by Garth Nix
He spun and tumbled toward them, somehow managing to always get back upright despite the intensity of the wind around him. It swept him right up to the front door, spun him around in a tight circle, and dumped him in the gravel by the steps. He landed on his bottom with his legs in the air, but he was still waving his umbrella.
‘Yee-ha!’ yelled the man, and only then did the twins realise that his shouts were of excitement, not fear.
The small tornado rushed back toward him, whipping up a cloud of wet gravel as it came. But before it could get hold of the man again, Grandma X stepped out and raised an admonishing finger.
‘Stop this at once!’ she commanded.
The hair on the backs of both the twins’ necks stood up at the whipcrack of her voice, and they felt a strong compulsion to stay completely still.
The wind must have felt it, too, for the tornado fell apart. The gravel dropped straight down, and the air was suddenly quiet and still, apart from the rain, which continued to fall in a steady stream.
The man picked up a handful of stones and threw them over his head like confetti.
‘That was great!’ he cried. ‘Just delightful!’
‘Are you okay?’ Jack asked, hesitating only slightly before rushing forward to help him up, with Jaide a step behind him.
‘Better than all right, young fellow, young lady – why, thank you. I feel quite enthused, as a matter of fact. That doesn’t happen every day.’
‘It shouldn’t happen at all,’ said Grandma X in a warning tone, coming up beside the twins with her arms folded. ‘How did it start?’
‘Well, I’d just ducked out of the shop to see where Kleo had got to when the wind snatched me up. I’ve never felt anything quite like it. A most amazing ride!’
‘Weren’t you frightened?’ asked Jaide, gazing up at his ruddy, beaming face.
‘Not at all. Why would I be?’
Because it isn’t normal, she wanted to say, but the words died on her lips. Very little about Grandma X, her home, and now her friends struck Jaide as remotely normal. That they seemed to like it that way only made them weirder.
The man thrust out his hand to her.
‘David Smeaton’s the name, but you can call me Rodeo Dave.’
He shook hands with both of the twins as they introduced themselves in turn. His hand was calloused and very strong, and his good mood infectious. Jack, who was normally reticent around strangers, found himself laughing at a slightly off-colour joke about wind.
‘You’re obviously all right, then, David,’ said Grandma X, not quite smiling. ‘Kleo is here, so the wind brought you to exactly the right place. Shall I call her?’
‘She’ll come home when she wants to, I expect. I’m just glad she’s found a safe port in all this weather, and some new friends to play with, to boot. Better get inside before you’re soaked right through,’ he added, his moustache dripping. ‘Come and visit any time you want, young Jack and Jaide. Adieu!’
With that and a brisk wave over his head, Rodeo Dave walked back along the drive to Watchward Lane. A steady chuckle was audible in his wake.
Despite her earlier misgivings, Jaide found herself wishing that she had been caught up in the wind, too. It did look like fun, and a lot easier than walking everywhere.
That reminded her of something from the night before – something about flying . . . or something like flying – which in turn reminded her that there was something else she had been trying to remember, something important . . .
‘Why is he called Rodeo Dave?’ asked Jack. ‘I thought you said Kleo’s owner ran a bookshop.’
‘I did. He does. But he didn’t always run a bookshop.’
‘Was he a cowboy before that?’ asked Jack, his imagination full of wild horses and lassoes.
‘I’ll let him tell the story when he’s ready,’ she said. ‘Now, I must confess I am curious to visit your school. I don’t believe I have been inside since your father was a student there.’
Grandma X turned to Kleo, who was peering warily out from the drawing room. ‘As for you,’ she said, ‘make yourself useful and catch me a mouse.’
The schoolteacher, Mr Carver, was a towering beanpole of a man, with a kindly smile and just a fringe of hair around his otherwise bald head. He smelled faintly of incense, wore his linen shirt untucked, and had plastic sandals on his feet.
‘Call me Heath,’ he told the twins, shaking each of their hands enthusiastically in turn. ‘I’m sure we’re going to be marvellous friends.’
‘Uh, thanks,’ said Jack. At the twins’ old school, the teachers wore suits and ties and were called ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ – the concept of teachers and students being friends would have been met with more than surprise on both sides. Jaide was struck dumb by the man’s overbearing good nature. She simply didn’t know what to say to this kind of adult.
Grandma X had done her hair up in a tight grey bun before leaving the house, and it had made her look quite severe – even before she saw the changes at the school, like the cushions on the floor instead of desks, and a motto on the blackboard in rainbow chalk that read Harmony, Sharing, Discovery.
‘My daughter-in-law would like to know what materials Jackaran and Jaidith will need for their first day, Mr Carver,’ said Grandma X.
‘Oh, do please call me Heath!’ exclaimed the schoolteacher. ‘And, of course, Mrs Shield, if you —’
‘I’m not Mrs Shield,’ said Grandma X.
‘Oh, I do apologise, I presumed . . . your son being one of our past top pupils, his name on the old honour board . . .’
‘My name is —’ said Grandma X, but whatever word she said was simply incomprehensible to the children’s minds, and obviously to Mr Carver’s, too, because he goggled at her for a moment before resuming what seemed to be his trademark half smile.
‘Indeed, Mrs Xantho . . . er . . . Xeno . . . Xerxes . . . that is . . . ma’am . . . regarding materials, there’s no need to worry about anything like that. Here at the Stormhaven Innovative School of Portland, we help students through the educative process by encouraging them to study at their own pace, in their own special way.’
‘What exactly does that mean?’ asked Grandma X. Her lips had become surprisingly thin and her eyes had narrowed.
‘That we don’t treat our children like battery hens,’ explained Mr Carver. He clasped his hands together and leaned down to look directly into the twins’ faces. ‘Bring as much or as little as you want, Jack and Jaide, and we’ll make of you what you will.’
The jelly baby that Jaide had been chewing dissolved in her mouth, forgotten. ‘We don’t have to bring any books?’
‘Not unless you want to.’ Mr Carver beamed as though he’d won a debate with Albert Einstein. ‘Would you like a run around the playground while you’re here?’
‘Good idea,’ said Grandma X, surprising the twins. ‘Run along now while I talk to Mr Carver.’
The twins bolted through the classroom and out the school’s back door. For such a small school, it had a very large oval with some play equipment tacked onto one side, almost as an afterthought. Presumably the playing field was shared with the town for sporting events and fairs. Jack raced Jaide right around the oval, winning by a comfortable margin despite the sludginess of the grassy ground beneath their feet. The rain was holding off for the moment, although the clouds, if anything, had thickened.
‘Stop!’ called a woman’s voice as Jaide rushed up the ladder of a slippery dip and prepared to whoosh down the other side. ‘Hold it right there!’
Jaide froze, poised between standing and sliding with both feet out in front of her. The voice had come from inside a wooden fort. A tall woman in overalls crawled out of the fort’s child-size gate and pointed emphatically with a wrench.
‘It’s broken! Get down or you’ll hurt yourself!’
Jaide’s face flushed, partly from embarrassment at being yelled at by a stranger and partly out of annoyance. She could see nothing remotely wrong with the sli
ppery dip.
‘How do you know?’ she asked.
‘Because I’m here to fix it,’ said the woman. She stood up and indicated the base of the slippery dip, where Jack was standing. ‘I was going to work on the slide next.’
‘She’s right, Jaide,’ said Jack, pointing. The slippery dip’s legs had rusted right through and would have collapsed under Jaide’s weight. From where he was standing he could see it clearly. ‘You’re lucky she saw you in time.’
Slightly mollified, Jaide retracted her legs and climbed back down the ladder. The woman came around to meet her, her expression less severe now that she saw Jaide was safe. She reminded Jaide of her mother whenever one of the twins had a close call, going from terror to telling-off to apologies in a matter of seconds.
‘Sorry I gave you a fright,’ the woman said, slipping the wrench into a pocket and wiping her greasy hands on her overalls. ‘You’re all right?’
‘Yes,’ said Jaide, coming around the slippery dip to find solidarity next to her brother. ‘Thanks.’
‘Oh, no bother.’ The woman waved cheerfully, although there was a sadness to her eyes that Jack couldn’t decipher. ‘I’ll have it shipshape by the time you come back tomorrow. Wouldn’t want to let the little ones down.’
She took a step closer, as though she wanted to keep talking, but the twins said thanks again and hurried back inside, made nervous by the presence of yet another stranger. There had been so many in the last twenty-four hours that they were beginning to feel overwhelmed.
Mr Carver and Grandma X were engaged in a lively discussion on the proper education of children.
‘The mind of a child is the most precious thing in the universe,’ Mr Carver was saying. ‘It’s our job to encourage them to grow!’
‘It’s a teacher’s job to make sure they grow in the right way. How does letting something run wild achieve that?’
They broke off on seeing the twins, Mr Carver with visible relief.
‘Ah, yes, here you are. Did you meet Rennie? She’s the town’s odd-job woman. If you ever need anything done up at your house, she’s the one to call.’
If Mr Carver was trying to make amends, he failed in the face of Grandma X’s determined disapproval.
‘My house looks after itself perfectly well,’ she said. ‘And rest assured that we will continue this conversation another time. For now, we’re going to take a walk through the park.’
‘Be at one with nature, yes, that’s a lovely idea, good. Well, it’s been nice meeting you both.’ Mr Carver shook the twins’ hands again, meeting their eyes meaningfully and sincerely. They both noticed the dampness of his palm. ‘I’ll look forward to getting to know you better tomorrow.’
‘Uh, sure,’ said Jack. Grandma X’s grip on his shoulder was tight as she led them out the front of the school’s sole building. From the direction of the sea came the smell of fish. They had passed the fishing co-op during the short trip from Watchward Lane, and a trawler was offloading a big catch of something.
‘I suppose the school is at least convenient,’ said Grandma X, screwing up her nose at yet another apparition of rainbow paint, this time along the fence, a mural of many children holding hands and smiling exaggerated smiles.
‘Where else could we go?’ asked Jaide.
‘Nowhere close,’ replied Grandma X. ‘I don’t believe a long train trip each morning and afternoon would improve your minds very much.’ She peered at the clouds. ‘There’ll be time for that tour I promised you, I think.’
Grandma X’s car was a canary yellow 1951 Hillman Minx, with bulging leather seats and a steering wheel as big as a truck’s. It was Jack’s turn to ride shotgun, and he paid more attention to the car’s wood panelling and ancient accessories than to the places he was taken in it. There was no CD player or MP3 plug. The radio had only one dial. When Grandma X changed gear, the whole car vibrated, as if the gear change required the effort of the entire vehicle.
The park was on the other side of the iron bridge that crossed the wide, lazy river and its attendant swamps, leading to the town’s main street. Jaide had expected the usual trees and shrubs in the park, but found instead a large, carefully mown lawn with a bizarre centrepiece: an oval-shaped garden of cactuses growing out of weirdly placed stones. One cactus in particular stood up like a long, skeletal hand, pointing straight up into the sky. Others puffed and prickled in the breeze, looking various degrees of dangerous. They seemed very out of place in the rain.
‘Why cactuses, here?’ asked Jaide. ‘I thought they only grew in the desert.’
‘They require careful tending,’ replied Grandma X. ‘But they have been here since the town was founded. In fact, your great-great-grandfather – my husband’s grandfather – planted them, I believe out of a hankering for a former life in more arid parts.’
When quizzed about which parts, exactly, Grandma X was vague. The twins trailed after her as she looked at each cactus carefully, even getting out a pair of brass opera glasses to peer at the flowers atop the largest and presumably oldest cactus, which was well over thirty feet high.
But when she had finished, she summoned the twins with a clap of her hands.
‘Not a moment to lose!’ she exclaimed, even though she’d been the one staring at the plants. ‘Not if we’re going to see everything. Time is of the essence!’
‘Why?’ asked Jaide. ‘We’re not in any hurry.’
‘The rain, dear, the rain,’ Grandma X said.
From the cactus park Grandma X took them past the hospital and police station, but not, unfortunately, to the beach they had visited the day before. Grandma X parked on the edge of the coastal reserve and peered through the trees at the ocean. She fiddled in her bag and produced the opera glasses again, which she focused on Mermaid Point. She hummed and tutted for a moment, then passed the glasses to Jack.
‘Tell me what you see,’ she said.
‘Just rocks. Big black ones.’
‘Now you, Jaidith. Anything unusual?’
Jaide squinted down the unfamiliar instrument. ‘The rocks look like a giant, curled up into a ball.’
‘Let’s see,’ said Jack, taking the glasses back from her. ‘Where?’
‘Look for the shoulders. Once you see them, you can see the rest.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Jack exclaimed. ‘I see him!’
‘Her,’ Grandma X corrected, without further explanation.
Jaide assumed they were going home – Portland was very small, after all, and they had already seen most of it – but instead of turning up Parkhill Street, Grandma X headed out onto the headland visible from the opposite side of the bay.
There they found an old church and cemetery, and a lighthouse, all under the shadow of Portland’s most striking geological feature: the Rock.
The Rock was a hill of grey stone that speared up out of the ground fully four hundred feet high, providing numerous rookeries for seabirds on its steepest side and some precarious perches for clumps of pandanus trees and other small plants on the other.
The view from the top would be fantastic, thought Jack, and it didn’t look too hard to climb. In fact, he could see the beginning of a path, and a sign that looked like it marked the start of a trail. But his hopes of climbing it were temporarily dashed when Grandma X parked the Hillman at the base of the lighthouse and peered up at the tapering white column through the opera glasses.
‘What are you looking for?’ Jaide asked her. She was getting bored of sightseeing, particularly when she didn’t get to look through the opera glasses.
‘Oh, nothing, dear.’
‘Then what are we doing here?’
‘You can live somewhere all your life and see it afresh every day,’ Grandma X said. ‘It’s all in how you use your eyes . . . how attentive you are to changes.’
It didn’t look to Jaide like the town had changed in at least a generation, maybe two, and she could tell when she was being fobbed off. She folded her arms and huffed back into the seat, despairing of e
ver seeing or doing anything that interested her.
‘How long have you lived here, Grandma?’ Jack asked.
‘Hmmm?’
‘Were you born in Portland?’
The glasses came down. Grandma X’s expression was distant, as though seeing something very far away.
‘Oh, no, I grew up on the other side of the world, almost. It was your grandfather who came from here. He was a clockmaker, and a very good one, too.’
‘What happened to him?’ Jack asked, thinking of the broken clock in the lounge, and the other one that went tick-tock-tack.
‘He died a long time ago.’ Grandma X sniffed, and turned her steely gaze back to the twins. ‘Things have changed an awful lot since his time. Schools, for instance.’
‘Can we go for a walk?’ Jack asked.
‘I’m sure you can,’ Grandma X said, ‘but may you? That’s the question.’
Jaide had heard that line from her father. ‘May we go for a walk, Grandma? It looks like the sun is coming out.’
Grandma X raised the opera glasses once more, but not to look at the clouds, which were parting a little. Instead she focused the glasses at the top of the lighthouse.
‘I suppose the . . . conditions . . . are not unfavourable,’ she said slowly. ‘Stay within sight of the lighthouse, keep well away from the rocks at Dagger Reef, and be home before dusk. That is very important. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Grandma,’ they both said. They already had their car doors open.
‘You do remember the way home from here, don’t you? Go back down Dock Road and left at Parkhill. If you reach the iron bridge, you’ve gone too far.’
‘Yes, Grandma.’
‘If you’re not home in an hour, I’ll come looking for you!’
The twins slammed the doors behind them, making the car’s heavy body rock from side to side. They didn’t need to discuss where they would go first. Gravestones beckoned by the church.
Maybe their grandfather lay under one of them.