“So why were you and Mrs Palmer holding hands at break?” Liam said at lunchtime.
“We weren’t.”
“You were. Daniel saw you. He told me.”
“She was just looking at my hand.”
“Why, what did you do to them?”
“I burnt it on a hot tap.”
“That was stupid.”
“Yeah,” I said as I saw Andy come out.
He had a big smile on his face. He kept trying to say something, then breaking down with laughter. He took several slow, deep breaths then looked at me and said, “So, Tom, I hear you’ve got a new girlfriend.” Then he was laughing so hard he was bent over double.
“What’s all this?” Will said, who arrived as Andy was practically wetting himself.
“Nothing.” I said.
“People saw Mrs Palmer and Tom holding hands,” Liam said.
“Tom, that’s gross,” Will said.
“She was just looking at my hand.”
“You told her what happened?”
“No! I told her it was a heat rash.”
“Why lie?”
“You’re a poet, and you didn’t know it,” added Liam.
Will give him a glare.
“I don’t know; it was the first thing that came into my head,” I said.
“You know what, Tom,” Liam said, “You can be really weird sometimes.” This set Andy off into another bout of laughter which kept going and going.
“What’s wrong with him?” Laura Matthews appeared at the edge of our circle, with Becky Reid lingering behind her.
“Nothing!” I blurted out quickly. I didn’t want her to hear about Mrs Palmer and me. Not that there was anything between Mrs Palmer and me, but I didn’t want her hearing the stories.
She nuzzled her way into the circle, “What have you done to your hands?” she asked.
I couldn’t say nothing again, I’d sound like an idiot, so I held it towards her.
She held the back of my hand and looked at it really closely. “That looks painful. Does it hurt?”
“A little,” I said.
“How did you do it?”
“Burnt it.”
“I hope they get better soon.”
Liam then edged her out of the circle. “We were having a private conversation,” he said, emphasising the word private.
Laura looked hurt. She turned around to chat to Becky.
“Liam, that was rude,” I said.
“Just ‘cos you fancy her,” he said.
“I don’t,” I said, and instantly felt bad. Laura was still close. What if she’d heard?
“You do something stupid like burn your hand, and the prettiest girl in the class starts cooing over you,” said Liam, going red.
“Maybe Tom’s not the only one who fancies Laura,” said Will. “Come on, let’s go play some football.
We didn’t have to cross any roads to get to Granddad’s, that’s why our parents let us go without being looked after.
“Thinking about going to Granddad’s makes me wonder,” Liam said, “What if John got one of those brain parasites, and it sent him crazy and he went running off into the wild?”
“It’s possible,” I said. We knew all about brain parasites from Granddad Norman because one time he had one. He said it was on his fortieth birthday. He was ploughing a field when he felt a bump. He thought perhaps a beam had snapped or a mouldboard had come off or got twisted, so he stopped the tractor and had a look. Sure enough, one of the mouldboards was bent right over.
He looked on the ground and there was a big bit of bog oak. He picked it up and carried over to the end of the field by that old oak tree, and when he threw it down, he felt something fly up and hit him right where his left eye used to be. Then he reckons he felt something squirming. He says it was like when you let a worm wriggle around on the palm of your hand, only inside his head. He couldn’t stop scratching, so he ran all the way back to the farmhouse. This was when Granddad still lived there, and he tells us that if our Nanna was still alive, she would have confirmed it, but he was speaking fluent French. I don’t know if Nanna could speak any French or not or what he was saying, but he says it’s true. The only way he could get rid of it was to stick his head in water. Apparently, parasites don’t like the cold. So, Nanna fetched his pipe so he could breathe then filled the sink with water. Granddad thrust his head into the water and held it there for well over an hour, until he could feel the parasite wiggling its way out of his ear. When he felt it slip out, he pulled his head out of the water. Trouble is he’s had his head under the water for so long he’d washed all the colour out of his hair. From that day on it was completely white, despite Granddad never having had a grey hair in his life before that day. He showed us the parasite once. He kept it on a jar in his garage. It looked like a dried-out slug.
As we arrived at Granddad’s house, we saw Uncle Rodney driving off. He gave us a wave with one of his ridiculously large hands. He’d done a good job cleaning his car, the red paint gleaming in the sun. We let ourselves in to Granddad’s house and found him at the kitchen table staring at the newspaper. He’d got his glasses right on the tip of the nose. There’s no glass in the right eye of the glasses. He reckons he doesn’t need that as he’s only got the one good eye. I couldn’t see the point of taking the glass out, but he says one day he might find a use for it. I doubt he’d ever be able to find it again though as he probably only put it in one of these tin cans or boxes that are filling up his garage.
When he heard us, he looked up and said, “Yello, boys. Your Uncle Rodney’s just dropped me in the paper,” he said, holding it up to show us before quickly turning it over and putting it under a stack of mail.
Before he hid it, I caught a glimpse of some of the headline, seeing the words, ‘CONCERN GROWS’ and the outline of a picture which I pretty sure was John.
“No school today?” Granddad asked.
“We’re finished. It’s half three,” Will said.
“Half three?” he said. “Finished school? In my day you’d stay at school until gone five then go home and do a full day’s work in the fields. You boys have got it easy…”
We all joined it with the end of the sentence, “you don’t even know you’re born.”
“You didn’t really used to stay at school until five o’clock, did you Granddad?” asked Andy.
“Truth is I don’t even remember. I know I went, but that’s about it. Got a nasty bang on my head one time and can barely remember a thing from the first ten to fifteen years of my life.”
“What happened?” Liam said.
“Well you can’t see the scar, because it’s under my hair, but you can still feel it.”
We took turns. He guided our fingers through his thick white hair to feel the ridge on the top of his head.
“If my brain had been any smaller, chances are it would have fallen right out of the gap.”
“But what happened?” Liam said.
“Patience, young man, I’m coming to that.”
“Was it the tree?” I said.
“Was it heck! As if I’d give that old thing another chance to do me in. No, I was working on the combine harvester, you know, the red one, opening up one of the sides to clear out a blockage when the unloader swung down and cracked me on the head. Blood everywhere there was.” Granddad paused and looked at us. “Not impressed?”
Liam said, “I thought it might have been and evil spirit, not a bit of combine.”
“Who’s to say it wasn’t an evil spirit knocking down the unloader pipe, trying to bump your dear ol’ granddad off, hey? Did you stop to think about that before you went and called my story boring?”
“We didn’t say it was boring,” Will said.
Andy had his hands on the table, his fingernails digging into the varnish. “Evil spirits can do that?” he said.
“I never said it was or it wasn’t. I’ll leave that up to you to decide. Anyway, you boys don’t want to be cooped up in here
with me all day. What are you up to?”
“What happened after you called the police?” Will said.
“I assume they investigated it. They don’t give you feedback. But I did see them head back out that was with the sniffer dogs, and one of their Land Rovers followed them down there not long after that.”
“No other news then?”
“They might have found something; they might not. I’m as in the dark as you are. So, is that why you came to see me today?”
“We wondered if you wanted to take a walk with us. Just up to the river and along the bank a little way,” Will said.
“Ah, so that’s it. Up to a little snooping.”
“Oh, no, Granddad,” I said, “We just thought it might be nice to get some fresh air, what with it being such a lovely day.”
“Such a lovely day,” mimicked Liam.
I ignored him.
“You think I was born yesterday? As it happens, I could do with getting on the move; my old bones get so stiff if I sit still for too long, and what harm did a little bit of snooping ever do anybody?”
We walked from Granddad’s cottage along Main Street, past the village sign.
“So, if we head up Wissey Drove, then head back along Catchwater Drove that’ll bring us to Long Drove and we can follow that back to the farmhouse,” Granddad said. He knew all of the names of the droves, how long they were, where they went to and which was the quickest way to get from one place to another.
“How do you know all of this, Granddad?” I asked.
“When you’ve been about as long as me, not much passes you by. Besides we used to drive cattle down these droves, back when there was money in keeping cattle.”
We turned down Wissey Drove. I’d felt irritated all day, but as soon as we headed down this path, I could really feel my eyes start to itch. I kept scraping my tongue with my teeth to stop it from itching.
“Whatever are you doing?” Granddad said.
Liam looked round and saw me pulling a face as I scratched my tongue, and he covered his mouth to hide a laugh.
“Itchy tongue,” I said to Granddad.
“Well, you know what they say about getting an itchy tongue?”
“No?”
“Means they’re about to find some luck.”
My heart raced. Was today the day we were going to find John?
“Come ‘ere,” Granddad said.
I walked over to him, thinking that he was going to give us some great idea which was going to help us.
“You got something in your hair,” he said, and reached towards me. He brushed the hair beside my head, then in the flat of his hand help out an old coin.
“Was that in your hair!” cried Andy.
No. It wasn’t. Granddad’s favourite trick normally made me laugh, but what that coin represented this time was a spark of hope fading away.
“Aren’t you going to take it then?” Granddad said.
I forced a smile. “Thanks,” I said. I popped it in my pocket, and then gave my eyes a rub.
The grass soon gave way to a grey mud path with two deep grooves running along it with tractor tyre marks in odd places where the ground was a little wet. Mostly it was all dry and cracked where we hadn’t had any rain in so long. I looked down at the ground then at the wrinkles on Granddad’s face. In Mr Johnstone’s field we saw the back of the trailer which had the massive banner on it. It faced the village so people would see it on the way out. It was for Truckfest, which was over a month ago, but he hadn’t bothered to take it down yet.
We reached the point at which the drove met the river. There was a wooden bridge across it. Andy ran up onto the bridge.
“We don’t wanna go that way Andy,” Granddad said, “You’ll end up at Twelve Mile Bank and we’ll have to trace our steps all the way back.”
Andy jumped, listening to the sound of his feet as the hit the wood.
“See that building by the river down there,” Granddad said, pointing to a mostly ruined brick building that spread, somehow, halfway over the river. “That’s an old pumping station. I used to have a cousin who worked there and looked after the drain.”
Andy wasn’t listening. He went back to the drove and pulled up a handful of blades of grass from a clump. He dropped it off the bridge and watched it as it drifted slowly under. He turned to the other side of the bridge and waited.
“Why isn’t it coming?”
“Probably sunk,” Liam said.
“Or it got stuck,” Will said.
Liam went towards the bridge too, but instead of crossing onto it went a little way down the bank to look under it.
“For Christ’s sakes don’t fall in, Liam. Your mother will string me up by my delicate bits if I bring you back soaked to the skin and covered in bog slime.”
Liam bent down to peer under the bridge. Will and I went over to make sure he didn’t fall. Will leant off the bridge and had hold of the back of Liam’s school trousers, and I was holding on to Will to make sure that Liam didn’t pull him in. This activity was beginning to become a bit of a habit.
“Well?” Will said.
“It’s dark, but it looks like there’s something in there,” Liam said.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know – have you got a stick?”
“Andy, go get a stick,” Will said.
Andy went over to the trees on the other side of the bridge and looked around at the ground.
“There aren’t any.”
“Break one off.”
Andy bent a low branch down. He jumped to put more of his weight on it, but it only bowed further without breaking.
“Can I borrow your knife, Will?”
“I can’t get to it from here,” Will said, “Can you get it out of my pocket, Tom?”
“Or you could use this one,” Granddad said. He pulled the thickest Swiss Army Knife out of his pocket that must have had about a zillion different tools on it. He pulled one out. “Try the saw.”
Andy took it. His eyes were wide, and he nearly tripped over my legs as he went back across the bridge. He pulled the branch down again and started sawing at it. It broke within a few seconds and the bit still attached to the tree bounced back up and thwacked him in the face. He didn’t let it bother him though and grabbed the branch and dragged it along the bridge and held it out for Liam.
“Go back up onto the bridge and watch what comes out,” Liam said. I could hear him grunting as he pushed the branch into the water. There was a slurping sound, like when you get a welly-boot stuck in mud. Will tensed up suddenly and I could see his arm go tight.
“What is it?” shouted Liam. Will relaxed and then let go as Liam made his way up the bank.
“Just a log,” Andy said.
Will and Liam joined him on the bridge and watched it bob away down the river. I stood by the side pinching my nose, which had started to run badly, and I had no tissue left to mop it up.
“He could have fallen in though,” Liam said.
I thought about the police car by the bank of the river earlier in the week.
“What do you think happened, Granddad?” asked Liam.
“I don’t rightly know. Police are out there doing their best, and that’s a good thing.”
“But shouldn’t they have some kind of clues by now?”
“Truth is they probably do, just not ready to release the information yet is all.”
“Which way should we go?”
“Keep going up this drove, as I said before.” Granddad rolled up the sleeves of his cardigan and we continued along the drove. Andy was walking up high on the riverbank, and Liam followed behind him, looking across into the fields in both directions. We reached the point at which the new bypass crossed the river.
“What used to run along there was called Dark Fen Drove,” Granddad said, pointing along the path of the bypass. “See, these council folk they know the old roads had the best paths through the fen, that’s why they followed it along this way. Of cou
rse, they did want to cut across our land to save a bob or two and keep it straight, like a Roman road, but the lay of the land don’t always allow for that.”
Granddad swatted a bug off his forearm, and a noticed a scar there I hadn’t seen before.
“How’d you get that one then Granddad?” I asked.
“I’ve told you that one before, I’m sure I have.”
We all shook our heads.
“What, I’ve never told you about the time I got mauled by a Fen Tiger?”
Andy gasped, and we all closed round Granddad.
“Maybe this’ll make up for that boring old story I told you about cracking my head open.” He leant forward on his stick, so his face was no more than a foot away from any of ours. “We’d had a few bad storms and a lot of trees had come down over the winter – it was the same winter that lightning struck that old oak tree – you know, the one that had my eye out – and with the east wind sweeping through all ferocious it blew most of the debris off the land and into the ditches. Well the second we got a bit of rain all the fields got waterlogged. The ditches up by Catchwater Drove were too full of junk to properly function so the water just came back up onto the land. Well we couldn’t have that; they would have been unplantable for the season and what with us having two little ones and another on the way there was no way we would be able to make ends meet without being at full capacity. Only thing I could do was clear the ditches and make sure the water could run off. And that’s what I was doing when it happened. I pulled out all of these branches – bigger than that one Andy had off that tree – but there was something else in the bottom. As I got closer, I could hear this kind of purring – but not like you’d hear from a cat, much deeper than that. Then it opened its eyes. There were shining out of the mud and I scrambled back, fell in a heap onto a bunch of the branches still down there. I tried to climb out, but my trousers were snagged on something, and this shape in the mud, it started to grow. The eyes got closer to me, and it sniffed me. Well I put up this arm to protect myself from it and it claws at me and tears that scar into my arm. I shouted out and tried to struggle away, but only succeeded in snapping some of the branches I was laying against. Don’t ask me how but I kind of fell into them. They were all around me like a cage – but it was protecting me because the creature couldn’t get through to me. I don’t know how long I was in there but eventually something scared it off – a gun shot from a couple of fields over, probably Carter’s farm – your great granddad on your dad’s side,” Granddad nodded towards Liam and Andy, “He was always out shooting. Liked to catch himself a pheasant. There was a time or two he’d bring one over to us and we’d have it off him in exchange for something. Anyway, the beast was scared, and it ran off. I saw it take off across the field, shaking off most of the mud as it went. Well I knew what it was because I’d heard stories about the Fen Tiger, but I didn’t believe them until that day I was nearly eaten up by one of them.”
Dead Branches Page 11
