‘You were amazing, Katie,’ said Midge. ‘I don’t even like to think about what would have happened if you weren’t there. It was like Joan of Arc arriving, or a tank division or something.’
‘Yes, I think I prefer Joan of Arc,’ said Katie, coolly. But then she confessed – ‘Actually, I pretty much wet myself when I first saw them. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you, Midge, the first time . . . I mean at least I had a bit of warning. About two seconds worth.’
George recounted his strange experience with the wind-up gramophone, and how he had managed to give Benzo the slip, only to get caught again – and how he had lured the archers onto the lagoon.
‘If I’d tried to make it happen, it probably wouldn’t have worked,’ he said.
Midge told of her terrifying game of hide-and-seek on top of the wardrobe – then thought of something else, and said to Katie, ‘But why did you come back into the house? You hadn’t long escaped – they might still have been in here, for all you knew.’
‘No,’ said Katie, ‘I saw them go – chasing you, remember? Then I ran straight in.’
‘To get the WaterBlaster?’
‘Um . . . well, actually, I think I was sort of coming in to get changed. Then I thought of the WaterBlaster.’
‘You came back in to get changed?’
‘Well? I’d just fallen into a load of old potato peelings and slimy rotten cabbage leaves and compost and stuff. I was covered in . . . what are you looking at me like that for? Somebody has to keep up the standards around here.’ She may have been joking. It was hard to tell with Katie, Midge decided.
Eventually it came round to a question of what they were to do next. Should they tell Uncle Brian – and Midge’s mum? They thought about the body of Tojo, stretched out on the floor of the cider barn. What were they supposed to do about that?
‘We’re going to have to tell,’ murmured George. ‘We’ve got to.’
‘Yes,’ said Katie, looking at Midge. ‘I s’pose so.’
Midge didn’t know what to say. She so wanted to pass the responsibility to somebody else – to let someone else decide. It was such a relief that George, and now Katie, knew all about it – or nearly all. Such a relief not to have to bear the burden alone. Yet, if Uncle Brian knew – and her mum – there was no telling what they might do. They might get the police or something. What would happen to the Various then? To Pegs? Wouldn’t that be a betrayal?
‘I don’t know what they’d do, that’s the trouble – I mean your dad and my mum. They might tell the police. Or phone a zoo, or TV, or the government . . . I don’t know. And what good would it do? It would be like we’d ruined everything, ruined their lives – the Various, I mean. We’d have . . . it’d be like throwing them all to the dogs, or the wolves, or whatever it is. I promised, you see, that I wouldn’t tell.’
‘Yes, but now we know,’ said George. ‘Katie and me. And they know that. They’ve already given themselves away by coming here. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘No,’ said Midge, doubtfully. ‘I s’pose not. But my mum – that’s another thing – she’s not very well. I mean, I don’t even know whether she could cope with all this right now.’
‘Yes,’ said Katie. ‘Last thing you want to hear when you’re having a breakdown – Oh hi, Mum. We’ve got fairies at the bottom of our garden. Not a very good idea, as Dad would say.’
‘Ka-tie!’ said George, horrified.
But Midge laughed. She couldn’t help herself – Katie was such a scream.
Round and round they went, and whereas it had at first seemed obvious that the events of this astonishing day would be difficult to keep to themselves, it slowly became clear that it would be even more difficult to convince their respective parents of what had really happened. Maglin had vowed that the Various would not be showing themselves again, and so, short of entering the wood and hunting them down, their existence would be impossible to prove. Midge, who had so far contributed little to the argument, now returned to her original thought.
‘What good would it do, if we did tell? It wouldn’t help anyone – I mean, like Katie said, what’s the point? And nobody needs to know. Maybe, if the land was going to be sold . . . maybe we should tell then . . . oh, I don’t know. Maybe we should just say nothing. I think that’s what we should do. Say nothing, just for a while anyway, and see what happens.’
They thought about this, and agreed in the end that it was the least complicated course of action to take, and the only one that made any sense. Midge pushed the general agreement a stage further by saying, ‘We should all make a promise never to tell unless the others are there too. Just so we all know it’s still a secret, OK? Promise?’ The others understood, and muttered their assent, Katie adding, ‘Catch me saying anything. I still don’t believe it myself.’ It was a relief to have made a decision, and each felt a trust in the others, bound as they were by their shared experience. There was still the question of Tojo to consider, however. If they were going to keep all this a secret, then Tojo would have to disappear completely.
‘Bury him,’ said Katie. ‘He could have just gone missing. Cats do.’
‘Bury him?’ said George. ‘Where? What if Phoebe found him – and started digging him up or something?’ He had a mental picture of his dad being witness to such a gruesome discovery – and the trouble that would follow. ‘Well, it would have to be somewhere pretty well hidden, that’s all. If Dad ever found out . . .’ He looked at the alarm clock on the dresser. ‘They could be back in about an hour – two at the most – so we’d better come up with something good. And there’s all that mess in the cider barn that’d need clearing up, or we’ll have to explain that as well. Don’t think Dad goes in there much, but still – this’d be the one time he did.’
Midge had a thought, but she was hesitant in voicing it – it seemed so . . . disrespectful.
‘What about . . . the lagoon? Nobody would ever find him then.’ It came out as almost a whisper.
The other two just stared at her, and she wondered if she’d said something really terrible. Tojo had not been a pet – far from it – but he had been more their cat than hers, after all. Katie scraped back her chair and jumped up.
‘Brilliant!’ she said. ‘We’ll bung him in there!’
It wasn’t going to be that easy, disposing of the corpse, after all. They stood at the edge of the lagoon and considered the problems – the first of which was how to get Tojo right out to the middle where the lagoon was at its most liquid.
‘Well, wouldn’t you be able to just . . . swing him by the leg, or something, and then let go?’ said Katie. She was addressing George.
‘What if he didn’t land in the right place?’ said George. ‘Who’s going to go out there and pick him up and try again – you? And anyway, who says it’s me that’s doing the throwing?’
‘Oh, definitely man’s work,’ said Katie, who had absolutely no intention of picking up a dead cat.
‘I’m not sure he’d sink, even if we did get him in the right place,’ said Midge. ‘We’re probably going to have to weigh him down with something. It would be awful if he just lay there. Floating.’
She nearly had an attack of the giggles – the whole business was just so ghoulish that she felt semi-hysterical, and glancing at the faces of George and Katie, she could see that they too were trying not to laugh.
* * *
They felt sober enough, though, when they entered the humid silence of the cider barn. The body of Tojo lay among the shards of broken bottles and stoneware, eerily lit by the sunbeams that streamed in from the open door of the apple store above. Midge was reminded of the way that Pegs had looked, lying on the floor of the pig barn, like something on a stage. But this felt more like being in a morgue than in a theatre, and as they gathered around the body they spoke in whispers. The eyes had closed in death, which was a mercy, but the feathered shank of the arrow that had slain him was a horrible thing to behold, protruding as it did from the coarse
fur of the rib cage, the black-and-white flights so neatly trimmed and precise.
‘He’s huge,’ muttered George, and it was true that, close up, the body of Tojo seemed even bigger in death than it had in life – the probable reason being that you’d never get this close to Tojo when he was alive. And yet, thought Midge, he must have been a kitten once. Was Tojo ever cute and cuddly, like the Favoured One? Did anyone ever pet him, and love him, and tell him how pretty he was? It was hard to imagine.
George said, ‘I can’t see how . . . well, I don’t think this is going to work.’
Midge turned away from the disturbing sight and began looking round for inspiration, vaguely wondering whether it might be possible to use a pole or something. There were a couple of builders’ planks lying on their sides against one of the walls, and she began to imagine trying to use one of these to push the body out onto the lagoon. Would that work? Then she had a better idea.
Once again they stood beside the evil-smelling lagoon, and now they had a plan. They had put the body of Tojo in an old hessian sack (or rather George had – Midge having agreed with Katie that this was ‘man’s work’) and had then picked up all the bits of glass and stoneware and put those in the sack also. This had served the double purpose of clearing up all the mess in the cider barn, whilst hopefully providing enough ballast for the sack to sink. Certainly it had seemed heavy enough on the journey between the cider barn and the lagoon. Another journey had then been made in order to fetch one of the builders’ planks.
They walked out upon the firm surface of the lagoon as far as they dared and, in accordance with Midge’s plan, managed to stand the builders’ plank on end. This wasn’t at all easy, and the long plank swayed about precariously as they tried to position it so that it would fall across the surface of the lagoon in as controlled a manner as possible.
‘If you stand with your foot against the bottom of the plank, Katie, and George and I try to lower it . . .’ grunted Midge – and so that’s what they did, though the thick length of timber became too heavy for Midge and George to hang on to beyond a certain point and they had to let go. The plank dropped with a bump and the bottom end kicked back a bit, catching Katie on the ankle – but there it lay, extending out over the surface of the lagoon, probably reaching about halfway to the centre.
‘Now then, if two of us stand on this end, and the other walks along the plank carrying the sack, then they ought to be able to get it pretty well out to where it’s . . . you know . . . more runny.’
‘I’m heavier than you two,’ said Katie, who had been sizing up the situation and was quick to bag the role least likely to end in disaster, ‘so it’ll be best if I stay here and stand on the plank. Keep it steady.’
‘Oh, I get it,’ said George. ‘This is going to be blimmin’ man’s work again, isn’t it? Well, I’ve already had to pick the . . . him up. I don’t think it should be my turn for the worst job, every time.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Midge. ‘I’m probably the lightest, in any case.’
‘ ’S alright. I don’t mind,’ George suddenly preferred the idea of taking the risk himself to standing there like a wimp and watching Midge go out there.
‘No. I want to.’ She didn’t really know why she said it, or why she should suddenly feel sorry that Tojo was dead – she had always hated him – but now it seemed as though his death had somehow been her fault, and that she should at least take some responsibility for the burial. Such as it was.
About halfway along the plank, she wished that she’d let George go after all – and George, watching her with his heart in his mouth, was wishing the same.
‘Come back,’ he said, urgently. ‘Let me do it. Midge! Come on, let me do it.’ But this made her more determined, and she shook her head.
The sack was so awkward, that was the trouble – that and the fact that the plank wobbled slightly, every time she moved. She stood sideways, shuffled along a few inches, and then dragged the sack towards her. Slowly, slowly, a bit at a time she progressed to the point where she was about two thirds of the way along. The plank still seemed to be resting firmly on the surface – no sign of it disappearing into the mire. That was good, but it also meant that she would have to go further before she reached a point where the sack would sink. She really didn’t think that she would be able to swing it very far, and so she needed to be standing over an area where the lagoon was virtually liquid. It seemed as though this would mean travelling right to the very end – for it was here that the surface became discoloured, where Benzo and the other two Ickri had fallen in.
Every little shuffle took her further away from safety and deeper into danger, but she ignored George – and Katie too now – pleading for her to give up and come back, and she continued to take one step at a time, making each step exactly the same as the last; slow, safe, sure, drag-the-bag. Slow, safe, sure, drag-the-bag. She was walking the plank like a pirate – and yet it was Tojo who was the pirate. Tojo was the pirate, and it was Tojo who was going overboard, down, down, down to Davy Jones’ locker . . . She stopped, suddenly feeling dizzy. This was a horrible thing to be doing. And it was really dangerous. It stank, the lagoon, now that she was approaching the area where the surface had been broken, and she felt sick and unsteady. There were masses of flies.
‘Are you OK?’ George’s voice sounded anxious, and miserable – and far away. No, she wasn’t OK. She wasn’t a bit OK. She felt that her nerve was beginning to go – dizzy and shaky and frightened, she felt. It had to be done quickly. Just a few more steps. If she allowed herself any more time to think, it would be too late . . .
At the end of the plank now, she looked at the ghastly mess where the Ickri had been – so close it was, at her very feet the orangey-grey porridge, reeking and foul. She was standing alone in the middle of a lake of slurry and angry humming flies, and the lake was ready to swallow her up, pull her down, suck her under into the choking swampy darkness – no! – she would not think of that. Lift the sack, quick. Get rid of it!
The untried weight of it almost overbalanced her, and her mouth filled instantly with water at the sudden fright. She felt her knees go funny, and was terrified that she might faint and fall in. The flies buzzed louder. She breathed out, breathed in, gagged slightly at the stench – and tried again. Now she had the measure of it, the weight of the sack, the best way to grip it, the best way to stand. Very gingerly she began to swing, getting used to the pendulum effect. She would not let go, not till she was certain that her rhythm and balance were absolutely under control. Backwards, forwards, gently swinging, no sudden movement, just backwards, forwards, a little more, a little more, just one more swing, and then g-e-e-e-ntly let her fingers loosen. The sack rose and fell gracefully in a short but satisfying arc, landing perhaps six feet from the plank, more or less where she hoped it would go . . . but the noise . . . the voices . . . screaming her name.
‘Miiiidge! Miiiidge! You’re sinking!’ George and Katie were frantically shrieking at her and she began to panic. What? What? She looked down and saw that the end of the plank was beginning to disappear into the oozing mire. It was already touching her trainers. All control suddenly deserted her, her nerve broke completely, and she ran – ran – back down the length of the plank, arms flailing, the board wobbling, feeling her balance beginning to go, her body teetering sideways, until she reached a point where she could stay on the thing no longer. She gave a final leap and landed on the surface of the lagoon. The crust cracked and gave way beneath her feet, and she screeched with fright, yet managed to plough onwards, reaching firm ground and the outstretched hands of George and Katie, falling onto the grassy rim of the lagoon to laugh and cry at the same time, soaked with perspiration, shaking with relief and shock. All three rolled around shrieking, with the sudden release of built-up tension, and it took a while before they remembered the purpose of it all and sat up to see what was happening in the middle of the lagoon.
Not much was happening, which was rather disappointing – an
d worrying. The knotted sack seemed to be just sitting there. But after a while, like watching the minute hand on a clock, it seemed that there must have been some progress, for now, surely, there was slightly less sack visible than there had been. Another five minutes and they were certain. They couldn’t see any movement, but the thing was definitely going under. George glanced sideways at Katie’s watch.
‘It had better hurry up,’ he said.
Eventually they stood up and pulled the plank back from the lagoon. The far end was messy, and so they dragged it through the weeds and thistles for a while until it was relatively clean again. This took a bit of time, and when they returned to the edge of the lagoon the sack was three-quarters gone.
‘I’m bored with this,’ said Katie. ‘Think I’ll go back now.’
But George and Midge stayed to witness the passing of Tojo, hugging their knees in sombre silence until the dark hessian sack finally disappeared altogether beneath the surface of the lagoon. The last little corner looked disconcertingly like an ear, the tip of a cat’s ear, pricked up, listening – though there was nothing to hear but the song of the flies, a humming choir, a final serenade to accompany Tojo into the underworld.
Chapter Twenty-eight
KATIE WENT UPSTAIRS to have another shower (‘I can still smell old cabbage leaves on me – ughh!’) and Midge and George wandered into the sitting room. George put the TV on and flicked disinterestedly around the channels, whilst Midge leaned over the back of the battered sofa and looked out of the window.
‘Fancy a game of Cluedo, or something?’ said George, but Midge shook her head. ‘Not really.’
‘Think I might go and muck about in the tree house then.’
The Various Page 32