by Elka Evalds
‘We’ve got half an hour to come up with a family-friendly demonstration of traditional crafts,’ the director was saying under her breath. ‘Think!’
‘Hey, Dad! Could we use the carding combs and spindles under the stairs? We’re having a carding and spinning race!’
For a second Dad and the director stared.
‘I love you, Will,’ said the director.
‘I think that means yes,’ said Dad, smiling.
It was a smashing morning. The children all got their pictures in the Knitton-Perlham Gazette, with Sophie wearing the loo-roll cover, under the headline: DYING CRAFTS REVIVED AT LOCAL MUSEUM. The Wool Merchant’s House got ninety-one points out of a hundred from the museum inspector, and the grans got metres and metres of strong, bumpy yarn the colour of coffee walnut cake, glittering with gold.
‘Is that the new secret weapon?’ asked Will.
He was upstairs at The Knittery. Jun-Yu and Dorcas were sitting at either side of the table. In between them lay what looked like an enormously long, narrow scarf. They were each knitting one end of it, their fingers moving like quick birds.
‘We’re calling it a Dispelling Scarf,’ said Jun-Yu, without looking up.
‘To gently unravel tangles, knots and hexes, and undo the work of troubled souls,’ said Dorcas, her fingers flying.
‘We’re hoping it will free the Magic Wool from whatever Mr Fitchet has done to it,’ said Dorcas.
‘We’re going to wrap it round the factory,’ said Jun-Yu.
‘Wow!’ said Will.
‘It’s going to have to be a really long scarf to fit round the whole building. Couldn’t we just wrap it around him?’
‘I don’t want any of us to go near him,’ said Jun-Yu. ‘The man is dangerous. If we can avoid seeing him or any of his diabolical jumpers, we’ll have a much better chance of succeeding.’
‘Besides, if we can get it around the whole factory, it should un-knit whatever devilishness he’s got in there,’ said Dorcas.
‘Will he still be able to make more magic afterwards?’
‘Yes,’ said Jun-Yu. ‘It won’t change his abilities. But it will save our town from his diabolical clothes, at least for the moment.’
‘Hm,’ said Will.
He wasn’t sure. ‘How about using Harkening Stitch?’
‘That’s just what your gran would have done,’ said Jun-Yu, with a sad little smile.
‘But Harkening Stitch works best when you do it for yourself. If we could make Mr Fitchet knit some – even just a few inches – that could do the trick.’ She sighed. ‘But I can’t picture that happening.’
‘Try not to worry, Will,’ said Dorcas. She held the strand of yarn out to him. ‘Feel this.’ Will took it in his fingers and rolled it back and forth. His fingertips tingled. ‘Never felt anything like it in all my years of knitting,’ said Dorcas. ‘I think it’s even helping my arthritis!’
‘It’s the most powerful wool any of us has ever used,’ said Jun-Yu. ‘It might even be strong enough to radiate out through the town and un-knit the jumpers in people’s houses.’
‘It’s likely to do him some good, whatever stitch we use,’ said Dorcas.
‘We’ve put it together with all of our Magic Wool from years past, so we’ll have yards and yards,’ said Jun-Yu. ‘And we’re working on it two at a time, in shifts, so all of our powers of concentration are gathered into it. I think we’re almost there.’
There was an explosion of jingling bells followed by a bang, as the shop door swung open so quickly it hit the wall. Footsteps pounded on the stairs, and Hortense rushed into the centre of the room, her glasses askew.
‘Hortense?’ asked Jun-Yu, putting her knitting down. ‘What on earth?’
‘Jumpers!’ said Hortense. ‘Thousands of them!’ She paused to catch her breath. ‘He’s back. And he’s already got those machines doing something with all the wool that Will and Sophie picked.’ She was holding her mobile phone. ‘Should I gather the troops?’
‘Immediately,’ said Jun-Yu. She spoke very calmly, but she and Dorcas both began knitting so quickly, Will was surprised their needles didn’t spout flames.
‘This is Broadsword calling Danny Boy,’ Hortense said into her phone. ‘Everyone over to HQ. Repeat, everyone over to HQ.’
Dorcas giggled.
‘And can we have a 10-61 here?’ Hortense asked.
‘What’s a 10-61?’ asked Will.
‘That means milk for tea,’ said Jun-Yu, rolling her eyes. ‘Would you go and put the kettle on, Will?’
When Will got back upstairs, Jun-Yu was on her feet, measuring out the Dispelling Scarf. She was wrapping it round her hand and elbow like fallen rigging.
‘I hope we’ll have enough,’ said Dorcas.
Hortense pulled forward a large blackboard on wheels, on which she had sketched what looked like a map of the Woolman Mill, covered with arrows, numbers, initials and exclamation points.
‘Oh, goody!’ said Ivy, who had just come up the stairs behind Will. ‘Are we going to blow the ruddy doors off?’
‘Oh, I hope so,’ said Will.
‘You aren’t doing anything but going home, young man,’ said Jun-Yu.
‘You’re joking!’ said Will. ‘Not again.’
‘I agree with Jun-Yu,’ said Matilda, who had come up the stairs with Ivy. ‘It’s not that we don’t know you’re capable, Will. You saved the day, after all.’
‘Saved our bacon,’ said Hortense.
‘Saved our bums,’ said Ivy.
‘But I cannot forgive myself for how much danger we let you get into,’ Jun-Yu continued, ‘and I will not let it happen again.’
‘We owe it to your gran,’ said Matilda.
‘Off with you now,’ said Dorcas.
‘You can ring us at bedtime if you like,’ said Hortense.
Just then Holly’s head bobbed up the stairwell. She was carrying the tea tray. ‘Bannog, anyone? What’s the plan, grans?’
Jun-Yu closed her eyes and sighed.
‘No one. Under. Twenty-one. Is. On. This. Mission,’ she said.
‘But you need us!’ said Holly. ‘We don’t fall for his mangy jumpers! Haven’t you noticed? We think they’re itchy and naff! So it might be an idea to have one of us along, don’t you think?’ Holly set the tray down and came over to Dorcas’s chair. She had a shawl over her arm. ‘I found your shawl at home, Gran.’
‘My shawl! Thank you, dear!’
‘See! We can help, we under-twenty-ones!’
‘Oh, child!’ said Dorcas. ‘What would your mum say if she knew I’d let you get involved with such dangerous doings?’
‘And what would she say if she knew I’d let you?’ Holly replied, tucking the shawl around Dorcas’s shoulders. ‘Going after this Jasper Thingie Fitchet, with his ferrets and his factory and his—’
‘Woolman!’ said Dorcas, suddenly sitting upright. ‘Jasper Woolman Fitchet.’
‘What?’
‘He’s the Woolman boy! Now I remember!’
‘Is that your Memory Shawl?’ said Jun-Yu.
‘Great pattern, that,’ Ivy chuckled.
‘Yes!’ said Dorcas, raising her shawl-clad arms in the air and looking around at the circle of faces, her eyes wide. ‘I remember everything!’
‘You all know that Jasper Fitchet is from Knittington,’ said Dorcas. ‘What he hasn’t told you is that he was born to the family that owned the mill, before they lost it all.’
‘You mean the Woolmans?’ asked Will. ‘Why’s he called Fitchet?’
‘His mother was a Woolman,’ said Dorcas. ‘The last one, in fact. Oh, but they were duffers, the last of the Woolmans! Their family had run that mill for three centuries. They’d done both well and good. Set up the hospital and the almshouses and the school when they started getting rich. But then they forgot their old, careful ways, and didn’t want anything to do with the factory, except for the profit.’
The grans all nodded like they knew that part.
‘I’ll bet the town didn’t like that,’ said Hortense.
‘The boy wouldn’t have had any friends at all, if it hadn’t been for Gertie,’ said Dorcas.
‘They were friends?’ said Will.
‘Thick as thieves,’ said Dorcas. ‘Gertie’s mum was the Woolmans’ cook, you see, and Gertie would come along after school. Of course, wherever Gertie went, her knitting came with her. They’d sit under the kitchen table on rainy days with their needles. Came as natural as hooting does to owls. Only thing Jasper couldn’t do was Harkening Stitch. “I guess I don’t have a Best Self,” he would say. But Gertie never believed that.’
‘Gertie always had faith,’ said Jun-Yu.
‘In her innocence, she taught him some powerful patterns that she shouldn’t have done.’
‘Well, I’ll be soysed!’ said Ivy.
‘And told him about Magic Wool too,’ said Dorcas.
‘That’s how he learnt all our tricks!’ said Jun-Yu.
‘Maybe he’d have been all right if things had stayed like that, and Gertie could have kept an eye on him. But Jasper got shipped off to a fancy school.’
‘I’ll bet he didn’t fit in there either,’ said Hortense.
‘He’d have been neither a fox nor a hound!’ said Matilda.
‘What happened then?’ asked Will.
‘The mill failed,’ Dorcas continued, ‘because the family had been spending more than they earnt. Then his mum died, and his fancy school sent him packing because the fees hadn’t been paid. Jasper came back to Knittington to find his dad had run off with the last of the cash.’
‘Shocking!’ said Matilda.
‘Unspeakable!’ said Jun-Yu.
‘No wonder he’s such a face ache,’ said Ivy.
‘The family house was sold, and Jasper had nowhere to go.’
‘How old was he then?’ asked Jun-Yu.
‘About fifteen. Just Holly’s age! He went to live in the empty mill, as no one wanted to buy it. He found bits of work when people took pity on him, hauling boxes in the market and doing chores. But many were unkind. Everyone had lost their jobs when the mill closed down, you see, and his father had left debts behind.’
‘What about Gertie?’ asked Hortense.
‘She won’t have let him down,’ said Matilda.
‘She used to bring him food. He wanted her to knit him things – wallets that were never empty, slingshots so he could take revenge, vests that would force people to give him money. But all she would make were socks for courage, and jumpers for strength, and a Combat Cardigan for ideas.’
The grans all sighed and nodded.
‘Then Gertie got married.’
‘Grandad!’ said Will.
‘That’s right,’ said Dorcas. ‘Tom Shepherd had everything Jasper wanted: a big, loving family, proper job with work mates – he was a mechanic at the motorbike factory, with no one to cagmag him for not dressing posh – he could even knit. And then he won Gertie too.’
‘Jasper must have been gutted,’ said Hortense.
‘He stole some of Gertie’s Magic Wool, and disappeared on Tom’s motorbike,’ said Dorcas. ‘Some say he went to Japan. Some say he went to Italy. But Gertie never forgot him. She didn’t speak of it often, but it grieved her something terrible.’
‘Well, knock me for six!’ said Matilda.
‘That’s why she was always on about the rules and keeping everything top secret!’ said Holly. ‘She broke the rules teaching Jasper, and look what happened.’
‘That would explain a lot,’ said Ivy.
‘So he learnt magic from Gertie, and learnt computer knitting who-knows-where, and now he’s come back to take revenge on Knittington and make a fortune in the process,’ said Jun-Yu.
‘By making everyone desperate for his mecklekeckle jumpers,’ said Hortense.
‘Finally Knittington will want him,’ said Matilda.
‘Well, this is all very heartbreaking,’ said Jun-Yu, turning to Will and Holly, ‘but none of it changes the fact that this is no place for children. Even children as clever and resourceful as you two.’
‘You’ve got as much place here right now as gravy on a sponge cake,’ said Hortense.
‘A rabbit on a rugby pitch,’ said Matilda.
‘A spider in a shoe,’ said Ivy.
‘Now off with you both, or I will ring your mums,’ said Jun-Yu, ‘and don’t think I won’t.’
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ asked Holly when they got downstairs.
‘If you’re thinking they’re going to need us,’ said Will, ‘then yes.’
They waited in the wood behind the factory with binoculars. ‘I brought my skipping rope too,’ said Holly, ‘in case we need to tie the creep up!’
It was a boring, anxious hour, watching nothing happen at the windows of the factory, and getting sore bums from sitting on rocks. But finally the binoculars picked up some movement. On the other side of the river, a procession of figures was heading over the footbridge from the abbey grounds.
‘They’re here,’ said Will.
The leafy branches at the edge of the car park shook. There was a pause, and then the grans appeared like ninjas from the trees. Faster than Will would ever have thought they could move, they scuttled towards the factory, Jun-Yu carrying a covered basket.
‘Well, dress me in a cat suit and call me an Avenger,’ said Holly.
‘Look at them go!’ said Will.
Holly and Will slid down the slope to the shrubs at the very edge of the car park, and watched through the branches. The grans had pressed themselves against the wall of the building, next to the shop door. At a sign from Jun-Yu, Hortense ducked to the other side of the door, looked in through the nearest window, and ducked back again. Then Jun-Yu began to reel out the Dispelling Scarf, the grans taking hold of it at intervals.
Will leant forward to watch. But he never did find out what the grans were about to do, because just then there was a rasping grate as a top-floor window opened, and a large white forehead appeared.
‘Here comes trouble!’ Holly said, sitting up straight.
‘Good afternoon, ladies!’ Mr Fitchet was leaning from the window.
‘Mr Fitchet,’ said Jun-Yu, looking up.
‘I have a gift for you, ladies,’ said Mr Fitchet, ‘if you’ll allow me.’
‘We want nothing from you, Jasper,’ called Jun-Yu. ‘Indeed, we’ve come with a gift ourselves.’
‘Oh, I think you’ll want these,’ said Mr Fitchet.
‘Not to put too fine a point on it, Fitchet,’ said Hortense, ‘but your gifts are about as welcome as a fly in a pie shop.’
‘A bagpipe in a library,’ said Matilda.
‘A bus in a bluebell bed,’ said Dorcas.
‘A zombie in a crèche,’ said Ivy.
‘And if you’ll just sit tight for a moment . . .’ Jun-Yu said. She began unreeling the Dispelling Scarf again, going twice as quickly as before, and taking giant steps along the side of the building.
Just then something pink and fluffy floated down from the window, like candy floss on a breeze, and landed in the middle of the circle of grans. Jun-Yu didn’t finish her sentence. Instead all of the grans sighed at once, as if they were at a school concert and their grandchildren were singing in the chorus.
‘Oooooh! Looooook!’ They surged forward, dropping the Dispelling Scarf to grasp at the pink thing, stretching it out in the air between them.
‘Lovely!’ said Ivy.
‘Exquisite!’ said Matilda.
Fitchet disappeared for a moment and then appeared at the window again, his arms full of something.
‘Oh, pants!’ said Will.
‘Cardigans, actually,’ said Ho
lly.
The cardigans swirled down through the air. For a second they lay on the ground, like fallen rose petals, and then the grans fell forward to gather them up in their arms.
‘Sound action stations!’ said Holly. ‘We shall beat to—’
Thump.
Sophie came sliding down the slope, banging into Will’s back.
‘Not again!’ said Will.
‘I followed you,’ said Sophie.
‘Look, Sophie, I don’t care what Cronk said,’ Will fumed. ‘I don’t want you anywhere near that troll!’ He looked at Holly. ‘Holly, please, please just stay here and don’t let her go any closer!’
Without waiting for an answer, he pushed through the branches and pounded across the tarmac. ‘Stop!’ he called out to the grans. ‘Don’t! Jun-Yu, Matilda! Don’t put them on!’
But they already were. Each of the grans had put first one arm, then another into a cardigan. They murmured in awe as they did up the buttons.
‘I’ve never seen such beauty!’ said Hortense.
‘Look at the work in that!’ said Dorcas. The cardigans were the colour of fruit jellies, flecked with black, and each one had a patch stuck on it: goggle-eyed butterflies, squat goofy kittens, bratty-looking fairies. Even Sophie wouldn’t be caught dead in these. But the grans were spinning round, admiring one another and exclaiming. Their old Combat Cardigans were no match for the powerful new wool.
‘Can’t you see what he’s doing?’ Will shouted.
‘Don’t be rude, Will,’ said Jun-Yu. ‘Mr Fitchet has gone out of his way to make us something really special, and I, for one, am simply overcome!’
The door to the shop opened and Fitchet came out, his blue eyes sparkling and his pressed lips grinning.
‘Mr Fitchet, we don’t know how to thank you!’ said Jun-Yu.
‘If you really want to thank me, dear lady,’ said Fitchet, holding the door open wide, ‘you can come in and buy more of my new collection.’
‘No!’ Will’s heart skipped three beats and then galloped forward. ‘Don’t go in there!’ Will was about to rush at Jun-Yu, to try to yank the cardigan off her, when Jasper turned towards him, his eyes like bullets.
