by Julia Jones
Their smiles faded. “The parentals aren’t going to like that. You’ve got to promise that you’ll always wear a buoyancy aid. All dinghy sailors do.”
“And that, whenever you’re not practising your sailing, you’ll practise your swimming. We can lend you a wetsuit so you don’t totally freeze.”
How was he going to get any of this past Gerald and Wendy?
“If your mum does ring my foster-carers, could she ... not say too much?
They understood completely. “Adults! Health and safety! They do so wind each other up. We’ll get her focused on including Anna. That’ll give her a challenge.”
“I’m in the same sets as Anna,” said Maggi. “We could form an alliance.”
“Defensive and offensive!” said her sister. “Pipes and drums! Death to Adult Oppressors. Vive la Rescue Myth!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lively Lady
Friday, September 15th, later
Donny didn’t talk at all to Anna on the bus journey home. He didn’t even sit with her. Instead he got on board so fast that he got right down to the seats at the back: the seats where the Year Elevens expected to sit. He got a corner seat and slumped down so it was hard for her to see him when she climbed on.
A big lad stared at him in slow surprise. “These seats are took,” he said. “Hoof it.”
Round the edge of the seat he could see her at the driver’s end, hesitating. He slumped down further and pointed to the front, shaking his head mutely.
“Avoidin’ someone?” asked the big lad. “Wot, that bit? Well, okay then, seein’ as it’s Friday.”
He wondered whether she’d check the whole bus or tell the driver that he wasn’t there. She was meant to be responsible for him. She’d get into trouble if she didn’t.
The bus moved off with no delay and no checking.
Did that mean she wasn’t bothered or was she covering, assuming that he’d bunked again? Donny wasn’t at all sure that he’d read Anna right but he was guessing that it might be the second one. That’s what he hoped.
“Anna,” he whispered urgently, tapping softly on her bedroom door, soon after they’d got back to the vicarage. “Could you let me in? I need to talk to you.”
Nothing.
“Anna, I know you’re in there and none of these doors have locks anyway but I want you to open it so I can ask you something ...”
Still nothing.
“And if you don’t answer I’m going straight downstairs to tell Gerald ... um ... that you didn’t check the bus when you thought I wasn’t on it!”
She’d never be his friend after this.
“I’ve got us some fruit from the kitchen ...oh please, Anna, be nice.”
“Okay, you finally used the proper word.” She’d opened the door a crack and stood glaring at him from inside. “So what do you want? I suppose you had some reason for that bus stuff – or were you just being a boy?”
“I want you to come to the river with me and Maggi and Xanthe tomorrow and I didn’t want to sit with you on the bus because I didn’t want to talk to you.”
“Why bother now, then?” She didn’t even sound offended. There was no expression in her voice. If he hadn’t seen her nearly cry this morning he’d believe that this was what she was like.
“Because I want to tell you things I don’t want anyone else to hear ... and I also hid because I wanted to see what you’d do.”
“To check if you could trust me?”
“Mmm ... possibly.”
“That’s what I might have done.” She sounded marginally more interested. “What fruit have you got? If it’s an apple it’s completely predictable and I’m saying no.”
He’d been due a piece of luck.
“It’s plums.”
She still wouldn’t let him in her room so they found a place
in the garden round the back of a shed where she said Luke and Liam wouldn’t come. She’d told Liam there was a spider’s nest there and Liam was scared of spiders
“Who are Luke and Liam?”
“My step-brothers. I hate them. If you want to talk about them I’m going straight back indoors and I can tell you now that there’s no way you’ll be allowed to go out with those two girls – unless I help you.”
“Okay, okay. No need to get stressy. Have a plum. They look good. They’re from some old lady in the parish, Gerald said.”
It was like getting her to take the King’s shilling. The plums were really ripe and incredibly messy to eat. Once they were both sucking and munching and getting juice all over their hands and wiping them on the first of the fallen leaves, she calmed down and Donny was able to tell her everything. All the stuff he’d told Maggi and Xanthe and a bit more because he actually showed her Great Aunt Ellen’s telegram, which he hadn’t done earlier. He’d left it shut tight in his book.
Anna dried her hands on her school skirt and read it carefully. “Have you googled ‘Strong Winds’?” she asked. “If it’s a famous sculpture or something it might show up.”
“That’s a really good idea. I bet there’ll be thousands of hits though – weather forecasts and stuff. It’ll take ages going through them. Even if I spend all break and lunch in the library every day. But thanks, I will try.”
“I might help.” It definitely wasn’t a promise but there was a it more warmth in her voice, a few degrees above freezing. “Don’t leave this in your room if you don’t want them to see it and don’t say too much in the meeting either. They twist things. You could find you get completely banned from seeing those girls. They’ll think it’s sex.”
“Sex!” Donny was shocked. Sex was the last thing on his mind in his new friendships. When Anna had come into his bedroom last night it was like she was his sister or something. And Xanthe and Maggi – well, they were his allies and fun to be with. Not sex! If that’s what Gerald and Wendy thought, they were completely disgusting.
“But will you come with us tomorrow?” he asked her.
“I might ... if you’re allowed. Which I wouldn’t be putting money on. I suppose that means you won’t want to make dream-catchers.”
He’d forgotten already. “Of course I do. If we’re going to a river we might find reeds and things. Really small feathers are good too.”
“So if I help you get permission, you’ll definitely show me how to make one.”
“Yes. I promise. I’ve got a few nightmares of my own to block out – if you remember.”
The House Meeting took place after supper. Vicky had been put to bed and Wendy led the way into the living room where they had to arrange the chairs into a circle.
“This Circle symbolises our togetherness and trust,” Wendy explained to Donny. “It gives us a space to share our concerns and offer each other support and guidance as well as care. Sometimes we have to ask people to stand outside our Circle for a little while but we make it very clear to them that their place is waiting when they have made the necessary changes.”
Donny thought of the conversation which he’d overheard between her and Gerald when they’d dismissed him as a fantasist – some trust they’d been showing!
He supposed it was possible that they meant well in their gloomy way. He decided to give them another chance.
“I’m worried about my mother,” he said, when it was his turn. “No-one’s told me her address and anyway sending letters isn’t nearly enough. I’d like to go and see her.”
Sandra had already told him that it wasn’t considered ‘appropriate’ for him to visit Skye and sure enough all he got from Gerald and Wendy was stuff about accepting the things we cannot change. Then everyone held hands to symbolise their support for him.
“I’m worried about two of the girls at school,” said Anna, lying expertly. “The two black girls whose mother brought Donny, sorry, I mean John, home the other night. I’m in the same maths set as one of them and she keeps asking me to go round to her house. She’s asked John too. I know he doesn’t want to go because he’d be the only boy
... but I’m worried about our different cultures. I don’t know any black people and I might do the wrong thing. I’ve said no but she keeps on asking. She said her mother might even phone up ...”
For a moment Donny gaped at her. Then he realised what she was doing. She was playing opposite-day.
It worked brilliantly. If Anna truly had any worries about doing the wrong thing in a different household they were ignored. She got completely yelled at for using the word ‘black’ and had to stand up and move outside the Circle until she was ready to promise to behave with more understanding towards people who were Different from herself.
Wendy nodded across to Gerald who got up and went to the study. When he came back and Anna had been Forgiven and allowed to sit down, Gerald had cleared his throat and announced that they had received a generous invitation from Mr and Mrs Ribiero to have John and Anna for the whole day tomorrow. He’d accepted on their behalf and the two of them were to be ready for collection at nine o’clock, wearing outdoor clothes.
Then they all held hands again and the meeting was over.
Saturday, September 16th
“So what happened at yours last night?” asked Xanthe, when they were all four in the dinghy park that Saturday morning. “Mum rang at about six to invite and it was a complete NO- NO not even a no - ta. Then, about an hour or two later, that Gerald guy rang back saying yes to the whole day without wanting to know anything else at all. Not a whiff of a Risk Assessment. You must have done some world-class persuading. Whatever did you say?”
“I said that you’re black so I was worried about your different culture and that Donny didn’t want to come because you’re girls,” said Anna.
Maggi gasped and Xanthe spun round.
Donny’s heart stopped.
Then Xanthe burst out laughing.
“And it worked!”
“Anna was completely brilliant,” said Donny. “Mind you, she had to be chucked out of the Circle of Trust while Gerald sneaked off to make his phone call ...”
That gave them all the giggles and Anna went quite pink.
“Well, they’re totally asking for anything we might do,” said Xanthe. “I’d have ’em on double watches right around the Horn, up in the icy rigging with the wind gusting hurricane force and their bare hands freezing to the shrouds so the skin peels off in ribbons ...”
“Yeah, yeah, terror of the seas. Come on, Xanth, they want to go sailing, not listen to you rant.”
Xanthe and Maggi’s Mirror dinghy, Lively Lady, was made of wood. She was painted a glossy bright yellow outside, golden varnish within. Her bows and stern were blunt but she was much more boat-shaped then the little white tub Donny had sailed on the Gitche Gumee reservoir. Maggi said that had probably been an Optimist.
“Good name,” said Donny, remembering how blithely he’d got in and set off, knowing nothing.
Except what he’d read – and how he’d felt.
The moment Lively Lady slipped off her launching trolley and floated, Donny got that same sensation of certainty and happiness. He loved her sudden lightness and the way her shaking sail seemed to express her eagerness to be off. She had been a pretty object in the dinghy park. On the water she came alive.
“Do you swear you haven’t done this before?” asked Xanthe, as he motioned her to drop the daggerboard and sit amidships.
“Only that one time on Gitche Gumee – but lots in my book,” he answered, looking intently at Lively Lady’s mainsail.
“What book? Not Hiawatha?”
Donny laughed and Lively Lady seemed to chuckle too as she gathered speed and the salt water bubbled up either side of her bows and rippled along her painted side.
“No way! Swallows and Amazons – the one my mum made us buy. You know, I told you.”
“Oh well, Swallows and Amazons, no wonder ...But there’s one thing you don’t know,” she commented a few moments later. “That’s about tides. They were sailing on a lake in Swallows and Amazons so they didn’t have tides. Haven’t you felt how she’s being pushed sideways all the time when you’re trying to sail straight across?”
“I thought that was just something I was doing wrong.”
So Xanthe explained to him about flood and ebb tides and how he could usually tell from the way moored boats were lying, or, better still, from checking the flow of the water against channel buoys.
Then, “Count to ten, Donny-man! Take a pill!”
Donny had yelled at her to duck. The mainsail smashed across as he gybed Lively Lady 180 degrees so they were heading directly for the shore again.
“What was that about, for fathom’s sake?” she asked, sitting up and rolling her eyes in pretend horror.
Donny didn’t want to look back, not even for a moment.
But he did.“See that black motor boat behind us. Big one with the pointed bow. Looks like a shark.”
“Ye-es...”
“The man in it. He’s the fat policeman. The one who was waiting at the vicarage. And at school. Don’t look round till you’re sure he’s not watching.”
But Xanthe didn’t do sneaky peeks. She stared. “Scar-ee! He even looks like a cop when he’s in a boat. His boat’s revolting. I’ve seen it before. It’s completely bling. But he can’t be official. Proper river police have marked launches and special moorings. He’s been keeping that thing on a club pontoon – our club, the Royal Orwell & Ancient. I can’t think why they let him.”
The sight of the policeman took the sunshine from Donny’s day. He sailed Lively Lady back to the scrap of beach and changed over with Maggi and Anna.
He guessed that Anna was dead nervous but Maggi obviously knew what she was doing. She took the helm and stayed close to the shore, managing everything herself. Then, after a while, they saw her passing Anna the jib sheet and pointing further out towards the middle of the river.
Donny saw Anna nodding. That was good. He wanted her to like it. She’d been amazingly quick in the dinghy park; understanding the way it should all work. Aerodynamic forces and stuff.
Then the fat man in the powerboat drove directly at them.
It was a collision course but there was plenty of space and Maggi knew she had right of way. She carried on sailing straight and steady, expecting the powerboat to change direction.
Nothing happened.
Maggi waved. She probably shouted.
Xanthe shouted as well but she and Donny knew they were much too far away and the powerboat’s engines were too noisy. They could only watch.
The thrusting shark-bow was about twenty-five metres from the dinghy and accelerating fast when Maggi pushed her tiller down and tacked. As if it were a game of chicken and he’d been waiting for Maggi to give in, the fat man spun his wheel and swerved off. The violent surge from his twin propellers left Lively Lady rocking in his wake. The driver looked back and flapped a pudgy hand as he and his shiny boat sped smugly down the river.
Maggi sailed back to shore immediately. Anna was ashen- faced and shaking.
“Did you see that?” stormed Maggi. “Tossers like him shouldn’t be allowed on the river. There was no way he didn’t hear me when I shouted for water – but he kept coming like he thought he owned the river.”
She put her arm round Anna and gave her a warm, impulsive hug. “Don’t let it put you off sailing. Please. He was just a pig.” Anna straightened up and moved slightly away. She had got herself under control again. “I know,” she said. “Except that’s insulting to pigs. I know him. Lots of the looked-after children know him. He likes to bully people. Weaker people. He saw us – me and you, in a dinghy – and he couldn’t resist.”
Her bleak analysis puzzled Maggi. “But I’m a sailor. I’m not a – what did you call it? – a looked-after child ...”
“As far as he’s concerned you’re just another low life-form.”
“Because I’m a child?”
“That as well.”
Anna saw that Maggi didn’t get it. “Sorry Maggi, but didn’t you notice how he
treated your mother that night she brought Donny home?”
Maggi was shocked. “You mean ...?”
“Yes. I do.”
“The nasty word that Anna’s avoiding, little sis, is racist.”
Donny hadn’t heard Xanthe drawl like that since she faced off the boy in the bus the first time he met her.
“He keeps turning up. They say he’s an Inspector. He’s the one who thinks my Great Aunt Ellen is an illegal immigrant because she’s coming from Shanghai and he can’t find her name on his lists. He wants to search the containers for her.”
“Huh? At the same time that he says you’re a fantastist and she’s a Rescue Myth?”
“No, that’s the other one, Denise Tune, laughingly titled the Welfare Officer. He just says I’m a liar and a thief. He says he doesn’t believe Great Aunt Ellen exists but at the same time he’s threatening to arrest her. I don’t think he exactly does logic.”
Donny was ready to talk about the fat man now, maybe try and laugh at him a bit. Anna wasn’t.
“I wasn’t frightened of the boat out there,” she said to Maggi. “I was frightened of him. I can’t cope with him at all. I physically shake. Can we try forgetting him now, please?”
Then the Ribiero parents arrived, reminding Xanthe and Maggi that it was time for their training session.
They too had seen the near-collision.
“That man should never have been in that area in a powerboat,” said Joshua Ribiero. “Breaking the river speed limit and apparently with no idea of the rule of the road. I’m told he’s applied to join the R.O. & A. I’m not at all sure that we want him.”
“Dad’s on the Yacht Club committee,” said Xanthe. “A Flag Officer! Such a Pillar of Society!” She grinned at her father. Their likeness was startling. “What’s his name, my Daddy? Can I slash his mooring lines? Do let me, please ...!”
Her father stopped frowning and smiled back. “No you can’t, you wrecker. But you’ll like his name – he’s called Flint. Inspector Jake Flint! Off to your dinghies, now. We’ll look after your friends.”
But Xanthe and Maggi didn’t move immediately. They looked at Donny and he at them.