Eating Things on Sticks

by Anne Fine

  I reached the peak. Only a little way down on the other side, water was bubbling out between stones. I reckoned it was far too high up the hill for any sheep to have got near enough to poo in it, so I knelt down to cup my hands and drink.

  Finally, those two staggered up behind me.

  ‘That is The Source,’ said Morning Glory, pointing to where I was kneeling at the very start of the stream. We had studied rivers in school, so I looked down to see how it widened and deepened, and how one or two other streams joined it. Then I looked around for angels.

  ‘Is Dido here yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Morning Glory. ‘Not till we call.’

  She sat cross-legged and sang her Calling Angels Song. It went on quite a long time, so I wandered back to The Source and pushed stones around with my feet. When I came back up, Morning Glory had risen to her feet to start her Calling Angels Chant. That went on a bit as

  well, so I drifted back to The Source and packed some mud around my new arrangement of stones. (If I was four, you would have called it spending my time building a dam in the stream. But I am well past four.) When I got bored with that, and came back up to the top for the third time, Morning Glory had stretched out her hands and embarked on her Calling Angels Entreaty. I can’t remember much about the song, the chant or the entreaty, except that there was quite a bit about ‘beloved feathered ones’ and ‘winged treasures of the world’ and such stuff.

  In the end, it was Uncle Tristram who glanced at his watch first. ‘Should we be getting down again? I’m feeling quite peckish . . .’ He trawled his brain for some more lofty reason to abandon the search for angels. ‘And Harry here really ought to phone his mother to tell her what a nice time he’s having.’

  Morning Glory lifted her hand. ‘Hark!’

  I listened pretty hard, but I heard nothing.

  Then, ‘There she is! There!’ Morning Glory was pointing into thin air. ‘Oh, can you see her? Dido! You’ve come.’

  Morning Glory dropped onto her knees. She held an animated conversation with the invisible (and silent) Dido, explaining who we were, and telling Dido how wonderfully radiant she looked. I stood to the side, like a spare pudding. Uncle Tristram took great interest in the stones beneath his feet, and we just waited.

  At last, Morning Glory stepped forward with a wave. ‘Farewell! Farewell, my angel!’

  Eagerly she turned to Uncle Tristram. ‘You saw her? You did see her?’

  I watched poor Uncle Tristram paw the ground. ‘I do think maybe I saw something . . .’

  ‘She’s lovely, isn’t she?’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Uncle Tristram faintly.

  I shouldn’t have been grinning. I was next.

  ‘You saw her too, didn’t you, Harry? You saw her shining wings. You saw her glowing gown. You saw her radiant face!’

  ‘Angels are beautiful,’ I agreed.

  I have to tell you I felt brilliant. I had been far more enthusiastic than Uncle Tristram, yet kept my dignity.

  ‘Nothing can follow that,’ I said to both of them. ‘Shall we go down again now?’

  THERE’S NO ESCAPE

  When we got back to the house cagain, Morning Glory mysteriously disappeared.

  ‘Stolen by angels,’ suggested Uncle Tristram. But it was no more than a couple of minutes before he vanished as well. I spent a bit of time rooting through cupboards to see if I could find a pack of cards, or something else so ancient it didn’t need a battery. But there was nothing.

  So I did what Uncle Tristram had suggested earlier, and I phoned home.

  My mother took the call. ‘Harry! At last! We’ve phoned Tristram’s mobile a thousand times but it’s gone totally dead. Where on earth are you?’

  I wasn’t sure where Morning Glory was. For all I knew, she might be walking barefoot past the door. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings again so I dropped my voice to a whisper.

  ‘I’m on a tiny island,’ I explained. ‘There’s no escape.’

  ‘No escape?’ Mum’s voice turned anxious. She began to whisper, too. ‘So where is Tristram?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ In case he was with Morning Glory, I added tactfully, ‘But I don’t think he’s anywhere around.’

  I realize now I must have sounded rather plaintive. Almost pitiful. Certainly I could tell from the change in her voice that Mum was getting more and more worried. ‘Harry, who else is there?’

  ‘Just someone Uncle Tristram thought he knew,’ I explained, and couldn’t help adding bitterly, ‘But nowhere near well enough, it seems. And now it’s too late.’

  ‘My God, Harry! It’s been three days! Are you even being fed?’

  I’m not allowed to eat pork pies because of the additives. (Well, certainly not four.) So I slid round the topic. ‘I did eat some nettles the day before yesterday,’ I told her piteously. ‘But only because I wouldn’t have slept from hunger otherwise.’

  Along the hall, I thought I heard a door open and a bit of giggling. ‘Mum,’ I said. ‘Someone is coming. I don’t have long to talk.’

  ‘Quick!’ she said. ‘Tell me everything you can. Quick!’

  ‘We drove for hours,’ I said. ‘Then we were rushed onto a boat. Everyone had accents. Really thick accents. We couldn’t understand a word. And they have beards. There are no trees on the island and only one hill. I’m stuck inside now so I haven’t really seen anything else.’

  ‘Think!’ Mum urged. ‘Did you see anything – anything – on the journey?’

  I thought back. ‘Myrtledown Swimming Pool,’ I said. ‘And a strange little restaurant called The Woolly Duck.’

  ‘Oh, good boy! Smart lad!’ she said. ‘We’ll have you off that island in no time.’

  ‘I really doubt it,’ I said gloomily. Then I heard footsteps. ‘I have to go!’ I warned her. ‘How’s the kitchen coming along?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, my precious! Don’t you worry about the kitchen! It doesn’t matter in the least! Don’t even think about it ever again. Just hang in there and try to keep your spirits up.’

  ‘All right,’ I promised.

  And when I put down the phone, I did console myself that even a day up a hill building dams like a toddler and looking for angels was better than being at Aunt Susan’s.

  Tuesday and Wednesday

  BEARD TOUR

  Next morning, Morning Glory brought me a cup of tea in bed. At least, I thought that it was tea until I sipped it.

  ‘Splarrp!’

  (I managed not to spit it on the counterpane.)

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked me tenderly.

  ‘Fine!’ I said. ‘Fine! What sort of tea is this?’

  ‘One of my own blends. Catnip and marjoram.’

  (Well, that explained it.)

  ‘I have to work today,’ she told me. ‘I was just wondering if you and Tristram would like to come along.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a job.’

  ‘It’s not a real job,’ she explained. ‘It doesn’t pay. But once a week I drive round dishing out the meals-on-wheels to the old people. I take the van down dozens of odd little cart tracks, and I thought it would be a very good way for you and Tristram to see a bit more of the island.’

  I’d rather be grateful to a van engine than to my own tired feet, so I was up for it. ‘When do we leave?’

  ‘Straight after breakfast.’

  That wasn’t long. (She ate a parsnip pancake, and Uncle Tristram and I settled for pork pies again.) Then we piled into Uncle Tristram’s car to get to the meals-on-wheels distribution centre.

  Morning Glory pressed one of the buttons and her seat slid down. She pressed another. It slid up again. ‘This is luxurious,’ she said. She tugged her glittery woollen legwarmers up as far as her taffeta ballet skirt. ‘Usually I have to hitch a ride to get to the centre.’

  I didn’t quite see how. The island was deserted. You’d think some plague had swept across the land and every living creature except seagulls had crept into a hole to die.
Finally we reached the place where Morning Glory picked up the meals. It was a vast tin shed, almost a hangar, with wide-open double doors. Round at the back, a van was parked outside. I thought at first that someone had decorated it all over with blobs of grey and greenish paint, but it was bird mess.

  Inside the shed there was a pile of packaged trays, still cold from the fridge. Morning Glory swept up the van keys one of the other volunteers had left lying on top. ‘We’ll leave your car here,’ she told Uncle Tristram.

  Uncle Tristram stared at the van, spattered all over with droppings. Then he looked up. The sky was swarming with seagulls and helicopters. The seagulls were just waiting, you could tell.

  ‘I think I might just move the car safely inside.’

  We waited while he drove his yellow Maverati into the shed and then, as a special precaution against particularly nosy seagulls, closed the shed doors. Then we took off.

  It was a tour of beards, really. The first lady only had a few proud wisps that floated on the breeze as she snatched her pile of meal trays and scuttled back into her cottage.

  I started grumbling to Uncle Tristram. ‘Yesterday, Morning Glory made us thank our feet for practically nothing. You’d think she might insist that rude old trout says thanks for a week’s free grub.’

  ‘Harry,’ said Uncle Tristram, ‘I fear that you and I are not the sort cut out for charity work.’

  ‘Well, I’m not,’ I admitted. ‘I would be very tempted to snatch the trays back.’

  Morning Glory drove on. The second lady looked more sinister. Her beard had matching eyebrows. She was unpleasant, too. When Morning Glory handed her the stack of trays she said, ‘So what’s it this week, eh? More of that foreign muck – all lumps of yak fat and camel lard?’

  ‘I know that Thursday is macaroni cheese,’ said Morning Glory helpfully.

  ‘If I live that long,’ muttered the foul old crone, hurrying back inside to barricade the door in case any more kind people put themselves out to drive along her overgrown and rutted drive and offer her something for free.

  ‘Blimey,’ said Uncle Tristram once we were all three safely back in the van. ‘That one could start a fight in an empty house.’

  ‘Wait till you meet George,’ Morning Glory warned.

  We pressed on with the tour. Mr Appelini’s beard turned out to be a spindly goatee. George had a ‘bushy prophet’. He told me I was swimming in sin and would soon drown in sorrow. I asked him how he knew and he told me that you could see the face of the criminal in the cradle. I said I wasn’t in a cradle. He said he could still see that I was a bad lot. I turned to Uncle Tristram, expecting him to stick up for me, only to find that he was narrowing his eyes in my direction.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed with George. ‘There is a sort of born malefactor look about his physiognomy. And he’s already a skilled arsonist. Burned down his mother’s kitchen only last week.’

  ‘I wish you’d stop harping on about that,’ I snapped. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘The typical criminal defence!’ scoffed George.

  I left them both agreeing and stormed back to the van. Then we drove on to Mrs Mackay’s. If you were fair, she didn’t really have much of a beard at all, and was only a bit ‘back to nature’. Mr Fisher’s beard was all over the place, and curly with it. Old Joe’s was brilliant – sort of forceful and wild, all at the same time. Ted Hanley’s beard was thicker than a hedge and looked as if it might have fledglings nesting inside it. He actually said, ‘Thank you.’ I didn’t hear the words myself, but Morning Glory and Uncle Tristram both swore to it. It made their day.

  ‘The Devil has a beard,’ said Uncle Tristram as we got back to the main road. ‘A spiky little number, as I recall.’

  ‘I like the wild ones,’ I admitted. ‘I can’t wait to be old enough to grow one as all over the place as Old Joe’s.’

  ‘Don’t grow a beard,’ said Uncle Tristram. ‘They’re shifty and unhygienic.’

  ‘And tickly,’ said Morning Glory.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Uncle Tristram. ‘Have you been kissing any of your meals-on-wheels clients?’

  Morning Glory shuddered. ‘No.’ She turned all wistful. ‘But I did have a boyfriend once. He had a beard until he had to shave it off for his new job.’

  ‘There you go!’ Uncle Tristram trumpeted. ‘Shave for Success!’ He patted Morning Glory’s legwarmers. ‘Are you sure you’re not getting too warm in these?’

  ‘There’s only one more house,’ said Morning Glory.

  It was a hovel really. Standing in front of it watering his tomatoes was the hairiest man we’d seen that morning. Straggling grey locks sprouted in all directions. The beard went down to his knees.

  ‘Impressive,’ Uncle Tristram observed. ‘Brutish, yet somehow thoughtful. Barbaric, and yet shapely. Yes, I think that this one takes the prize.’

  Morning Glory turned round to stare at Uncle Tristram as if he’d just solved some massive problem that had been troubling everyone on the island for years.

  ‘Prize for the best beard?’

  Uncle Tristram shrugged. ‘If you could herd the pack of them together. To me, they looked a rather antisocial lot. Especially that one who told Harry he was swimming in sin and would soon drown in sorrow.’

  ‘They’ll all be at the fair, though.’

  Uncle Tristram stared. ‘What fair?’

  ‘The Annual Island Fair on Saturday.’ In her excitement Morning Glory bounced up and down. ‘We always need a special competition. Best Beard is perfect.’

  ‘Why can’t you do the usual things?’ asked Uncle Tristram. ‘You know. Firmest fruit. Tastiest vegetable.’

  ‘Not this year.’ Morning Glory shook her head. ‘We’ve had West Island Pulp Rot.’

  ‘Finest carved turnip?’

  ‘The school had a knife amnesty only last month and took away all the sharp ones.’

  ‘Best dress-up?’

  ‘We used to do that, but I always won without even entering, so they got rid of it.’

  ‘So are there any competitions left?’

  ‘Only the Eating Things on Sticks competition.’

  ‘Eating Things on Sticks?’

  ‘Yes,’ Morning Glory said. ‘You know. The usual. Sausage on a stick. Cream puff on a stick. Pizza on a stick. Toffee apple on a stick. Fish finger on a stick—’

  Uncle Tristram had already stuffed his fingers in his ears, but I kept listening.

  ‘Hot dog on a stick. Steak on a stick. Ice lolly on a stick. Pork pie on a stick—’

  ‘Did she say pork pie on a stick?’ asked Uncle Tristram, taking his fingers out of his ears and looking interested again.

  Morning Glory kept chanting. ‘Salami on a stick. Chocolate fudge on a stick. Meatballs on a stick. Frozen banana on a stick. And, of course, pickle on a stick.’

  I couldn’t help asking, ‘Do you get toppings on your frozen banana?’

  ‘You get a choice,’ said Morning Glory. ‘They’re chocolate-dipped, of course. But on top of that you can have sprinkles or chopped nuts.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ I turned to Uncle Tristram. ‘Can we go?’

  He looked a little pale. ‘It’s cutting it fine with the ferry.’

  ‘Not really,’ Morning Glory said. ‘The fair begins at ten. The ferry doesn’t leave till six. You can eat everything by then.’

  ‘But Harry here gets seasick.’

  ‘I wouldn’t!’ I insisted. ‘Not if the things I’d eaten were on a stick.’

  Uncle Tristram shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s like the growing-a-beard thing. Everyone has to make their own mistakes before they come to their senses.’

  We gave the hairy man his week of meals, and drove back to the storage centre to drop off the van. There were still helicopters buzzing overhead.

  ‘Better than seagulls,’ Uncle Tristram said. And while Morning Glory phoned the organizers of the fair to suggest a Best Beard competition, he trailed around the shed until he found some old tarpaulin to drape ove
r the bright yellow roof and bonnet of his car in order to protect them on the drive home.

  A FLASH OF ANGEL’S WINGS?

  Early next morning, Uncle Tristram picked up his camera and strode to the door. ‘We’re already halfway through the week and I don’t have a single photograph.’

  ‘Take one of me!’ said Morning Glory. She pranced around the kitchen in her bare feet and nightie.

  ‘No,’ Uncle Tristram said firmly. ‘Your charms last all day long. It’s only nature that looks better in early-morning or evening light.’

  He turned to me. ‘Coming?’

  ‘Not bothered,’ I muttered.

  Uncle Tristram took one more look at Morning Glory flouncing about in her nightie. ‘Well, I am, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘So you come with me.’

  Sighing, I heaved myself off the hard little wooden chair and followed him out of the door. I stood about while he fussed with his lens cap and zoom and light filters and whatnot.

  ‘Why are you doing this anyway?’ I asked him. ‘It’s not like you to go outside to take photos of hills and countryside when you can stay in and take photos of girls in their nighties.’

  He tapped the side of his head. ‘A cunning plan,’ he said, ‘to show that I, too, am in harmony with the universe.’

  ‘Oh, I see. So we won’t be out for long?’

  ‘Barely a moment.’

  He aimed the camera up the hill. I waited for the click.

  ‘Odd,’ he said suddenly, lowering the camera. ‘It looks a bit different.’

  ‘Different?’

  I looked up the hillside. It looked just the same to me. Steep. Barren. Just a shade too close.

  ‘I can’t see anything.’

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Right up there at the top. Can you see something glinting?’