The Secrets of the Lake

by Liz Trenow

  ‘What shall we have? Lemonade, tea, hot chocolate?’ Kit said, opening doors and cupboards randomly, clearly unfamiliar with the kitchen layout. ‘Cook made some biscuits the other day, I think.’

  ‘Have you got a vase for these roses?’ I asked. ‘They could probably do with a drink.’

  ‘Of course, of course . . .’ he muttered, pulling open more cupboards. ‘Will this do?’ He brought out an enormous earthenware jug, far too large for the purpose.

  ‘That’ll be fine, for the moment,’ I said. ‘Where’s the sink?’

  ‘Oh, it’s out here,’ he said. ‘Let me. This thing weighs a ton.’

  At last we were all settled, sitting at the kitchen table with glasses of lemonade and a plate of delicious raisin biscuits.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Kit said, his face brightening now, ‘how’s about a bit of adventure?’ He turned to Jimmy. ‘You’d enjoy a bit of fun too, wouldn’t you? No climbing walls this time, promise?’

  Jimmy nodded, his mouth full of biscuit.

  ‘Should you?’ I pointed to the bandage. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be taking it easy?’

  ‘I’m perfectly fine,’ he said. ‘And I’ll go mad if I have to stay indoors a moment longer. Come on, let’s go.’

  He led us through the garden, crossing the moat on a narrow footbridge and down a path that led along the bank of the lake for a hundred yards or so, until we reached the wooden structure overhanging the water on stilts that I’d spied from the other side.

  ‘This,’ he announced, pulling a key from his back pocket, ‘is the boathouse.’

  He unlocked the door and pushed it open with some difficulty, inviting us into a dark, dank-smelling space. After my eyes became accustomed to the gloom I realised that the floor of the shed was actually water, with just a narrow walkway all round. Floating, secured with a rope, was a small wooden boat, complete with oars.

  ‘Let me introduce you to the good ship Mary Jane,’ Kit said. ‘Or, as we sometimes call her, The Jolly Roger. C’mon then,’ he went on, leaping down into the boat.

  My brother’s hand crept into mine, and I squeezed it to reassure him.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I could see no exit to the boathouse, except for the door we’d entered through.

  ‘Wait and see,’ he said, helping Jimmy down into the boat first, then me. ‘Sit still and don’t stand up unless I tell you.’

  He unhitched the rope and pushed the boat away towards the front of the hut. It was only then that I noticed the double doors. He slipped two bolts, hooked back the doors and eased the boat out into the open water. There was not a breath of wind; even the finest fronds of the willows were motionless and the lake lay totally still, reflecting the trees in a perfect mirror-image. Only the ripples spreading out from the gentle movement of our boat disturbed the picture.

  The first and last time I’d been boating was in a small paddleboat on the Serpentine, with Mum and Jimmy, the summer before she became too unwell for such expeditions. Memories flooded back: the colourful boats, the excited calls of children across the water, the lake glistening like diamonds in the sunshine, the towers of tall buildings shining beyond the trees of Hyde Park. Remembering it made me feel sad and glad, all at once.

  ‘You okay, Molly?’

  ‘Yes, I’m just happy, that’s all,’ I said. ‘It’s so beautiful here.’

  ‘Being out on the lake always makes me happy, too.’ Kit pulled out the oars and fitted them into the rowlocks, and with a few swift movements we began to glide out towards the middle of the lake.

  My brother was sitting perfectly still by my side, his little fingers gripping the edge of the seat.

  ‘How’re you doing, Jim-lad?’ Kit asked.

  ‘It’s fun, eh?’ I nudged Jimmy gently. ‘We’re going out on the water like we did in Hyde Park. With Mum.’ There was no chance that he’d recall it; he must have been only five at the time. But I wanted him to remember our mother and the happy times we’d had with her.

  ‘Why didn’t your mum come to tea yesterday?’ Kit asked.

  It was always a difficult one, this, but I usually found it best to answer directly. ‘She died a couple of years ago,’ I said. ‘From cancer.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. How horrible.’ He frowned, concentrating on his rowing for a few moments. ‘You must miss her loads.’

  ‘We do. Every day.’

  ‘We all need cheering up, then. I’m going to show you my favourite places.’

  There were four islands in the lake. None of them was much to get excited about, just irregularly shaped mounds of land no more than twenty or thirty feet long, covered in grass and shrubby willows, with no distinguishing features. But each island had a name and a little piece of history, and as we passed each one, Kit told us how generations of his mother’s family had enjoyed themselves there.

  We reached The Retreat first, a flat island quite close to the shore and nearest the Hall. A narrow boarded walkway led from a small landing stage to a summer house that had seen better days. ‘It was built by my grandmother,’ Kit said. ‘Apparently she couldn’t bear being cooped up in the house with the children and used to escape to her island to write her poetry.’

  I imagined myself sitting there, notebook in hand, writing my novel. ‘Do you still have any of them?’ I asked. ‘Her poems, I mean.’

  ‘Dunno, to be honest. She’s still with us, though. Lives in the Dower House, but doesn’t go out these days. Not since my uncle died.’

  Rabbit Island, so called because in the past children had kept their pet rabbits there, was the smallest – simply a round hump of land rising a few feet above the water. Even so, the willows had dug their roots deep into what soil they could find and towered high, out of all proportion to the size of the island.

  ‘Mum and her brother thought their precious pets were safe there,’ Kit explained. ‘But one day the rabbits disappeared and no one knew what had taken them. They thought perhaps a hawk, or a cunning fox that had learned to swim. It was a tragedy. No one’s kept rabbits there ever since.’

  Pirate’s Lair was the largest island of all, a conical hillock with steep sides, away from the main body of the water. Long ago someone had cut away part of the sloping side and built a wooden landing stage, which was now derelict, although it was still possible to make out a signboard roughly painted with a skull and crossbones.

  ‘We used to play here every summer with my cousins, when I came to stay with Grandma,’ Kit said. ‘We had a lot of fun.’

  ‘Don’t they come any more?’

  ‘Too many sad memories for them after my uncle died, I suppose.’ He sounded wistful. Was he actually a bit lonely here in the big house, with his boarding-school friends scattered far and wide for the holidays?

  Finally we rowed across to a long, low island called The Crocodile because it had a flat ‘snout’ end, a hump towards the middle and a tapering ‘tail’ end.

  ‘Has it got anything to do with the legend?’ I asked. ‘Old Eli says if the creature is disturbed, it will bring evil to the village.’ I laughed, to show I didn’t believe it either.

  ‘That old dragon story,’ Kit scoffed. ‘We don’t take any notice.’

  ‘Where . . . dragon?’ Jimmy, who had been as good as gold for a full half-hour, began to wriggle in his seat. I put a restraining arm round his shoulder, which he instantly shrugged off.

  ‘He’s obsessed with the idea,’ I explained.

  ‘It’s just the shape of the island, Jim-boy,’ Kit said. ‘There aren’t any real ones. It’s only a fairy story.’

  I loved the way Kit talked to him: not condescending like so many people, but as you would to a younger brother. Jimmy seemed to accept the explanation and settled down again.

  ‘I used to pretend I was Captain Hook – you know, the pirate from Peter Pan. The one with the parrot and the hook for a hand?’ Kit went on.

  ‘The one who was chasing the crocodile and could hear him coming, because it had a clock in its stomach?�
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  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘I loved that story. But I was always Peter Pan, of course.’

  ‘It’s no fun being the goody,’ Kit said. ‘Although Peter’s a strange one, isn’t he? I always liked him too. Who would you be, Jimmy?’

  Jimmy thought for a moment and then, suddenly and very loudly, he said, ‘The parrot!’

  Kit began making squawky parrot noises and flapping his elbows like wings, which Jimmy quickly copied and I joined in. Soon we were all laughing so much that Kit had to stop rowing to wipe his eyes. It was wonderful to see my brother so happy, and being included in the joke for once.

  Kit took up the oars again. ‘Want a go, Molly?’

  ‘I don’t know how.’

  He laughed. ‘You said you’d been on the Serpentine.’

  ‘That was a pedal boat, not a rowing boat. I’ve never rowed in my life.’

  ‘Then now’s the time to learn. Come here, next to me.’ He patted the bench beside him. ‘You can start with one oar first.’

  I moved, keeping my weight low and trying not to make the boat rock too much. Kit showed me how to hold the oar, and the motion you needed to dip the blade into the water, pulling the handle upwards towards you, then down away from you so that it swung back through the air into the right position for the next stroke. I found it impossible at first, and several times ended up ‘catching a crab’, as he called it – missing the water entirely and nearly falling backwards into the boat. But slowly the rhythm came, and he rowed too, at my speed, counting out loud so that we coordinated our strokes and stopped going round in circles, beginning to move forward in the water. It was an exhilarating feeling.

  After a few moments of this, Kit said I was ready to row on my own. He handed me his oar and moved to the small seat in the front of the boat, kneeling behind me with his arms reaching round and holding mine, moving them. ‘Pull up and towards you, remember, then down and away.’ I tried to follow his directions, but the feel of his breath on my neck and the warmth of his chest on my back were too distracting.

  ‘Come on, Molly, concentrate. You did it before. Just relax and let me help you.’

  After a few moments I began to get the rhythm again, and after a while realised that Kit’s hands had let go. I was rowing, on my own. We meandered a bit, of course, and I caught a very large crab, which had me falling backwards into his arms, but he set me upright again, and at last I managed to keep in a straight line and gain some speed.

  ‘You’ve got it, well done. Keep going,’ he shouted.

  Jimmy laughed and clapped his hands with glee. Then, quite unexpectedly, he stood up, reaching forward, trying to catch the oars and causing the boat to rock alarmingly.

  ‘Me now . . .?’

  ‘Sit down, Jimmy,’ I shouted. ‘You’ll have us all in the water.’

  From behind Kit said calmly, ‘Let him have a go, if he wants to.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course. He’s perfectly strong enough. It’s just a matter of getting the hang of it. Change places carefully, and I’ll show him how.’

  I handed over the oars reluctantly, certain we were heading for disaster. What Kit didn’t know was that when he couldn’t manage something, Jimmy would get frustrated, throw things and walk away. If he threw away the oars, we would be stranded in the middle of the lake.

  But my fears proved unfounded. In fact, he seemed to get the knack faster than I’d managed, and before long Jimmy was rowing on his own in a straight line and gaining speed, an enormous grin splitting his face from ear to ear, his face red with the effort.

  ‘Steady now,’ Kit said, leaning forward to guide the oars. ‘Right hand down, old boy, or we’ll end up in the brambles.’

  Just then there were voices from the direction of the Hall – hidden behind the long bank of willows and tall grasses – and we heard his mother calling, ‘Cooeee. Christopher? Where are you?’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Kit said. ‘My mother’s back earlier than she said. I’m going to cop it now.’

  Selfishly, I thought of myself. Would they blame me for causing yet more trouble, only a day after the accident?

  Kit leaned forward and took the oars from Jimmy. ‘Move to the back, laddie – careful now. I’m going to row you to the bank, is that okay? You can walk home from there through the woods.’ He pulled away with such power that the boat quickly picked up speed. ‘Don’t want you copping it too, do we? Wouldn’t be fair, after me leading you on.’

  We reached the bank in a few short minutes. ‘Thank you for a lovely afternoon,’ I said as we clambered out.

  ‘It was my pleasure, Miss Molly,’ he replied, smiling. ‘You saved me from terminal boredom. Let’s do it again sometime. Now, if you could give me a shove off, I’d better get back, before the old lady goes mental. Wish me luck.’

  That evening, I took out my diary and revisited my list of ‘good’ and ‘not good’ things about Wormley:

  Good

  Not good

  Kit! Kit! Kit!

  Pa worried about money

  The lake, especially

  Still miles from anywhere

  The Retreat

  Not much else to do

  Learning to row

  Having to look after Jimmy

  Jimmy happy/learning

  Bus only every two hours

  to row

  Missing my London friends

  Mrs D nice (the best)

  Eli and his stories

  Wild flowers and robins!

  For the first time, the ‘good’ column was longer than the ‘not good’ column and I felt happier than at any time since arriving in Wormley. I took out my notebook and wrote the next chapter.

  THE UGLY DRAGON

  by Molly Goddard

  Chapter 2: The importance of forgiving yourself

  Jimmy was feeling sad. A few days ago he’d been playing and fell from a wall, hurting someone else on his way down. His father was angry and told him off.

  To cheer him up, Jimmy’s sister Molly suggested that now the weather was improving they should return to the lake to see whether they could find the dragon again. They decided to take something to eat, in case they got hungry.

  They spent the morning baking and, after lunch, walked down through the woods to the lake. Just as before, the dragon appeared as if by magic out of the still, dark waters of the lake, with only a small ripple on the surface before her long green snout popped out of the water.

  ‘Hello, dragon. How do you always know we are here?’

  ‘I can hear your voices,’ she said, hauling herself onto the bank. ‘Sounds travel quite well through water. And my ears are very sensitive.’

  ‘I can’t see any ears,’ Molly said.

  ‘They’re inside,’ she said, rather mysteriously. She tilted her head and flared her nostrils, peering at Jimmy. ‘Can I smell something nice in that bag, by the way?’

  ‘Rock buns,’ Jimmy said, ‘for our picnic.’

  ‘Yum, yum. I’m very hungry,’ the dragon said, her voice more like a growl.

  Jimmy pouted. ‘They’re not meant for dragons.’

  ‘That’s silly,’ she said. ‘Of course they are.’

  ‘I’m not silly,’ Jimmy snapped.

  ‘What’s got into you today, my young friend?’

  Molly explained that Jimmy was still smarting from something their father had said to him. ‘But Pa is in a funny mood at the moment,’ she added. ‘He’s got big things on his mind.’

  ‘Ten to one he’ll already have completely forgotten why he was cross with you,’ the dragon said, munching on a bun. ‘Mmm, these are delicious. Most people forgive and forget very easily,’ she added.

  ‘But I was being silly,’ Jimmy suddenly shouted. ‘And it was my fault Kit got hurt.’

  ‘Aha,’ the dragon said. ‘I see what the problem is. Everyone else has forgiven you, but you haven’t managed to forgive yourself. That’s the hardest part.’

  Jimmy looked
confused.

  ‘No long-lasting harm was done, was it?’ she asked.

  He shook his head.

  ‘And your father hasn’t mentioned it since?’

  He shook it again.

  ‘And what have you learned?’

  ‘Not to climb on walls,’ Jimmy muttered, at last.

  ‘So, now you can forgive yourself. We all do silly things from time to time. You’re a lovely, kind boy, Jimmy, and don’t you forget it. Now cheer up and pass me another one of those delicious rock buns.’

  9

  After that I couldn’t stop thinking about Kit, the dark hair flopping in his eyes, his laughter, his sense of mischief. When you were with him everything felt tinged with excitement, always on the brink of danger. He made me realise, perhaps for the first time, how tame and dull my own life was, how filled with anxiety about what people, especially the grown-ups – Pa, Mrs D and the others – would think of me.

  Being with Kit was intoxicating. Was this what love felt like?

  I read the romance novels over and over again. They were mildly risqué and Pa would definitely have disapproved, but while I knew they were silly and unrealistic, it was fun to fantasise, for once. They suited my mood perfectly: filled with passion and longing and heartache, with women who seemed destined always to fall for the wrong kind of men, whose hearts ‘beat like fluttering wings’, whose ‘glorious golden locks tossed in the breeze’ and whose breasts ‘heaved like billowing waves’.

  In my version Kit was always in the starring role, as I felt the warmth of his chest against my back, the way he held his hands over mine as he taught me to row, and I yearned to feel that again, to have more of him, more and more.

  But the Easter holidays were over, so I was unlikely to see him again for at least six weeks, possibly longer. If only I’d suggested that we should write, but of course our parting had been too hurried. I decided to take the initiative: