by Elka Evalds
‘So it would cloud your judgement,’ said Ivy.
‘Look at the wrist, on the inside!’ said Hortense.
‘It looks like a warming jumper—’ said Dorcas.
‘In reverse, again,’ said Jun-Yu.
‘Well, that is a whole new level of scary,’ said Ivy.
‘So this jumper would make you unwise?’ said Will.
‘Yes. And so generous you’d spend too much money,’ said Matilda.
‘And weirdly cold when you took the thing off,’ said Hortense.
‘And miserable until you had it on again,’ breathed Dorcas.
Jun-Yu had flicked on the lamp and picked up a magnifying glass. ‘Is anyone seeing any Magic Wool in here? For jumpers to work this much mischief, they’d surely have to have some. Will, use your young eyes.’
But Will couldn’t see any more gold than the grans could.
‘What are these tiny flecks?’ asked Dorcas, leaning very close and running a finger over the little black bits. ‘I can feel something here.’
Jun-Yu brought the lamp down closer, and stretched the jumper out beneath it.
‘By all that’s evil,’ said Jun-Yu, ‘I think the tiny flecks are Magic Wool, and he’s done something to it, to stop it fighting back.’
‘So it won’t unravel!’ said Dorcas.
‘That,’ said Matilda, ‘is NOT cricket!’
‘But they do unravel,’ said Will. ‘Ben’s dad’s jumper’s fell to bits!’
‘That’s it!’ said Jun-Yu. ‘The Magic Wool eventually wins. Then it unravels, and destroys the whole jumper. But not before someone has paid for it and come to love how the jumper made them feel.’
‘Then when it falls to bits, they’re desperate to buy another one,’ said Hortense.
‘And they’ll pay any price,’ said Ivy.
‘This is unspeakable,’ said Dorcas.
‘He really is a clever little blighter, isn’t he?’ said Matilda.
‘And now he knows that Gertie was taking her family to the Isle of Man,’ said Hortense. ‘Do we think he’ll try to go? Will he know how to find the sheep and gather the Magic Wool?’
Just then Holly swung in through the window, binoculars round her neck.
‘He’s gone!’ she said. ‘Jasper Fitchet just left Knittington on a motorbike. Nice one too!’ Will had seen that motorbike through the binoculars. It was a Norton Dominator, the new kind that looks old but can go like the clappers.
‘What are you doing up here, Holly? Shouldn’t you be manning the shop?’ said Jun-Yu.
‘In case you haven’t noticed, we haven’t had a customer for days. No one is knitting. No one is making anything. The whole town is out buying clothes.’
‘But you shouldn’t know about any of this, child! It’s bad enough we’ve let Will get involved,’ said Dorcas. ‘These are terrible, terrible doings, and we can’t let the two of you get hurt.’
‘This is Mission Critical!’ said Holly. ‘We need every brain in the house.’
‘She’s right,’ said Jun-Yu. ‘This is a crisis. We’ve let it go on for far too long.’ She began pacing. ‘We obviously can’t count on the Knitwork coming. We have to find some way to handle this ourselves.’
‘Exactly! What would Gertie do?’ asked Ivy.
‘What would Gertie do?’ said Holly, her nostrils flaring. ‘How can you possibly know? With all due respect, Gertie never told you anything! So never mind what she would do, because we have no idea! The question is, what will we do?’
‘It’s true,’ said Hortense. ‘Gertie didn’t give us enough to go on. She never told us enough.’
‘We have to get some more Magic Wool,’ said Jun-Yu, slapping her hand into her palm. ‘We’ll need it, to bring people back to themselves, and to fight whatever it is he’s making. We’ve got to go to the Isle of Man, and we’ve got to find those magic sheep before the Golding Dawn.’
‘Isn’t that . . . tomorrow?’ asked Dorcas.
‘And isn’t the ferry all booked up?’ asked Matilda.
‘We don’t even have a car!’ said Hortense.
For a second everyone just looked at one another.
‘Come now,’ said Matilda finally. ‘Where’s our Dunkirk spirit?’
‘That’s right!’ said Ivy. ‘Everyone stand up and let’s have a few deep breaths, for inspiration.’
Everyone stood up straight and closed their eyes. Will tried not to giggle.
‘Arms out in front,’ said Ivy, ‘and breathe! Fingers stretching wide, wide, wide as you can – and breathe! Curling into fists, tight, tight, tight as you can – and breathe! Stretching again, wide, wide, wide – and breathe! Now both hands around that invisible ball of wool, and rotate the wrists, back, forth, back, can we feel it? Are we all feeling it?’
Will had to close his eyes or he was going to laugh out loud. But as soon as he’d closed them, Will started remembering things. It was like he was watching a film. First, his own kitchen floor dropped away below him as he jumped for the first time in Dad’s socks. Then the tarmac of his street moved up and down as he jumped into Holly’s swinging skipping rope. And then Holly was sitting on Sophie’s bed and telling that story . . .
‘Hey!’ he said, opening his eyes. ‘The Pep-In-Your-Step socks!’ The grans all blinked and looked at him. ‘What if you used that pattern, only jump-started? Gingered? Sprightled up?’ (Oh, crikey! He was starting to talk like them.) ‘Could you make Seven-League Boots, like in the fairy tales? Where every step you take is three miles long, or something?’
‘Well, tie me to a kite and strike me with lightning!’ said Ivy.
‘Sit me under a tree and pelt me with apples,’ said Dorcas.
‘Overfill my bath and stand by with a mop!’ said Hortense.
‘We could get there with knitting,’ said Matilda.
‘All right, but how do we steer?’ said Ivy. ‘I mean, we don’t want to just walk into the sea, right?’
‘How about our loo-roll cover?’ said Will. He’d brought it to them to study, and they’d said it was called a Locator Hat. ‘Can you use it to find a place instead of a thing?’
‘Bless the boy! That just might work!’
‘Might I suggest that everyone don her Combat Cardigan?’ said Jun-Yu.
The grans all moved to a row of hooks behind the door, and each took down a patchwork cardigan. They looked a bit like the one Mum had, made of a dozen colours each, as if the grans had used the left-over bits of wool from every gift they’d knitted for the past five Christmases. Each patch seemed to be a different kind of stripe or cable or pattern of bumps.
‘Combat?’ asked Will. ‘Against what?’ To Will they looked barely organized enough to pull off just being cardigans.
‘Against the Great Forgetting,’ said Dorcas.
‘The great . . . what?’ asked Will.
‘Forgetting,’ said Jun-Yu.
‘What’s that?’
‘Forgetting how to do anything for ourselves. How to make things. How to cook things. How to fix things.’
‘They’re great when you need ideas,’ said Hortense.
‘And we are going to need some of those!’ said Ivy.
‘And what should I do?’ said Will. ‘Get ready for my journey?’
‘That’s out of the question, Will,’ said Jun-Yu. ‘We can’t possibly send you to the Isle of Man alone.’
‘Well, then, someone come with me.’
‘There won’t be enough time to make boots for two, dear boy,’ said Dorcas. ‘This is going to be the race of our lives as it is.’
‘And there might not be enough wool,’ said Jun-Yu. ‘Slippers this powerful will have to be knitted entirely of magic yarn. There may only be enough for a single pair.’
‘I think it might be time to fetch the last of the Magic Wool from the loft,’ said Dorcas.
‘Quite right,’ said Jun-Yu. ‘That’s what you can do for us, Will.’
The loft was above the kitchen behind the shop. Will held the lad
der while Holly went up it, and Matilda reached up for the picnic hamper as Holly handed it down.
‘Thank you, Will. Now off you go.’
‘But—’
‘No,’ said Jun-Yu. ‘You can ring in the morning and we’ll tell you how it went.’
‘Now leg it,’ said Matilda.
‘Sling your hook,’ said Ivy.
‘Off you bimble,’ said Hortense.
‘Get weaving,’ said Dorcas.
The stars had all come out by the time Mum and Dad went to bed. Will hadn’t been able to fall asleep. He’d watched the sky turn blue like the old glass bottles in the chemist’s window, and then velvety black. He heard Mum tiptoe in and out of the bathroom, before Dad did the same, and then the click of their bedroom door closing. He heard owls hooting, and then Dad snoring. Finally he got out of bed and put his clothes on. As quietly as he could, he slid fresh batteries into his torch and put it in his rucksack.
Shoes in hand, he stole out to the upstairs hallway and into Sophie’s room. Carefully, quietly, he checked the locks on the windows to make sure nothing could get in from the outside.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Shh. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘I want to come too,’ said Sophie.
‘Go back to sleep, Soph,’ he said softly.
He closed the door gently, crept downstairs, and slid out of the front door. He was pretty sure his parents wouldn’t want him to wander outside alone at night, even to The Knittery. But there was no way he could lie in bed just waiting.
The shop was dark at the front, so Will went round to the alleyway and in through the back courtyard. The windows there were brightly lit, and the back door was unlocked. Will ducked in just as Holly was coming down the steps with a tray full of empty teacups.
‘Hello, you,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Were you worried about them too?’
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ said Will.
‘I don’t blame you,’ said Holly.
‘Have they made the boots?’ asked Will.
‘They did!’ said Holly, her eyes rounding. ‘It’s been a twelve-hour knit-a-thon! Even my gran switched from tea to coffee.’
‘Do they work?’
Holly grinned and nodded, bobbing up and down on the balls of her feet.
‘They’ve been taking off from the courtyard,’ she said, raising one leg up in front of her as if she were about to take a giant step, and making the teacups on her tray rattle. ‘Jun-Yu got across the river and back, and Hortense made it up to the roof of the abbey church. Then Ivy went to Glastonbury in two steps, and Matilda’s just back from crossing the Severn.’
‘Woah!’ said Will. ‘That’s way more powerful than Dad’s old socks!’
‘Yep!’ said Holly, lowering her voice further and looking around the kitchenette as if a spy might be crouched on the draining board. ‘The boots take you right where you’re looking. If you want to go someplace that’s too far to see, you imagine the place in your mind and say something like, “Where is Portscatho Beach?” and the loo-roll cover will make you look in the right direction, just like it does when you ask where an object is.’
‘What if you can’t imagine it – like if you’ve never been there?’
‘Ivy got to Blenheim Palace without ever having been before, by holding on to an old entry ticket and thinking about pictures she’s seen of it. Flipped out some peacocks and set off an alarm, but no harm done.’
‘It really works!’
‘It does. They’ve got a scrap of the Magic Wool to hold on to, to help them steer to the sheep that your gran found.’ She set the tray down on the counter top and put one hand on her hip. ‘But I’m not sure about this whole thing. They’re all too old to go chasing after sheep in the dark.’ She stuffed her fingers into her hair, making one of her buns wiggle. ‘Go and keep an ear on them while I wash up, OK? Sit on the stairs, so they don’t see you.’
Will crept up the stairs, just far enough for his eyes to rise above the floor.
The grans were sitting in a circle in the centre of the room. On the table over by the window, Will could just make out a pair of ankle-high boots knitted in sparkling gold. Next to them lay the Dalek loo-roll cover and three empty sacks.
‘There’s no more wool and there’s no more time,’ Jun-Yu was saying. ‘One pair of boots and one hat is all we’ve got. Whoever does this, does it alone.’
‘Jun-Yu is right,’ said Dorcas. ‘One of us has to give it a try, and chance the ducks. The worst that can happen is that we have no luck, put on the hat and come back.’
‘Actually, the worst thing that can happen is we drown in the Irish Sea . . .’
‘They’re trying to figure out who should go,’ said Will, creeping back downstairs. He looked at Holly. ‘I think they’re scared.’
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ she asked.
‘If you’re thinking that one of us should go,’ said Will, ‘then, yes, I am.’
Holly nodded.
‘I hate to say it, but I think it should be you. I think there’s something important about children in all of this. That thing you remembered about your gran taking you out at dawn.’ She shook her head. ‘And if I’m right, then younger is probably better.’ She handed Will her smartphone. ‘The shop is number two on speed dial. Jun-Yu is number three. And you know about 999, right?’
Will nodded.
‘I’ll distract them. You swipe the boots and the hat, and don’t forget the bit of wool. When you put the hat on, try to think of the picture you saw on your gran’s computer – the one of her with the sheep. Hopefully that will take you to wherever it was that she got the wool last time.’ Holly stared at Will for a second, biting her bottom lip.
‘Sound action stations!’ Will whispered.
Holly smiled. ‘We shall beat to quarters!’
‘What does that even mean?’ said Will.
Holly strode up the stairs two at a time. ‘Hey!’ she said loudly. ‘I’ve got a question!’
Will tiptoed behind her, stopping on the second-from-the-top step with his legs under him, like a sprinter waiting for the starting shot. He watched Holly’s feet crossing the floorboards, and then put his chin above the floor so he could see more. All the grans were looking at Holly. Which meant they weren’t looking at the staircase, or the table with the hat and boots on it.
‘Should I make up a flask and some sandwiches for whoever is going to do this?’ Holly was asking. ‘Because we don’t know how cold it might be on the Isle of Man, and we don’t know how long it’s going to take.’
As silently as he could, Will scuttled to the table.
‘And what about torches? Should I dig around and find some?’
He tugged the hat on, scooped up the boots and the bags and the little bit of yarn, then crept back down the stairs, careful not to let the boards creak beneath his feet.
‘And I’m just wondering if Google Maps could help at all?’ Holly was saying. ‘I could show you how to use it.’
Will slipped out into the courtyard, between the roses and the wheelie bins. The night was silent except for the murmur of voices coming from the window above.
He sat down on the mossy brick ground and stuffed the three empty bags into his rucksack. Then he put the boots on. They were more like slippers than boots, and they stretched easily over his trainers. Careful not to take a step, he stood up slowly.
What next? He should concentrate on the Isle of Man, he supposed. Closing his eyes, he imagined the pictures he’d seen on Gran’s laptop: seals and thatched white crofts, and Gran with the four-horned sheep. When he had the pictures firmly in his mind, he whispered, ‘Where is the Isle of Man?’ then opened his eyes to let the Locator Hat direct his gaze. He felt a pull at his eyes, and his face followed. Next he would need to take a step in that direction.
What if I land in the ocean, though?
He was just working up the nerve to lift his left foot when there was a sudden eruption of voic
es from the upstairs window.
‘Wait – Stop! – What are you doing, child? – Oh, no!’
He mustn’t turn his head. Quickly! He had to step, and he had to do it now.
He raised his left foot in the air, pointing in the direction of his gaze, and pushed off with his right leg as hard as he could.
Something heavy thumped him on his back, knocking him forward. Before he could catch his breath, a blast of icy wind chilled his face and almost blew the Locator Hat off. It sounded like the engine of an aeroplane. His eyes blurred, his stomach lurched, and the soles of his feet tickled. He glimpsed dark, silvered water beneath him and then felt soft ground under his left foot. He fell on to his knees in a patch of tall, dark grass. A second later his rucksack landed hard against his back, knocking him on to his face.
Only then it scrambled off him again.
‘Sorry!’ It wasn’t his rucksack at all.
‘Sophie!’
He rolled over and sat up in the grass. Sophie was standing above him, wearing a jumper over her pyjamas, her Kitty Hat on her head, and her red wellies on her feet.
Pants! Now he was going to be in more trouble than ever.
‘How did you get here?’
‘I did the flying mount,’ she said, grinning. So that was what had thumped him so hard on the back just as he was stepping off.
‘You followed me out of the house?’ Will asked.
‘Cronk said I should.’
‘And all the way to The Knittery?’
Sophie smiled and nodded. ‘And then I jumped up and held on to your rucksack!’ The grans would be having kittens. They’d have seen it all from the window.
‘You really shouldn’t have, Sophie. That could have gone badly.’
‘I want to help get the golden wool,’ she said. She must have heard more than they’d thought. Well, she’d have to come along now.
Will looked around. They were in a meadow alongside a huddle of small white cottages. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, the moonlight showed him their thatched roofs and low doorways. It was a tiny village, like the one in the picture on Gran’s computer. There was no sound except the noises of animals: night birds hunting and mice rustling. If there were people in this village, they were all sleeping.
