Make More Noise!

by Emma Carroll

  And Josie said, very daringly, “Was her name Sorrel?”

  And Mrs Curtis looked very surprised. “Where did you get that from?” she asked Josie.

  “I – I—” Josie didn’t exactly know what to say. You remember, she never did. “Did she die?” she said, all in a rush. “Did Sorrel die?”

  But Mrs Curtis said, “But I’m Sorrel. Sorrel was me. Is me.”

  And Josie looked at Mrs Curtis, and Mrs Curtis looked at Josie, and Josie saw that underneath the wrinkles you could see her skin was very fair, and very freckled.

  “She didn’t die,” said Mrs Curtis. “But she didn’t come back to the village. I never saw her again. Never got to say I was sorry. She lives in the town now. I wish—” And then she stopped, as if she didn’t know how to go on.

  “I know,” Josie said gently.

  She finished her tea.

  “Thank you,” she said to Mrs Curtis, and she did not mean for the spaghetti hoops.

  “I wish,” said Mrs Curtis again, and went on slowly, “I wish I could tell her I was sorry. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to feel easy about it, you know. I did a terrible thing, and I’ve been sorry ever since. I really have.”

  “I know,” said Josie. She did know.

  They sat together in silence for a long time: a comfortable silence. They understood each other, Josie thought.

  “What was your friend’s name?” she asked, and Mrs Curtis told her.

  I told you Josie did not tell this story before she was a grown-up, and that was not quite true. She told Mara. She thought Mara should probably know. She went to her house the next day, and the other best friend was not there. Mara’s mum let her in and did not seem cross with her.

  When Josie had told it to Mara, Mara was quiet for a long time. Then she said, “I see.” And Josie knew that she did see.

  “I’m sorry I said you pushed me,” Mara said.

  Josie said, “You weren’t to know.”

  Mara sighed. “No. If I had,” she said thoughtfully. “I’d never have said it. Pushed by a ghost is a much better story.”

  “Is it even a ghost?” Josie said.

  “Probably not,” said Mara. “But it will be when I tell it. You’ll see. That’s the thing about stories. It doesn’t matter what actually happened so long as you tell it right.”

  She brightened. “I’ve got a brilliant cast though – look at it. You can write your name if you want. Pushed by a ghost, time off school and a brilliant cast. I owe her, really.”

  They thought about this for a while.

  And then together they found a telephone directory, and searched for a certain telephone number. It took them quite a long time – days and days – to get the right one, because they could not ask anyone for help. They did not want to tell anyone the story.

  And when they had found the telephone number, they rang it. It was quite complicated to explain, but they managed it.

  And when they had managed it, they explained, sort of, to their parents, and to Mrs Curtis. There was an awful lot of fuss but they managed that too, and somehow it ended up (a week or two later) as a kind of party in Josie’s kitchen, with everybody there.

  And a car pulled up outside, and an old lady got out of the car, and she walked straight to Mrs Curtis, and then – and nobody saw exactly how it happened – the two old ladies were hugging and crying. Tall, stiff Mrs Curtis actually crying!

  “I’m so sorry,” said Mrs Curtis, crying and laughing at the same time.

  “It was so long ago,” said the other old lady, laughing and crying too. “It’s been so long, it’s been so long!”

  “Too long,” said Mrs Curtis. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!”

  “You’re forgiven,” said the other old lady. “Of course you’re forgiven! You were just a little girl! Only ten! A baby, really!”

  And Mara and Josie looked at each other, because ten did not feel at all like being a baby to them. And Josie knew that it had not felt like being a baby to Sorrel either. It had felt just as important as being a grown-up person. They were still not best friends – not in any way the grown-ups would have understood – but it didn’t really matter. It was complicated. Lots of things were.

  And without speaking Josie and Mara linked little fingers and promised not to forget: not to forget any of it, and not to forget how it felt to be ten, and not to think – not now, not ever, ever, thought Josie – that the things that happened to you when you were ten weren’t just as important as the things that happened to you when you were twenty or forty or sixty or a hundred. More important, maybe, Josie thought, because hadn’t Mrs Curtis been thinking about being ten the whole time? Hadn’t part of Mrs Curtis been ten this whole time?

  But she did not say anything. It was not the time, with Mrs Curtis and her old lady friend crying and hugging each other, and everyone saying how lucky it was that Mara and Josie had developed such an interest in history, and Mara telling all the grown-ups there that she had read about it in an old newspaper.

  That was what they had decided to say to the adults.

  But to everyone else? To everyone else Mara told the whole story. Or a whole story, anyway.

  Mara was right: it didn’t matter what had really happened. It was the story that mattered. Mara’s story had a white waily figure in a long nightie, and screams, and blood. They are telling it still, in the little village, as far as I know.

  That’s how you know it was a good one: it went on telling itself, long after Mara and Josie had grown up and gone away.

  This is not such a good story. Nobody is going to tell this one in the little village. Nobody tells a ghost story without a ghost, and how could there be a ghost in this story, when nobody died?

  Josie was never sure, herself. Like I told you, she didn’t think it counted.

  And then, one evening a long time later when she was quite grown up, somebody asked her to tell a ghost story.

  And she thought about all the ghost stories she had ever known, and Mara who could tell better stories than anybody, and she thought too about a Tuesday afternoon in October, not really so very long ago, not really so very far from here, and a girl with hair the colour of autumn leaves, and the low sun in her eyes, and Josie opened her mouth, and said:

  I expect you already know what a ghost story is like. Everyone does, and it isn’t like this…

  She changed the names around a bit, but it was true, all the same.

  PART 1

  Two years into the war, our village ran out of boys – the useful variety, that is, who could handle a team of horses or milk twenty cows before sunrise. We still had plenty of the useless kind, the worst by a whopping mile being Derek Patterson, who was in my class at school and whose idea of fun was making girls cry. Last week he’d upset my best pal Mabel by stealing her jam sandwiches. She didn’t have much, Mabel, which made it worse.

  When he wasn’t upsetting people, Derek hunted otters along the river with his dad. Their dogs – lolloping, bearded things with curly coats and husky barks – chased the otters for hours on end, which to me didn’t seem a fair fight either.

  That spring, with eighty acres to farm, we found ourselves in a tight spot. The healthy men were off fighting the Germans, and as the Ministry of Food wanted more milk, more wheat, more spuds, we needed help on our farm. The only thing we had plenty of was rats, in the barns and climbing the gutters into our roof. There were so many you’d even catch sight of them in daylight hours.

  Then the land girls came.

  The War Office said they’d send us two strong young women from London with glowing references to help, though even on the day they arrived, Dad still wasn’t convinced.

  “What do I want with city girls on my farm?” he grumbled. “They’ll be as good as useless.”

  Yet Mum and I were both looking forward to it: having someone modern and different staying with us was bound to liven things up. There had been a farm at Higher Hope for hundreds of years. House, barns, the whole lo
t was made of grey flint with walls as thick as a castle’s, so all yesterday Mum and I did our best to make the place look welcoming. We made up the big front bedroom with its views over the river, and lit a coal fire in the grate to lift the chill. Our land girls, I decided, would be like older, glamorous sisters.

  “Imagine it, Cathy,” Mum chatted excitedly as we’d cleaned. “Young women who’ve seen the world!” Lately she’d been reading novels from the library with dashing titles like Arabian Adventures and Queen For A Day, which she hid inside recipe books when Dad was in the room.

  Being Monday – a school day – I wasn’t allowed to stay home to meet the land girls, who were coming on the eleven o’clock bus. Still, I was excited enough to wake extra early. Grabbing my coat and satchel off the peg, I’d enough time to spare to walk to school the long way round, which meant cutting across Longhorn Meadow down to the river.

  On the bank between the trees was a faint path. It ran alongside the main, well-trodden one, except you almost had to squint to pick it out. It was the sort of path you sometimes saw in fields, made by rabbits or badgers. This one was an otter path.

  If you were really quiet, you’d sometimes catch one scampering along it, their webbed feet and fat, heavy tails flattening the grass.

  These days, though, you’d have to be really lucky. Otters were getting rarer. We’d not had a breeding pair here for a couple of years, though if you listened to Mr Patterson you’d think they were as plentiful as the rats in our barns.

  You could follow the otter path almost as far as the village. That morning, as I ducked under the trees to join it, I was busy contemplating our land girls. Until, that was, I heard a loud watery plop. I stopped. Craning my neck over the riverbank, I caught sight of an animal rump disappearing into the water. The long pointed tail. The wet, sticking-up fur.

  An otter.

  People said they were pests for eating too much brown trout and, with rationing on, you could get a good meal out of a plate of fish. But I’d gladly go without trout if it meant the otters got left alone.

  Out on the river now the water looked still. This stretch of river was particularly deep where it ran under a line of willows. I kept watching. Not moving a single muscle. I counted to one hundred, then another hundred.

  Almost.

  A dark head popped up. Two round little black eyes glinted at me. Then, a few yards on, a second head. They both watched me like I watched them. Not moving. Not twitching. I almost believed we’d stay like that all day.

  No such luck.

  Something startled them. A tail swish and they were off. Ripples spread across the river, reaching the bank. Then the water went back to being dark and still.

  I waited, hoping for another glimpse. But in the end, disappointed, I started walking again – faster than before. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been watching the otters but I’d a worry I was going to be late for school. And there were two things our teacher Mrs Melrose didn’t like: dirty noses and lateness.

  PART 2

  I was in trouble when I got there. Lessons had started. Everyone was already hard at work on their sums. Though I tried to sneak in at the back, I didn’t escape Mrs Melrose’s eagle eye.

  “Twenty minutes late, Cathy Crawford!” She pointed at the clock on the wall. “You’ll be staying behind at the end of the day to make up the time.”

  I was horrified. “What, today?” I couldn’t stay after school. Didn’t she realise our land girls were coming?

  “Yes, today,” Mrs Melrose said irritably. “Sit down and get your workbook out.”

  Everyone was looking at me. That included Derek Patterson, who, despite sitting right at the front with the naughty kids, turned round to smirk.

  “Yes, miss. Sorry, miss,” I muttered.

  Red-faced with embarrassment, I took my seat next to Mabel.

  “Where’ve you been?” she whispered, looking worried.

  “Watching the otters,” I whispered back. “First I’ve seen there in ages.”

  She rolled her eyes like I was a hopeless case. But at least she let me copy her answers.

  All day, I kept thinking of our guests. Did they like their new bedroom? Had Dad been grumpy and rude? If he had then I hoped Mum had made up for it with a nice tea of scones and jam. The thought made my stomach rumble.

  Finally, at three o’clock, the bell rang. Mrs Melrose dismissed each row at a time.

  Ours, being the back row, went first.

  “See you tomorrow, Cathy,” Mabel said, pulling a sympathetic face.

  Only twenty minutes of sums, I told myself. Then I’d go home the road way, which was quicker. At the very latest I’d be back by four.

  The last to go were the pupils in the front row. As they filed past my desk, I overheard Derek speaking to his pal Tommy Bell.

  “I’m going down to the river, see if I can catch a bit of sport. Da’s out with the hounds today.”

  I felt my face go tight with anger. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Not on our stretch of river, you’re not.”

  It was a stupid thing to say. Straightaway I knew I should’ve kept quiet. I didn’t have any right to say it either: my dad had never stopped the hounds crossing our land. A lot of people in our village followed the hunt for fun. Going against it wasn’t good form in our village. And rumour had it Mr Patterson had a temper on him. It was why Mrs Patterson had moved away to live with her sister, so people said.

  Worse than that was the way Derek looked at me, a nasty little glint in his eye. He’d be sure to make a beeline for the very spot I was warning him off, the place where the river cut through our fields. Of course he would. He knew I was trying to protect something. He was spiteful and mean, Derek Patterson, but he wasn’t daft. I was the stupid one for putting those otters at risk.

  I couldn’t concentrate after that. All the sums I did, I got horribly wrong, which meant I had to do them again until they were correct. By the time I’d finished it was gone four o’clock. As I rushed out of school, I could hear the otterhounds yammering in the distance. The sound got louder when the wind carried it in my direction. So did the blasts from the hunting horn. I felt suddenly, horribly sick.

  I should’ve gone home. Shut the doors and windows. Eaten jam and scones with our land girls to take my mind off the hunt. What could I do now, other than keep out of the way, and cross fingers and toes that the hounds wouldn’t find my otters?

  Instead I went towards the river. Straightaway, I saw the flattened grass, much wider than this morning’s otter path had been. People had passed this way – lots of them, with dogs. The sight of paw prints and boot prints in the mud filled me with dread. Pushing through overhanging trees and wet grass, I started running.

  The path was slippery. It dipped down and up, over tree roots, round rocks. I was sweating under my coat. Another half a mile and a stitch jabbed at my side. I slowed up. The sound of the hunt was louder now. Still no sign of the dogs, but they’d been here all right.

  By the time I reached the willow trees at the bottom of our meadow, I knew I was too late. The grass wasn’t just flattened, it was churned. And down at the river’s edge the stones were splashed with blood. I felt completely hopeless. This was my fault.

  Hugging myself, I sat on the riverbank. The grass soaked through my coat and school skirt but I didn’t care. I just kept seeing those beautiful creatures playing in the water. And now, hours later, they were dead. All because I’d not kept my mouth shut.

  I didn’t hear the rustling straightaway. Then, fearing it was a hound strayed from the pack, I scrambled to my feet. The noise was coming from the reeds over by the bridge. I relaxed a little, thinking it was a bird – a moorhen, maybe, or a duck. But what appeared was a tiny brown head – too big for a water vole, too small to be an otter. Whatever it was was crying. A sad little noise like a kitten would make when it was hungry.

  I inched forwards for a better look. Oh my goodness! It was an otter – a baby one. Looking for its parents, prob
ably. Which made me sick with guilt all over again.

  Now, I knew you couldn’t make wild animals into pets. But an otter cub this small would never survive without feeding. And a not-so-distant blast on the horn reminded me the hunt wasn’t far away, either.

  I inched towards it. The cub was on my side of the river. It looked up at me, mewled a bit, licked its lips. Maybe it was hoping I’d feed it. Kneeling on the bank, I could just about reach it.

  “Come here, little one,” I murmured.

  It wriggled – as slippery as a fish, and strong too. But once I wrapped it in my scarf it settled again. Or maybe the struggle had worn it out. It fell asleep. Little beady eyes tight shut, its nose blunt and twitching.

  Not knowing what else to do, I decided to take it home. I was late already. Dad wouldn’t like it: he’d say we’d enough work without trying to hand-rear wild animals, so I knew I’d have to keep it secret. I’d hide it in one of our barns and feed it milk from the goat. When it was strong enough I’d bring it back to the river – a different part of it, where the hunt didn’t go. It seemed like a simple enough plan.

  PART 3

  Back in the yard, the kitchen lights were on. The windows – steamed up from cooking – were open, and from inside came a laugh I didn’t recognise. It threw me for a second, till I remembered the land girls and, despite everything, felt a rush of excitement. Then the back door swung open. The smell of gravy wafted out, making me hungrier than ever.

  “There you are, Cathy!” Mum stood on the step, wiping her hands on her pinny. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Sorry, Mabel fell over in the lane.” It wasn’t a difficult lie. Mabel only had one pair of decent shoes and no rubber boots to speak of, plus I was splattered in river mud as proof.

  “Get the worst of that muck off you then,” she said. “Dinner’s in five minutes.”

  She seemed in a good mood, and when she went back inside the laughter started again. As I’d hoped, the land girls sounded fun. The noise had woken the cub again. It started mewling for food.