by Hilary McKay
‘I s’pose it’s all right if it fits,’ said Rachel gracelessly.
‘Of course it fits!’ replied Ruth crossly. ‘D’you think we didn’t measure? You might be more grateful; we sewed until our fingers bled, making it!’
‘I don’t want it if it’s bled on,’ said Rachel.
‘What are you going to get me?’ asked Phoebe. ‘I don’t want a sledge case!’
‘Nothing if you’re going to be as nasty as Rachel,’ said Naomi.
‘I’m not being nasty,’ argued Rachel, ‘I’m being honest!’ Phoebe’s turn to ask, ‘What is it?’ came a few days later. ‘It’s a zoo keeper’s hat!’
‘What’s the toothbrush for?’
‘Cleaning out the cages.’
‘What’s the cardboard animals for?’
‘Putting in the zoo instead of us.’
Phoebe let the cardboard animals loose in the garden and kept her relations in the cages.
‘Ruth and Naomi have a secret,’ said Rachel, ‘a money secret!’
Phoebe was not interested. She was engrossed in writing a letter to Big Grandma.
Dear Big Grandma,
The 10 pond you give me is stuck in trane. By the slit it cannot breke it cost to much my trane.
love Phoebe
‘What does it mean?’ asked Rachel, reading over her sister’s shoulder.
‘Can’t you read?’ asked Phoebe impatiently. ‘It says my ten pounds is stuck in the train and you can only get money in by the slit and it’s no use saying I’ll have to break the train because it’s too valuable. So can she think of a way of getting it out.’
‘It doesn’t say that at all,’ argued Rachel. ‘Anyway, listen to me. Ruth and Naomi have a secret. I think it’s to do with money.’
‘They haven’t got any money,’ pointed out Phoebe, ‘that’s why they gave us such rubbish birthday presents.’
‘What are you drawing?’
‘My train.’
‘It can’t be.’
‘It’s a picture of if you look through the slit at the money I can’t reach.’
‘They’ve been asking about my Christmas money,’ continued Rachel. ‘Good job they don’t know where it is. I bet they’d steal it if they could.’
‘Where is it?’ asked Phoebe. ‘Or have you lost it?’
‘It’s in a safe place,’ Rachel said. ‘I think,’ she added uncertainly, ‘I have to keep going to check.’
Mrs Conroy had persuaded Rachel to deposit her money in a Post Office savings account. ‘A special children’s one,’ Mrs Conroy had said. ‘They’ll take care of it until you think of something you really want.’
‘I really want another huge box of chocolates. Mine’s gone already,’ Rachel had remarked, where upon Mrs Conroy had hurried her off to the Post Office without further delay. The disadvantage of the system was that Rachel did not trust the Post Office staff.
‘They’ve only given me this book,’ she said, scrutinizing her account. ‘They write in it themselves. They could write anything. How do I know they haven’t spent it?’
Already Rachel’s account book was filling up with a list of deposits and withdrawals, all for the same amount, as Rachel checked up on her money.
‘She only wants to look at it,’ Mrs Conroy explained the first time Rachel dragged her back. Nevertheless, only four days after having deposited her money, before Rachel could hold it again in her hands, a form signed by Mrs Conroy and Rachel needed to be filled in. Even then, Rachel, receiving her ten pound note, had taken one look and exclaimed,
‘That’s not mine! Mine was a new one and had a bent corner!’
‘So it was,’ agreed the cashier, who at that time thought Rachel quite sweet, and he replaced it with a new, bent-cornered one. After examining it carefully, Rachel and her mother filled in another form and handed it back. Since then they had filled in so many forms that a separate pile was kept for Rachel. The Post Office was only round the corner from home and recently she had taken to popping in alone on her way back from school, in order to see the cashier wave a ten pound note at her to prove that, in her brief absence, he had not spent it.
‘Catch the public young,’ the manager told his staff, ‘and you’ve got them for life.’ Whether or not they wanted Rachel for life was a different matter.
‘Everyone has money secrets,’ remarked Phoebe. ‘Ruth and Naomi, Mum and Dad, everyone. You do.’
‘How do you know?’ Rachel, alarmed, clasped the flat place on her stomach where her Post Office account book was warmly stowed between T-shirt and skin.
Phoebe finished off her letter with a lot of kisses and did not reply.
‘I hate it,’ said Rachel passionately, ‘when people have secrets. It’s not fair, it makes me ill. People ought to be made to tell me things.’
‘I showed you my letter.’
‘It was boring,’ said Rachel ungratefully. ‘Ruth and Naomi are upstairs writing boring letters too. Secret, boring letters.’
‘How do you know?’
‘They won’t let me in.’
Joseck’s letter had arrived the previous morning.
‘It’s taken weeks,’ said Ruth. ‘I ought to write back straight away, it’s been so long coming.’
‘Look,’ said Naomi, ‘it was my money you sent as well; both of us should write, and we should tell him there’s two of us, not just you.’
‘I thought you didn’t want to share.’
‘I do now,’ said Naomi. Quite suddenly, the letter from Africa had brought Joseck alive. A real person, playing football, reading books, asking questions.
‘Three languages,’ they read, astonished. ‘Manchester United! Maths! His favourite is Maths!’
‘I said he looked clever!’ said Naomi.
’Look, he’s drawn a picture,’ discovered Ruth.
Sure enough, at the bottom of the page, in faint pencil lines, a small animal stood on a small sloping roof.
‘It’s one of his goats!’ said Naomi.
‘And it’s laughing!’
Suddenly, they could not wait to write back.
Dear Joseck,
Thank you for your letter. There are two of us, not just one. Ruth and Naomi. We are sisters. We are both well and we hope you are too. It is cold and wet and dark in our country. We liked your goat. Our father makes things too. He made a sledge for the snow and he is going to make a gate.
We have read about Africa and we found your country, Kenya, on a map. We would like to go there. We would like to see the wild animals, there are not many wild animals here. Do you have sisters or brothers? What books do you read? If we write to you and you write to us, then we can visit each other by letters.
Love from Ruth and Naomi
There was a thumping on the stairs and the door opened and it was Rachel.
‘Mrs Collingwood says would Ruth stop with Peter for half an hour while she collects Martin from football?’
‘Good!’ exclaimed Ruth, jumping up. ‘Another pound!’
‘I’ll post our letter,’ said Naomi.
‘What letter?’ asked Rachel, who was lingering in the hope of discovering secrets. ‘What do you spend the money on?’
‘Private.’
‘I’ve got a secret,’ said Rachel, ‘a money secret, too! Don’t you want to know what it is?’ She was very pleased when Ruth and Naomi turned back eagerly to look at her.
‘I knew you would,’ she remarked smugly, and disappeared down into the kitchen, where Mrs Conroy was making cakes for Sunday Tea. A baking tray full of small chocolate buns stood on the table, waiting to go into the oven.
‘I’d rather have one raw,’ said Rachel, looking at them, ‘than anything in the world. Than a hundred cooked ones! When will you have time to go to the Post Office with me?’
‘Would you rather have one raw than go to the Post Office?’ asked her mother. ‘Say, for a whole month?’
‘For a week anyway.’
‘A month.’
‘Two weeks
,’ said Rachel, edging towards the table.
‘Three weeks.’
‘Three weeks then,’ agreed Rachel. ‘Do you think it will be safe that long?’
‘Didn’t you read that little book the man at the Post Office gave you? All about how they look after your money?’
‘I read it in the bath.’
‘Yes?’
‘But I dropped it in before I could believe it. That’s why I have to keep checking.’
‘Well, you’ll have to wait three weeks, now you’ve eaten that cake.’
‘Six weeks if you give me another,’ offered Rachel, and was ordered out of the kitchen.
CHAPTER FIVE
In the Post Office window there was a notice board, full of adverts for jobs.
‘Experienced Nanny, also willing to cook and exercise dogs. Own car essential. Weekends and evenings as necessary. Typist preferred. References required.’ That card had been there so long that it was brown at the edges, and so had the one that read, ‘Cheerful young man to service, maintain and repair pensioner’s car in return for occasional use.’
Naomi, pausing at the window after posting Joseck’s letter, noticed a new card in the list:
‘Reliable gardener required.
2–3 hours per week.
Tools provided.
Previous applicant need not reapply.’
Naomi, wondering what the previous applicant had done to receive such a public rebuke, wrote down the address.
‘How much d’you think gardeners get paid?’ she asked Martin the next morning.
‘Depends on their qualifications, I should think.’
‘If they haven’t got any qualifications?’
‘Well, depends on their experience then, I suppose.’
‘If they haven’t any of that either?’
‘Who’d employ them, then?’ asked Martin practically.
Somebody might, Naomi thought hopefully. She had spent the summer gardening at Big Grandma’s house in the north, and found that it was something she enjoyed. That evening after school she cycled away to inspect the address. Nothing could have been more disheartening. A shabby red brick bungalow, surrounded by concrete paths and empty flower-beds. As Naomi looked, a curtain moved and a face appeared at the window.
‘Looking for someone?’ asked a voice behind her, and Naomi turned to see Mrs Reed, her old primary school headmistress.
‘Naomi, isn’t it?’ she enquired. ‘Phoebe and Rachel’s sister. I never forget a face! What are you doing here?’
‘Just looking at the garden. It needs gardening.’
‘It certainly does,’ agreed Mrs Reed. ‘Nothing to redeem it, except that old apple tree.’
For the first time, Naomi noticed a huge old apple tree that stooped across one corner of the garden. Beneath it was a garden shed, so old that the wood had weathered to a silver greyness.
‘And the shed.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Mrs Reed, slightly surprised. ‘Anyway, I’m afraid it’s all beyond the old couple these days.’
The front door of the bungalow had opened and an ancient man, swaying between two sticks, made his way along the garden path towards them. He did not, Naomi noticed with disappointment, look rich.
‘I see you looking,’ he called from half-way up the path, ‘and I knowed what you come for.’
‘To see the garden,’ explained Naomi, shouting in case he was deaf. ‘I saw your card in the Post Office.’
‘Are you one of Linda’s?’ he asked, looking across at Mrs Reed.
‘One of mine grown up a bit,’ agreed Mrs Reed. ‘I didn’t realize you were thinking of tackling the garden yourself, Naomi?’
‘I like gardens,’ said Naomi.
‘That’s good to hear. Have you met Toby and Emma?’
‘She’ve just met Toby,’ said Toby, smiling a toothless smile at Naomi, ‘and Emma’s on her way. Emma’s slowed down a bit these days,’ he continued, ‘she can’t get about like she did. She’m dead set on having the garden planted up, though. Here she comes for a look.’
Glancing behind him, Naomi saw an old lady progressing along the path with such small footsteps that she seemed to drift. The March breeze that chased last year’s dead leaves in circles through the garden seemed more than likely to sweep her away with them. With a voice like paper in the wind she remarked,
‘I was one of the first Girl Guides!’
‘Oh,’ said Naomi, and then, rather stupidly, ‘Why did you leave?’
Emma did not seem to find it a stupid question. ‘I wonder now,’ she admitted, ‘perhaps I shouldn’t have rushed off.’
‘This young lady,’ announced Toby, ‘is our new gardener! And a cut above the last, if you ask me!’
‘Cheeky young devil, him,’ remarked Emma.
‘Well, it looks like you’ve got the job,’ said Mrs Reed to Naomi. ‘Do you want me to have a word with your mother? I’ve known Toby and Emma for years. I’ll give you my number and you can tell her to give me a call. Or she can pop into my office when she’s collecting your sisters. How would that be? All right?’
‘Yes, yes thank you,’ Naomi managed to say, still looking in astonishment at the empty, dusky garden, the goblin figures of the old people, and Mrs Reed, who seemed to think there was nothing unusual in the situation.
‘Pound an hour,’ said Toby, suddenly business-like. ‘No radios, no acting unreasonable, and no digging up of Roger!’
‘Who’s Roger?’ asked Naomi, completely bemused.
‘Him that come before,’ Emma told her, ‘dug him up!’
‘Upset them terribly,’ said Mrs Reed. ‘Roger was their parrot!’
Suddenly Naomi realized that the garden had a third feature. Apple tree, silver shed, grave marked with a wooden cross.
‘We could grow flowers on him,’ she suggested, ‘parrot-coloured! Red and yellow and bright green and blue.’
‘Shallow-rooted,’ breathed Emma.
‘One of Linda’s,’ said Toby, who seemed to think a great deal of Mrs Reed. ‘One of Linda’s got the job. Come back Saturday, any time Saturday.’
‘I’ll make sure I speak to your mother before then,’ said Mrs Reed. ‘I’ve written down my number for you. Here!’
‘Thank you,’ said Naomi again.
Toby’s hands were shaking on his sticks.
‘Get into the warm,’ Mrs Reed ordered him. ‘You too, Naomi! I hope that bike has proper lights!’
Naomi nodded but did not move, waiting to see her employers safely indoors. Mrs Reed gave her arm a friendly pat.
‘We’ll all be old one day,’ she told her. ‘Well into their nineties, those two are. We’ll be lucky if we’re as bright as they are when it comes to our turn!’
Naomi, cycling home, thought about that.
‘One day you’ll be old,’ she told Phoebe when she got in.
‘I shan’t!’
‘Ninety!’
‘I won’t!’
‘Older than Big Grandma!’
Phoebe said nothing, busy rolling plasticine. ‘Mrs Collingwood,’ she said proudly, showing Naomi a plasticine person she had already made. ‘I told her I was a vegetarian and she called me a sausage! She’ll have to live in Phoebe’s cage till I find another box. I’m making plasticine sausages for her tea. Serve her right!’
Rachel came wandering in and was introduced to the latest victim. ‘Mrs Collingwood in with me?’ she asked. ‘Brilliant! I hated being on my own!’
Naomi spent the evening reading her father’s gardening catalogues and making a list of all the red, yellow and blue plants that might be suitable for a parrot’s grave.
‘How deep is he buried?’ asked Ruth, when the situation had been explained to her.
‘Not very, I shouldn’t think, if they had to dig the hole themselves.’
‘Wonder how long he’s been dead,’ mused Ruth. ‘Pity to waste him, really!’
‘If I dig up Roger for you,’ said Naomi sternly, ‘I’ll get the sack!’
‘Well, she said they turned out very nicely,’ said Naomi. ‘Anyway, I did a lot of other things too. Digging and weeding, you know I did! Anyway, anyone can garden, thousands of books tell you how. It’s not as bad as being a baby-sitter who’s only practised on Phoebe! You can’t look up babies in books!’
‘You can,’ replied Ruth serenely. ‘I did in the library. There’s all sorts of ways of bringing them up – depends what you want them to grow up like!’
‘What do you do with Peter, then?’
‘Whatever stops him screaming quickest,’ said Ruth.
Mrs Reed spoke to Mrs Conroy as she had promised, explaining that Naomi had arranged to do some gardening for a nice old couple she knew well.
‘We’ve been neighbours for years,’ she said, ‘and I’m very fond of them. It will brighten them wonderfully to have a young person about. And I gather Naomi likes gardening.’
‘She got interested last summer,’ admitted Mrs Conroy. ‘I don’t see why she shouldn’t try and help them out, I suppose.’
‘Perhaps you’d go and see them yourself,’ Mrs Reed suggested, and Mrs Conroy replied that she would, as soon as she had time. Mr Conroy, seeing Naomi poring over his garden catalogues, offered to help with ideas.
‘I’ll ask if I’m stuck,’ said Naomi, not feeling stuck at all.
By Friday evening her plans were complete, and if all went as she hoped, Toby and Emma’s red brick bungalow was well on the way to being transformed. Ruth, nobly sacrificing several nights’ homework to a good cause, had painted pictures illustrating the blossomy paradise her sister intended to create. During spring and summer the bungalow would be entirely lost beneath garlands of honeysuckle and roses. The autumn scene showed an odd brick or two peering from between golden leaves, but winter restored the old outlines completely, softened only by deep snow, ivy and glowing windows.
‘There!’ said Ruth.
‘There!’ said Naomi on Saturday afternoon, plonking down her sister’s pictures on Toby’s knee.