Make More Noise!

by Emma Carroll

  “Yes!” Josie said impatiently. Why was Mrs Curtis being so very, very slow?

  “She slipped down the slope in the field? Into the lake?”

  “Yes!”

  “Is she – is she hurt?”

  “She’s broken her leg,” said Josie. What on earth was wrong with the woman? “I need you to get help, I need help, come and see.”

  But Mrs Curtis was putting her hands back on the handlebars, as if she was about to cycle away.

  “What are you doing?” said Josie. “You need to come and see, I need you to help. I can’t do this on my own.”

  “Oh.” Mrs Curtis looked very uncomfortable. “I don’t think I can. I’m not very well myself. I need to get home.”

  She did not look well, actually. She was almost as white as Mara had been. But Josie could not think about that right now. Mrs Curtis was the grown-up. She had to behave like it.

  “Go and get help, Mrs Curtis,” said Josie very firmly. She said it as sternly as she could. She said it like Mara might have said it. Josie never spoke to adults like that. “You must go and fetch an ambulance and Mara’s mum. Do you understand? Do you?”

  There was a long pause, and then Mrs Curtis nodded, rather meekly. “I’ll fetch them,” she said.

  “Do you promise?”

  “I promise,” said Mrs Curtis. A little colour was returning to her face.

  “You have to,” Josie said. “You absolutely have to. She’s really hurt, Mrs Curtis. It isn’t a trick, or anything. She really is hurt.”

  “I know,” said Mrs Curtis. There was something odd about Mrs Curtis’s voice. It was as if something was stuck in her throat. As if she might cry. “I know she is. I will get help, Josie, I will.”

  “And cycle quicker!” Josie called after her. “Cycle quicker than that!”

  And miraculously, Mrs Curtis seemed to increase her pace. Josie watched her figure dwindling into the distance and into the village proper, past the sign that said YOU ARE NOW ENTERING…, and out of sight.

  Then Josie turned and ran back to Mara.

  She was exactly where Josie had left her, but she had managed to pull herself up to a sitting position. She looked dreadful, and she had been crying. When she saw Josie, she bit her lip very hard to stop crying, and said, “Murderer, what do you want?”

  In trying to flag down Mrs Curtis Josie had almost forgotten that Mara thought she was a murderer.

  “I honestly didn’t touch you,” she said. She sat down in the mud next to Mara.

  “I felt your hands,” Mara said. “I felt you shove me. And then I couldn’t keep my balance and I fell off the tussock, and landed on my stupid leg and then I rolled all the way down. Because you pushed me. You pushed me.”

  “But I didn’t,” Josie started to say, and Mara said, “I felt it.” And then they both stopped speaking, because there didn’t seem to be any point.

  It seemed like a very long time before anybody came, and then everybody came at once: an ambulance, which stopped at the field gate, and two big paramedics, and Mara’s mum, and Josie’s mother too. And there were explanations, and Josie waited for Mara to say: she did it.

  But Mara said nothing. Common sense, Josie thought suddenly. She wants them to know we have common sense. Otherwise they’ll stop her doing things even when she’s better.

  Mara was the one with all the ideas.

  And then the ambulance took Mara and her mother away, and Josie’s mother took Josie home.

  Mara was not at school the next day. Josie’s mother picked up Josie at the gate and took her home in the car. After school Josie went to call for Mara, but the door was shut and nobody came to answer it.

  Then it was the weekend and Mara did not come to call for Josie. And Josie did not go to call for Mara.

  And Mara was still not at school on Monday.

  So Josie summoned up all her courage and went to Mara’s house. She hammered on the door with both her fists, until at last someone did open it, and when it swung to she said all in one breath, “Is she dead?”

  “Oh, it’s you, Josie Jones. We don’t want you.”

  It was the school best friend who had opened the door. She looked at Josie scornfully.

  “Is she dead?”

  “No thanks to you, Josie Jones. She says you pushed her. Everyone knows.”

  “Who knows?”

  “I do,” said the school best friend. “And I’m telling everyone. You’re crazy, Josie Jones. You keep away from us. You’re a murderer.”

  “But she isn’t dead,” said Josie.

  “You pushed her,” said the school best friend.

  “I did not,” Josie said with as much dignity as she could muster, but it didn’t matter: she knew it was too late. She could hear it going round already.

  The next day Mara was still not at school, and they made get-well cards instead of art.

  Josie was doing careful colouring-in when she heard it, just behind her.

  “Did you hear about Josie Jones?” someone whispered. And someone else whispered: Josie Jones pushed her! Josie Jones broke Mara’s leg! Josie Jones is a murderer!

  She turned round fast and the whispering stopped. But nobody would sit next to her, and nobody looked at her, and as soon as she went back to colouring it started again: Josie Jones pushed Mara! Josie Jones is a murderer! Even at playtime, and in the next lesson (which was maths), Josie was sure she could hear it. Josie Jones doesn’t have a best friend! Josie Jones is a murderer!

  She could not think about maths at all. How could she concentrate on isosceles triangles when she had all this to think about? And she didn’t have a best friend, unless you counted Mara, and everyone thought she had pushed her. But she had not done that. She was not a murderer. She had been behind Mara by two tussocks, distracted by that shadow.

  That shadow, Josie thought suddenly. That shadow! Perhaps there had been someone else up there, and someone else had pushed Mara when she wasn’t looking! And perhaps if she could find out who, they would stop saying it! She would just have to explain to Mara and that would be that. She was filled all at once with a kind of hope. She had a plan now. She thought it might be a long time before she got to do it, but she had a plan all the same.

  And it was just luck – pure luck – that Josie got her chance the very next day. It was Tuesday.

  At breakfast her mother passed Josie the Weetabix, and said, “I’m so sorry, Josie, but I won’t be home by three today. After all that business last week, you’ll have to stay at school until Mrs Curtis can fetch you. Will you tell the teacher? I don’t want you walking home alone.”

  Josie nodded. Inside her chest something leapt. Already!

  “I can trust you, can’t I, Josie?”

  Josie nodded again.

  Josie’s mother smiled and ruffled Josie’s hair.

  “It’s hard for you with Mara laid up, I know. She’ll be better soon, and then we’ll see about you walking home again. Along the road, if possible! No more fields. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” said Josie. She ate her Weetabix in three quick bites.

  “And tonight you’ll wait at school,” Josie’s mother said. “Mrs Curtis will fetch you. Will you go and remind her, please? I asked her last night, and gave her the money.”

  “I’ll go now,” Josie said. She slid off her stool and went out. At Mrs Curtis’s door she took a deep breath before she knocked.

  When Mrs Curtis answered, Josie said, “Mum says to remind you you’ll need to come and help me with my tea tonight.”

  Mrs Curtis frowned. “Aren’t I collecting you from school?”

  “No,” Josie said. She had never lied to an adult in her life: another first. “Natalie’s mum is dropping me home. But you can help me with my tea.”

  Mrs Curtis shrugged. “It’s all the same to me,” she said. “Anything else?”

  “I’ll be home about half past four,” Josie told her. Her heart was pounding in her chest.

  “Fine,” said Mrs
Curtis. She shut the door briskly and Josie climbed into the car.

  “All sorted?”

  “All sorted,” Josie told her mother.

  She could not sit still at school. The whispers were louder than ever, but she tried not to listen. I didn’t do it, she thought, fiercely. I didn’t do it.

  She had a plan. She was going to find out who was in the red shed, and who had pushed Mara. She was going to go and find things out. She was going to go adventuring. She was going to go detecting.

  At three thirty they filed out. She stuck close to Natalie’s family until they were out of the gates, and then, carefully, peeled off. She glanced around. Nobody was looking. Good. She ran swiftly across the park and climbed the fence. Down the other field. Over the fence. Over the ditch. Drifts of golden, reddish leaves were everywhere, and the ditch was full of them. She jumped from tussock to tussock, like Mara, and found it was easier than usual; she seemed to be jumping as fast as Mara, as deftly and smartly as Mara.

  She came to the part of the field where the red shed came into view and stopped abruptly.

  There was somebody else already in the red shed.

  She thought it was Mara at first. But that was impossible.

  The somebody else was wearing school uniform – a grey pinafore and white socks, pushed down instead of rolled – and had long hair like Mara’s that was loose and wild too. The light shone through it.

  Carefully – so carefully – Josie went closer.

  It was not Mara. She was like Mara, but not her: the hair was red like the leaves, not black as pitch, and the somebody else was the most freckly person Josie had ever seen. She was about Josie’s age, but Josie did not know her, which meant she did not go to Josie’s school. Josie knew everybody.

  “Did you push my friend?” Josie said, as boldly as she could muster.

  The somebody else looked up.

  “Who are you?”

  “I asked you a question,” Josie said.

  “Why should I answer you?” said the somebody else.

  “I don’t know you,” Josie said.

  “I don’t know you,” said the stranger.

  “You’re not from here,” said Josie.

  “You don’t have to go on about it,” said the stranger. Her voice was cross and rude, as if she’d said this a lot.

  The stranger was putting the broken red bricks neatly on to Josie’s pile by the door of the little red shed. Then she said, “I do know, you know. I do know I’m from somewhere else.”

  “Well, you are,” said Josie, and then, on an impulse, added, “I’m not from here either.”

  The stranger looked at her in surprise, considering her all over. “Aren’t you?”

  “No,” Josie said. “I was born somewhere else. I don’t really remember it. Then I lived in other places, and then I came here.”

  “I didn’t know,” said the girl. Her voice was less cross now. “Sometimes, it seems like everyone else is from here.”

  “Yes,” Josie said with feeling. It did seem like that. Especially now.

  “Is that why that girl said you had no friends?”

  “Which girl?”

  “With the black hair.”

  “Maybe,” Josie said. “I don’t know exactly.”

  The girl shrugged. “How long have you been here?”

  “Ages,” Josie said. “Since I was six.”

  “That is ages,” said the girl. “I’ve been here ages too.” She straightened the edges of her heap of bricks. “Did you know these bricks weren’t here originally?”

  “Yes. It’s got all straw and mud on the inside.”

  “It’s called wattle and daub actually,” said the girl. She was quite like Mara, Josie thought, but nicer. “Did you know?”

  “No,” said Josie truthfully. She liked learning new things.

  “Was it you who started putting the bricks in a pile?”

  “Yes.” She decided it was her turn to ask a question. “What’s your name?”

  The girl seemed to consider this before she answered. Then she said, “Sorrel. What’s yours?”

  “Josie,” Josie said. “I’ve never met anyone called Sorrel before.”

  Sorrel only shrugged. “I’ve met lots of Josies,” she said. “Come and help with these bricks. I think we ought to start putting them back around the outside, to protect the wattle and daub. What d’you think?”

  Josie looked at it, and saw that she was right; the boys had knocked the red bricks from the outside, and the soft, old, mud-straw bricks were vulnerable and raw, like a wound.

  “They need looking after,” Sorrel said. “They are very old.”

  They worked together in silence for a while, stacking the bricks around the soft mud.

  “Did you do it?” Josie said after a while.

  “Do what?”

  “Push my friend.”

  “Maybe,” said Sorrel.

  “You really hurt her,” Josie said.

  “So?”

  “You can’t just hurt people.”

  “She said you were tagging along. That was rude.”

  “You can’t just hurt people because they are rude,” said Josie.

  Sorrel hesitated. Then she said, “Well, I didn’t mean to. I thought she’d just fall a bit. I didn’t think she’d slip all the way down the slope. It was an accident.”

  “They think I did it,” said Josie.

  “Do they?” Sorrel looked quite shocked. “I’m sorry about that. And – and I’m sorry I hurt her. I didn’t actually mean to. I didn’t mean to at all. I just – I just lost my temper. It’s my fault.” Sorrel looked as if she might cry. “I honestly didn’t mean to,” she said. “I wanted her to learn a lesson. I thought about saying sorry but I was scared. I was really scared.”

  “You should have said sorry,” said Josie sternly. “You should have told people it was you.”

  “She knew it was me,” Sorrel said.

  “She thought it was me!”

  “She knew it was me,” Sorrel said again. “She knew it was me and she didn’t tell, she didn’t tell.”

  “How do you know she didn’t tell?” Josie said. “You didn’t come out and see.”

  “She didn’t tell on me,” Sorrel said. “She didn’t tell, and I didn’t say sorry. She didn’t tell, and I didn’t say sorry. I didn’t say sorry, and she didn’t tell. She didn’t tell, I didn’t say sorry, I didn’t say sorry, I didn’t say sorry…”

  Josie looked up, and the low sun was in her eyes again. She was blinded for half a second, and she blinked hard against the light.

  And she was alone.

  “Sorrel!” she called loudly. There was nobody there. “Sorrel! Sorrel!”

  But nobody answered. And Josie was still alone in the little red shed and it was very cold, in spite of the sun. She was very, very frightened.

  And Josie ran. She ran without stopping, all the way home, and she found when she got there she was crying.

  She burst through the door.

  Mrs Curtis was sitting by the stove with her hands folded in her lap.

  “What on earth’s the matter?” she said in her stern voice, and Josie discovered to her surprise that she did not know what to say. Mrs Curtis passed her some kitchen towel and told her to dry her eyes, and she did. When she had stopped crying, it seemed to Josie for a moment that Mrs Curtis was about to say something special, but she only said, “Well, Josie, there’s spaghetti hoops for your tea.”

  It sounded, in the way she said it, like something more important than hoops. It was comforting, Josie thought, and that was not something anyone had ever thought about Mrs Curtis before.

  Josie made the toast and Mrs Curtis opened the tin and heated up the spaghetti. Josie slid into her place at the table.

  “Juice?” said Mrs Curtis. Josie was surprised – she did not have juice in the week, Mrs Curtis knew that. But she nodded, and Mrs Curtis poured her some just the same.

  “I wanted you to know,” Mrs Curtis sai
d, when Josie was eating her spaghetti hoops, “why I didn’t want to help. To come and see your friend. Young Mara.”

  “But you did help,” Josie said. She did not want Mrs Curtis to feel bad when it was Mrs Curtis who had got the ambulance and the paramedics and the mothers.

  “I should have gone faster,” Mrs Curtis said. “I should have come to see your friend. But you see, I don’t like to go to that field. And it seemed to me that – well, that history was repeating itself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I did something very naughty,” said Mrs Curtis. “We used to play in that field – probably all children in this village have done, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. It’s a good place to play.”

  Josie nodded vigorously. It was a good place to play. The best place, she thought protectively. The very best place. It was strange to think of Mrs Curtis playing in it too.

  “Was the red shed there then?” she asked Mrs Curtis.

  “It’s much older than me,” said Mrs Curtis. “It was there long before I came to the village.”

  “But you’ve lived here forever,” said Josie.

  “Forever now,” Mrs Curtis said. “Ages now. But when I was ten I hadn’t lived here very long at all. I came from the town, you see. There was a war on. We were sent here to live, my brother and I, to get us out of the city. I loved it here.”

  She paused, as if she didn’t want to say the next part. But Josie said, “Go on,” and she did.

  “My friend and I were playing out,” said Mrs Curtis. Her mouth was almost closed, as if she was having to push the words out hard through her teeth. “And I did a terrible thing. We were playing at the top of the slope. And I pushed my friend. She was always bossing me about, always faster than me, always better than me. She was always the one with all the ideas. I was jealous, I suppose. She had a best friend. I was always the one tagging behind. I wanted her to be the one to fall for once. And she fell – and she was quite badly hurt, and her family moved away. I pushed her, and she fell.”

  And suddenly Josie knew. Probably you (the one reading this story) have known for a long time, but remember, Josie didn’t know that this was a story. It was just her life, and it was all happening in a muddle of spaghetti hoops and isosceles triangles.