“Do you want to come, Francie, if Dad has time to take us?” she asked. “You usually feel sick in the car, don’t you, so don’t bother if you’d rather stay. We shan’t be long, and we’ll bring something nice for tea.”
She doesn’t really want me to come, thought Francis. She thinks I’ll say something and make Dad mad or fight Wendy in the back. I don’t want to go anyhow. Aloud he said, “I’ll stay here, Mum. I don’t like the car much. Take Wendy and Deb. I want to do things by myself.”
His mother laughed at his important-sounding voice and kissed him.
She was happy that afternoon. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, her husband was in a good mood and had decided to take her and the girls to the amusement park. It would be a much more peaceful afternoon if Francis stayed at home, for Wendy and Debby hardly ever quarreled, and both got along well with their father. It was a great relief that Francis did not want to come.
Francis watched them go, waving to him, and was surprised at the queer, lonely feeling inside him. He wanted to belong somewhere, and he knew that he did not really belong inside that car. But now was his great chance to belong to Tyke’s gang, and he must escape quickly in case Ram came to visit. He stuck his two-bladed knife in his pocket and set off at a run. He did not suppose they would be there so early in the afternoon, but he would just snoop around and have a look.
He knew exactly where to go. The house was the last one in the road, and beyond it was a hedge and a playing field. An old woman had lived there, and one night she had accidentally set her house afire. She had run out screaming and was now in an Old People’s Home. The blaze had been quenched, but a lot of damage had been done. So far, the city had done nothing about it, and it remained blackened and empty, with the windows boarded up.
Francis had never been through the gate before. Once inside the yard, his heart began to beat very fast indeed, and he realized that he was not very brave. What if he joined the gang and they made him do scary, dangerous things in the dark? He suddenly wanted to run home to his mother. It must be nearly teatime, and they were bringing something nice for tea. Then he remembered that they had not really wanted him. They liked best to be just the four of them, and here in the gang he might really and truly belong and become an important person. His fear gave place to excitement, and he peeped around the corner of the house. At the back there was an old toolshed with a door on one hinge, which did not shut properly. He could slip inside without even opening it.
It was a horrible place—empty cans, bottles, and cigarette ends littered the floor, the walls were mildewed, and the windows stuffed with rags. There were some old bits of matting, a bench, a broken chair, a tin box containing tools and knives, a candle and matches, and a pile of paperbacks on the shelf. Francis thumbed through them, enjoying the cover pictures of blazing tanks, murdered ladies, crashing planes, or one-eyed monsters from space, but the stories were too old for him, and he soon put them back.
A smelly, sordid place it was, but to Francis it seemed the very gate of Paradise! He sat for a long time daydreaming and forgot all about teatime. Then he went outside to the little patch of yard behind the shed, and even he thought how wretched it looked—a trampled piece of earth covered with rotten cabbages and rusty cans. There was an old rake leaning against the wall, and he set to work collecting the rubbish. The birds had stopped singing and shadows lay across the yard, but it was nowhere near sunset. There was still time.
He worked on, still daydreaming. Perhaps they would be pleased that he had cleaned up the yard. Perhaps if he dug up the earth he could grow mustard and cress and radishes and make sandwiches for Tyke. He had done it before at home and had made sandwiches for Mum. The sky above the hedge was crimson now, but he did not want to leave before he had finished his job.
And then, quite suddenly, they came.
They charged into the shed and lit the lantern, which shone out through the gap in the door, making a broad beam across the path. To escape, he would have to cross that beam, so he crouched behind a bramble, pressed himself against the wall, and waited. There were three of them, and he could hear everything they said and the rasp of matches and the opening of cans. They were smoking, and they seemed to be making some sort of plan. “A little walk round” they called it, and Francis learned that the telephone booth outside Ram’s house was doing no one any good and why not smash it?
He crouched, trembling and listening, and wondering what to do. They might stay there for hours and Mum would be crying and Dad hopping mad, but he dared not move, for this was not the introduction he had imagined. What if they found him in the dark and murdered him in cold blood before he had time to explain himself? Spotty would be scared to do a thing like that, but Tyke would stop at nothing. Tyke was wonderful! Francis’s heart glowed with admiration, and then quite suddenly, because the March night was cold, he sneezed.
He heard the boys leap to their feet, and then there was dead silence, and Francis wondered for a moment whether they were quite so brave as he had imagined. At last Tyke opened the door very cautiously indeed. “Bet it’s that little Wog!” he whispered uncertainly.
“Not him!” quavered Spotty. “We scared the daylights out of him.”
“Who’s there?” said Tyke.
They seemed to be coming nearer, all together, and Francis realized, with a thrill of terror, that his only hope was to give himself up. They might do anything to him if they found him crouching in the dark.
He rose up from behind the bramble, and they all sprang back using words Francis had never heard before. But when they saw how small he was, standing alone in the light, they came forward and dragged him into the shed. They pinched him and slapped him, but not very hard, and he did not really mind, for this was his big test. This was his initiation into manhood.
“What did you hear?” demanded Tyke, holding his wrists and looking at him with narrowed eyes.
“I heard about the phone booth,” blurted out Francis. “And Tyke, let me join your gang! If you want to smash phone booths, I could help you. I can run ever so fast—I’m the fastest under eleven in the school. I could watch out and warn you, and you could smash anything you wanted.”
“‘Tyke’ indeed! ‘Thomas Isaacs’ from you, if you don’t mind!” But he stared thoughtfully into those bright, intelligent eyes lifted to his. They showed no fear, only a sort of adoration, and Tyke, who had known very little love or admiration in his life, felt rather queer. He had always dreamed of being a kind of brigand chief, but his only followers so far were fat Spotty and Bonkers, who was supposed to be a little bit wrong in the head and was about to be transferred to a special school. He was getting rather tired of both of them, but this one was different. He could teach this one anything and make what he liked of him. Besides, if he had really overheard them, he had better be watched. There had been some other acts of vandalism, and the police were on the lookout. So he squeezed Francis’s wrists a little harder.
“Right,” he said fiercely. “You can do some running for us. You’re not to hang round us at school, see? We don’t want you. But you can come here next Sunday at this time, and we’ll teach you a thing or two. Ever smoked?”
“Yes,” said Francis eagerly, and forbore to mention how sick he had been.
“And—if—you—tell—on—us—” Tyke’s eyes narrowed again. He pushed his face close to Francis’s and uttered such awful blood-curdling threats that Francis shivered. But he was not really afraid because he would never, never tell, not on pain of death.
“Right,” said Tyke again. “All ready? Now listen, and don’t you dare make a mistake! Run to the end of the road by the T-junction and stand against the wall. Look right and left. When no one’s coming either way, step out under the street light and raise your hand. D’you get me?”
“Mmm,” breathed Francis.
“Right—now, scram!”
Francis scrammed. He thought he had never run so fast before, for Tyke was watching him, and that seemed to
lend wings to his feet. He pressed himself against the wall, invisible in his gray jersey, and peered round the corner. A car was coming. It turned into the road where he stood and drew up outside a house. That was most unfortunate. But what was even more unfortunate was that it was his dad’s car, and Dad sat inside tooting softly on the horn.
Francis’s eyes grew larger and larger. If his dad turned and came back, the car lights would shine right on him. It would be safest to run home quickly, but faithfulness to Tyke kept him rooted to the spot, and a moment later the door of the house opened, and a lady in very high heels came clicking down the path. Dad leaned over, opened the car door, and started up the engine. They drove straight on and turned down a side street while Francis gave a great sigh of relief. He peeped round the corner again, and there was no one coming at all. He stepped into the lamplight and raised his hand, and he felt it was the most glorious thing he had ever done.
And as he raised it the three dark forms began running, their feet noiseless on the grass. As they reached the telephone booth they became a dark, confused mass. Francis heard the tinkle of broken glass and saw the light go out. It was over in a few seconds, and they sped on past him, still standing, fascinated, under the light.
“Go home, you little fool,” ordered Tyke, turning to the left while Spotty and Bonkers sped to the right. Francis saw a couple of doors open and realized why they were in such a hurry. He too turned and fled and did not stop running till he reached his home. He was very thankful that his father was out. Tea had been cleared away, and he felt hungry. He was just peering hopefully into the pantry when his mother came in.
“Francis,” she said sharply, “tea is over, and if you can’t come home in time you need not have any. There’s a glass of milk and a slice of bread, and then you’re to go straight to bed. Where have you been anyway?”
“Just playing in the next street,” he muttered sullenly, shuffling his feet.
“Well, I don’t know what you think you’re doing in the next street at this hour. Your father’s really cross about it. He’s just gone out, but tomorrow you’re going to catch it, and you deserve all you get.”
Francis was very hungry indeed, and he suddenly thought of a way to distract his mother’s attention. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked up at her.
“I know he’s gone out,” he said. “I saw him.”
“Rubbish! You said you were playing in the next street. How could you have seen him?”
“But he came into the next street. He stopped outside a house and tooted.”
“And what happened?”
“A lady came out and got into the car, and they drove away.”
Her eyes seemed to be boring holes in him. Her face was very white and her voice very quiet.
“What was the lady like?”
“Kind of fat with yellow hair—I couldn’t see much.”
“Francis, are you making all this up? You seem to have been telling a lot of lies lately.”
“It’s true. Honest, Mum. I’ll show you the house.”
But she had turned away, clenching her hands. She had forgotten all about him. He walked straight into the pantry and helped himself to bread, butter, ham, a large slice of apple tart, and a glass of milk. Then he hurried up to his bedroom and settled down to enjoy his supper. He was feeling utterly, recklessly happy. It had been great fun watching them smash that telephone booth, and Tyke was a wonderful leader. And he, Francis, belonged. He was important. They had seen how fast he could run—they had accepted him.
He climbed into bed and lay thinking of the rosy, grabbing, smashing future ahead of him. He was just falling asleep when there was a tiny noise at the windowsill, and Whiskers jumped onto his bed. He lifted the blankets, and she crept in beside him and curled herself into a warm ball against his chest. He stroked her thoughtfully and felt rather sad.
It was no fun at all kicking Whiskers. She was much too forgiving. She only loved and purred.
6
The Fire
He awoke in the night to a confused noise of Daddy shouting and Mum crying, but he fell asleep almost immediately and wondered in the morning if it had all been a dream. But somehow from then onward things seemed to go from bad to worse at home. Dad was nearly always out, and Mum seemed to have gone to pieces. She would scream at Wendy and slap Debby when they had not been particularly naughty, and kiss and hug them when they had not been particularly good. It was more than Francis could cope with, and he kept out of the way as much as possible.
But school was wonderful that Monday morning. Not that Tyke took any notice of him, or that he so much as glanced in Tyke’s direction. He knew his place and played with his own friends, but there was an invisible sense of comradeship, and it seemed glorious even to be sharing the same playground. Besides, it was only six days to next Sunday.
On Tuesday evening he dared to saunter round and look at the damage—the glass was shattered, the receiver broken, and the connection cut through with wirecutters. The place looked a shambles, and he was feeling a glow of pride at his own part in such a satisfactory job, when Ram, whose house was just opposite, saw him and came hurrying out. He thought Francis had come to visit him, and his small brown face was alight with joy. Francis, who liked chapati, let the mistake pass and followed him into his living room.
Ram’s father was there, and he too seemed pleased to see Francis. He spoke English quite well. “We are going to a parent-teacher meeting at the school from seven thirty to eight thirty,” he explained. “Tara is in bed, and Ram will be all alone. Could you not come and play with him, and you can buy fish and chips for supper at the corner shop? I will take you home about nine.”
Francis thought that a very good idea, although he did wonder for a moment why his own parents were not going to the school meeting. He quite liked Ram when there was no one more interesting about, and he had some really good toys. Also, Francis loved fish and chips.
“I’ll ask my mother,” he said and darted off, and his mother, as he expected, was quite relieved to know for once where he was and to have him safely out of the way. He was getting more and more quarrelsome and difficult at home, and the little girls became quite unmanageable when he was about. Besides, she had a headache coming on.
Once the parents had left, he and Ram settled down to a complicated game of armies on the rug. They arranged regiments all over the room and knocked them down with marbles. It was nice and warm with the gas fire on, and they pushed the sofa towards the wall to make more room for their game. After a while they felt hungry and set out for the fish-and-chips shop at the corner.
It was only a few minutes away, but there was a line, and they took some time deciding whether they wanted fish or hot pies. They trotted home under the stars, chatting and eating chips, but as they opened the front door they recoiled in horror. Clouds of gray smoke billowed from the house, knocking them backwards.
Ram grasped the situation first. “It’s the sofa,” he screamed. “Too near the fire. Francis, phone the police and fire engine—999. My father told me, always 999—I get Tara.”
He dashed for the staircase but was driven back, blind and choking. Three times he tried and then knew it was impossible. He gazed at the window; it was shut. As yet he could see no flames, only suffocating smoke. He must call the neighbors, and surely the fire engine would be here in a moment! He looked round wildly and realized that the telephone booth was wrecked and the city, as yet, had done nothing about it.
Francis too had remembered as he turned, and the thought had struck him like lightning: So this is the price of wrecking a phone booth—little Tara’s life, perhaps. And he had been so proud of his part in it. But it was only a passing thought, for there was no time to lose. He banged on the door of the nearest house, but the occupants were out. He knocked at the next, but they had no telephone, although they ran out to help. It was clearly no good wasting time. Perhaps none of these little houses had telephones. He had better run home. His mother would know
what to do.
Never before had he run so fast. Last time he had run, Tyke had been watching him, but now it was little Tara’s life at stake. He ran under that glorious street light, but the glory had departed. He arrived home completely out of breath, but his mother smelled the smoke at once and rushed to the telephone as he gasped out a few words. “Fire engine and ambulance, seventy-five Draper Street,” she shouted, “and there’s a child in an upstairs bedroom that they can’t reach.”
She suddenly seemed immensely strong, swift, and capable, and Francis wondered if he had ever really known his mother before tonight. “The ladder, Francis,” she cried. “It’s in the garage. Take one end and I’ll take the other—don’t talk—run—no Wendy, you can’t come. Go back to bed at once.”
He had certainly never known that his mother could run so fast. He could hardly keep up with her. This was a wonderful run, he and his mother together, to save a life. But as they turned the corner they saw that the neighbors were already coping and had turned their garden hoses onto the blaze. Only their ladders were too short, and already flames were leaping in the house. The smoldering sofa was ablaze, and the curtains had caught. One neighbor in particular seemed to have taken charge.
“Hurry up,” he shouted. “Keep the hoses on. The ceiling will go in a minute. Give me your belts or suspenders—anything to tie these ladders together—the girl’s in the front room, he says—got a hammer and a wet towel, mate? I’ll have to break the glass.”
Everyone was running in and out of houses, helping, bringing what was needed, and the joined ladders were just being hoisted when Francis and his mother appeared. The neighbor shinned up, and there was a crash of falling glass. He fumbled for the catch but drew back, blinded by the smoke.
Patricia St John Series Page 62