around us. “It is wondrous,” Agatha said, “Mother used to love that tune.”
“Agnes!” Her dad stopped playing the music. Now I could make him out. He was a dark shadow sitting on the caravan step. “Agnes, come out here.” He didn’t sound as worried as he had the day before. “I think it’s your friends from school.”
I heard some voices inside the caravan. Agnes appeared on the caravan step. Because everything was pretty dark I couldn’t make out faces clearly, but I guessed Agnes was probably looking pretty embarrassed. “Dear Agnes,” Agatha called out, “Oh, dearest Agnes,” and dashed towards her. Agnes’ dad shuffled out the way and disappeared back into the caravan. I watched as Agatha hugged her like a long lost sister. “I couldna let myself go without bidding yea farewell.”
Me, Will and Robbie just stood outside, not knowing what to do or where to go.
“Agnes?” A woman called from inside the caravan. This must be her granny, I thought. “Bring them in,” the old woman shouted. “I’ll put on the kettle, and maybe we’ve a biscuit kicking about somewhere. Don’t just stand there, lassie, invite them in!”
That is how me and Will and Robbie got ourselves invited into Agnes’s caravan. By the time we all filed in, there were seven of us. “Well, isn’t this a party,” the old woman said. She was fishing about in a cupboard looking for cups. She didn’t look ninety-five.
“Take a seat, if you can find one,” Agnes’s dad said. Agnes looked delighted and ashamed, all at the same time. Sometimes she couldn’t stop smiling and sometimes she jumped up and brushed crumbs away or plumped up a cushion. Her dad just sat in the corner putting waxy stuff on his fiddle bow. There was something cosy about the caravan, even though it was a bit dirty and a bit messy and a bit crowded. Robbie wouldn’t lean back on the chair and I knew he was still fiddling with his phone inside his pocket. But Will was pretty cool. Agnes’s dad started playing the fiddle again and Agnes sang along with him. Will played a drum that the old woman gave him and Agatha just looked delighted. It was like a little party.
The old woman found a packet of shortbread and passed them around. I saw Robbie examining his. “Just eat it,” I whispered, when everyone else was singing. “It’s not going to kill you.” And he did, and he started to loosen up, and next thing me and him were shaking a jar of lentils each.
“That’s a poor man’s percussion,” Agnes’s dad said, and laughed.
And for about an hour, in the cosy wee caravan, we had a ceilidh. That’s what Agnes’s gran called it. She hummed along and drank about three cups of tea. Over the rim of her tea-cup she was often staring at Agatha.
It was Robbie – typical – who broke up the party. “I have to go,” he said, standing up and looking at me and Will like we should go too.
“A song from Agatha first,” Agnes said, waving for Robbie to sit down again.
“Mother’s favourite song then,” said Agatha. She stood up, closed her eyes and sang. Agnes’s dad, who I’d learnt by this point was called Michael, played along with her. It was an old Scottish ballad about a swan flying over a frozen loch, and half the words I didn’t understand but the way Agatha sang it was beautiful.
“Lovely! Oh, just lovely.” Agnes’s gran thought so too. A tear trickled down her face. “It was my own mother’s favourite song,” she said, once Agatha finished, “and I havna heard it in years.” The old woman looked at Agatha then reached over and took her hand. “Thank you,” she said, nodding her head, “thank you.”
I got that strange prickle up my spine again. I looked at Agatha. I looked at Agnes. I looked at the old woman. And I understood something that Agatha had probably known all along.
“You ok?” Robbie nudged me.
“Yeah.” I shook my head. I thought if I stood up I might fall down. I could see Agnes was shaking out a blanket. The candles had burned down. The old woman was yawning, though it was only about six o’clock. Michael was draining the dregs from his tea-cup. Will was putting his cup into a basin.
“Agatha can sleep here tonight,” Agnes said. “I’ve made rabbit stew. She can have some.”
“That will indeed be scrummy,” Agatha said, already unlacing her boots.
I wanted to say, What about the den? But it sounded silly. What did I think? That Agatha Black would live forever in our den? So I just smiled at her. “Night then, Agatha,” I said.
“Good night to you, Saul,” she said. “Sleep soundly.”
27
After we’d said goodnight to everybody, me, Will and Robbie left the caravan site and went back round by the car wash and through the garage. Like I said, it was only about six o’clock but it felt much later.
“She isn’t ninety-five,” Robbie said when we were back on the road. “Not even anywhere near it.”
“Yeah, and she doesn’t look ill,” I added.
“It wasn’t as bad in there as what you would expect, eh?” Robbie said.
“Actually,” Will said, “I wouldn’t mind living in a caravan like that.” We stomped on, kicking up snow and bumping into each other.
“It’s not as good as Pisa though.” Robbie stopped and looked at us both. “Is it?”
Me and Will agreed, even though the caravan was cosy, it wasn’t as good as Pisa.
We stomped on a bit more and soon reached the street corner. This was where we went off in different directions. But nobody was rushing away. We lingered by the low stone wall of a house that had a sign in the garden telling Santa to stop here.
“Only five days till Christmas.” Robbie punched the air. “Can’t wait.”
“Totally.” Will smacked his hands together to keep warm.
“Which means,” Robbie said, elbowing me in the ribs, “it’s just one day till 21st December. Remember Saul? You can’t go leaving Agatha in our den forever, or in that caravan. You said you’d get her back.” Now he patted me on the shoulder. “You scared Crow off. That’s ace.”
“Yeah, totally ace,” added Will.
“So,” Robbie went on, “getting Agatha home should be a cinch.”
My gang was looking at me like I was some kind of hero. Crow had given me a wide berth earlier that day, like he was scared of me. I really had scared him off. It was ace. They were right. “I’m working on it,” I said, grinning. “Meanwhile, any idea where I could get some gold?” They frowned. “Pure gold,” I added. “It’s got to be pure.”
“Oh, hang on.” Robbie started patting his pockets. “Think I’ve got a few bars stacked away somewhere.”
Will giggled. “Or we co
uld break into Edinburgh Castle and nick the Crown Jewels.”
“Yeah, good plan,” I said. “Any other brilliant ideas?”
They were trying to work out if I was joking or not. I could tell by the way Robbie chewed the inside of his cheek and Will scratched his nose. I lowered my voice. “It’s for protection. Agatha’s dad didn’t give her enough gold. That’s why she got lost. I’ve got everything else to get her back home, but I need gold.”
“The dentist!” Will beamed. “She could get her tooth filled while she’s here, and the dentist can give her a gold filling.”
“Na,” Robbie said dismissively, “dentists charge a fortune for gold fillings.”
We took his word for it. I had been secretly hoping Robbie would come up with the gold, but even he, it seemed, wasn’t that rich. “Sorry mate,” he said. “I mean, if I find some kicking about, I’ll sling it your way, ok, Saul?” He winked at me and laughed.
Just then a woman appeared with bags of shopping then turned into the garden of the house we were standing in front of. She was puffing and panting and we all fell silent and watched her. She put her heavy bags down on the garden path, shook her wrists then waved at us. “And what’s Santa bringing you boys for Christmas, then?”
“A skateboard, a laptop and an iPhone,” said Robbie, reeling off just three things from his list.
“Clothes and stuff,” said Will, “and maybe a camera.”
“Stuff,” I mumbled and waited for her to go in the house. She took a while but soon as I heard the door click, I said, “I think they could be related.”
“Yeah,” Will said, “I worked that out too.”
“Who?” Robbie said. “That woman and Santa?”
Me and Will giggled and both shook our heads. “No. Agatha and Agnes, that’s who.”
“And the granny as well,” Will said. “Maybe even the dad.”
Robbie whistled. “Well, Agatha better get back then, because if she doesn’t make it back…”