by Elka Evalds
‘I have a new children’s collection too. Much better than my earlier models. Much more effective.’
Jun-Yu had already walked into the building, and all the other grans were following her. Will scooped up the Dispelling Scarf, and, stuffing it into the basket, ran in after them.
Jasper Fitchet pulled the big wooden doors shut behind them, securing them with an iron bar that clanged as it fell into place. Will swallowed. Well, at least that would keep Sophie safe: Holly would have come running in after her gran in another two seconds, and Sophie would have been right behind her.
‘Now, ladies!’ said Fitchet, his grin widening, and his bright blue eyes shining. ‘Allow me to show you to our dressing rooms. Perhaps you’d like to take your bulky cardigans off and enjoy the elegant fit of your new gifts properly.’
‘Oooh, lovely, yes!’ The grans all surged towards the velvet curtains, and a second later five Combat Cardigans flumped to the floor.
Fitchet made a clicking sound with his mouth and five ferrets came running along the floor. They scurried to the dressing rooms, each one taking a cardigan in its teeth and dragging it away from the grans.
Will ran towards the dressing rooms, then ran towards the ferrets, then ran back towards the dressing rooms.
‘No! Stop! Don’t!’ he shouted.
‘Here we go gathering jumpers today,’ Mr Fitchet said in a sing-song voice.
The velvet curtains opened again and one by one the grans rushed to the big mirrors, each stepping in front of the others to get a better look.
‘Gorgeous!’
‘Though you’ve got to admit, mine’s the best.’
‘I think that would look better on me, actually.’
‘I want them all!’ said Jun-Yu.
Mr Fitchet chuckled. ‘Even the Knittery Knitting Knot wants me now.’ He opened his arms. ‘No need to fight, ladies!’ he said. ‘There are oodles of clothes here. Enough for everyone. Please make yourselves at home!’
‘Ooooh!’
‘Don’t mind if I do!’
Suddenly, the man whirled around to face Will.
‘But I almost forgot. My new children’s collection.’
Will wasn’t fast enough. Before he could run, or even look away, Jasper had lifted a jumper out of an open drawer, and set it down with a swirl on the counter top in front of Will.
Will froze. It was a copy of the magic jumper. Only instead of the dense, soft wool, this jumper was made of something prickly. Where the magic jumper was navy blue, battleship grey and racing green, this jumper was turquoise, brown and lime. There was no stripe of sparkly gold; instead there were tiny flecks of black dotted over the whole thing.
As ugly as it was, Will couldn’t stop looking at it. He managed to turn his head away, but his eyes stayed stuck to the jumper. The longer he looked, the more he found he wanted to touch it. It was like looking at chocolate – the more you look, the more you want to eat it.
He wanted to put the jumper on.
‘There you are, Will. Give it a try, why don’t you? It’s for you.’
Will knew he shouldn’t. He knew it was dangerous. But he wanted to. He hugged his magic jumper to him, the jumper Gran had made, trying to make his mind quiet. And suddenly it was as if she was there. Her soft, wrinkled hand was smoothing his forehead, like it used to do when he’d been sick with a fever. Gently, like a warm feather, the invisible hand cupped his eyes, smoothing them downwards, until he was able to close his eyelids against the black-flecked jumper. For just a second he felt the silence.
And then he knew what he had to do.
He opened his eyes.
‘I’ll put yours on if you put mine on,’ he said, and he pulled one of his arms out of the magic jumper.
‘Ha,’ said Fitchet. ‘Do you think I can’t recognize your gran’s knitting?’
‘I’m wearing it, and it isn’t hurting me,’ said Will. He pulled his other arm out of its sleeve.
‘Well, she probably made it just for you, to give you extra powers. Probably does the opposite on anyone else. I know all about her ways, you know.’
Will was about to answer when he noticed Fitchet’s face change. He was looking at the dangling sleeve of the jumper, and his eyes seemed to go . . . soft. The tight little grin became a small, squidgy O.
Jasper Fitchet was staring at the little embroidered bee on the wrist.
That was when Will realized. It wasn’t a bee at all – it was a wasp. Jasper was an old word for a wasp – a farm word, a village word, a Dorcas-and-Gran word.
‘You recognize it, don’t you?’ said Will. ‘She didn’t make it for me at all. She made it for you!’
Fitchet looked at Will, looked at the jumper.
‘She made it to help you with Harkening Stitch. Right before she died.’
‘She made that to help me?’ asked Fitchet slowly. ‘She still thought I could . . .’
Taking a deep breath, Will pulled the magic jumper off over his head and put it on the counter next to the other jumper. He swallowed. It was like taking off a life preserver.
‘Just touch it if you don’t believe me,’ he said, trying to smile.
Very slowly, Jasper reached out and touched the magic jumper. His bright eyes widened.
‘Look,’ said Will. ‘I’ll put an arm in yours if you put an arm in mine. That’s how sure I am.’
He took a step forward, handed the magic jumper to Jasper Fitchet with his left hand, and took the Fitchet & Ferret jumper with his right. Slowly he put one arm into the sleeve. It felt like putting his arm into a snake.
Fitchet put an arm into the magic jumper. He sighed.
Will put his other arm into the Fitchet & Ferret jumper. Now both of his arms were in snakes.
Fitchet put his other arm into the magic jumper. The wolf-tail eyebrows unknitted and moved gently apart.
Slowly, Will put the Fitchet & Ferret jumper over his head. At first it was like falling into soup – everything felt slow and warm and thick around him. Then suddenly he was breathless. It was like when he and Ben started laughing at something silly and couldn’t stop. His heart rushed as if he’d eaten too many sweets.
Meanwhile, Jasper was wearing the magic jumper, and he was staring at Will. He’s all right, Will found himself thinking. I don’t know what we were on about. But Jasper was gasping, his blue eyes round.
‘What have I done?’ he said. ‘Take it off, boy, take it off!’
But Will didn’t know what Mr Fitchet was so upset about. ‘No, hey, it’s fine!’ he laughed. ‘It’s good. It’s great. It’s no problem.’
Jasper’s eyes were wide. He looked around the room wildly, then back at Will.
‘Will. You must, you must take that jumper off. Please listen to me. In the name of your gran, please believe me.’
Even thinking about taking off the jumper hurt. Will didn’t want to. The jumper felt like sunlight in February. It felt like a whole stadium shouting together as his own team scored. It felt like his last piece of chocolate. It felt like winning.
Fitchet rushed over to a drawer in the wall. It opened with a low, rumbling roll, and there inside it were the stolen mittens. The man plucked one from the drawer and darted back to Will. Taking Will’s hand, he slid the mitten on to it, holding it there so Will couldn’t take it off.
Once, in a rugby game last winter, someone had kicked Will in the head by accident, and he’d fallen unconscious on to the field. When he came to, he saw faces around him in the air. The mouths were moving, but the voices seemed to be coming from far away. It took a long time before he started understanding what they were saying. That’s what he felt like now.
He looked down at his hand and saw the mitten, and then he remembered everything. It was like turning off the telly after many hours, and in the silence, finally thinking a thought of his own again. Like he’d jumped into a cool lake on a sticky, sleepy day.
Will ripped off the Fitchet & Ferret jumper and dropped it on the floor, the mitten tumbling do
wn with it. He felt a jolt of pain. His whole torso was coming awake with pins and needles. He was freezing cold, empty with hunger and desperately sad. He wanted to be home, he wanted Gran, he wanted to put the Fitchet & Ferret jumper back on. He thrust his arm out towards it. Anything to make the awful feeling stop.
Jasper kicked the Fitchet & Ferret jumper across the floor and dived on the fallen mitten. A second later he had the mitten over Will’s hand again, holding it on, and staring into Will’s face. Tears were leaking from the man’s eyes, down on to the magic jumper.
‘Are you all right, Will?’
Will shuddered, but then the pins and needles ebbed, and his hands felt warm again. He could see, he could hear, and there was quiet. He took a slow breath.
‘What have I done?’ whispered Jasper. He looked out at the grans, now shoving one another to get in front of the biggest mirror.
‘Mr Fi-i-tchet!’ called Hortense.
‘We LOVE your collection!’ said Jun-Yu.
‘We want to buy everything!’ cried Matilda.
‘Come and take our money!’ cried Ivy.
‘What should I do?’ Mr Fitchet whispered.
Wsh-skat, wsh-skat.
What was that sound? It was coming from down in the car park.
Wsh-skat, wsh-skat.
A small voice started singing.
‘In through the rabbit hole,
Round the big tree,
Up comes the rabbit,
And off goes she!’
It was Sophie, singing the knit-and-purl rhyme while she and Holly turned the skipping rope.
‘Under the fence,
Grab that sheep,
Out of the fence
And off we leap!’
Brilliant Holly! All at once Will realized what needed to happen.
‘Do some Harkening Stitch!’ he told Jasper. ‘It will fix everything. Here . . .’ He swept the basket up off the floor, and pulled out the Dispelling Scarf, the end that was still attached to a ball of yarn with needles sticking out of it. ‘Just a few stitches, at the end here.’
‘B-b-but – I can’t,’ said Jasper. ‘I never could. My Best Self . . . isn’t very good.’
‘Gran thought it was. That’s why she made that jumper.’
‘She made me something every year,’ said Jasper. ‘Every single year she sent me something. Japan, Italy, Germany, she always found me.’
‘See?’ said Will. ‘She believed in you!’
‘But I never put one of them on! I thought she was trying to hurt me. I thought she must be angry with me. I’d betrayed her, after all. I’d,’ he swallowed, ‘I’d stolen from her. Why would anyone want to help me? I unravelled every jumper she sent; every scarf and every glove, to get the Magic Wool out. And all this time . . .’ He put his hands over his face.
‘If you didn’t have a Best Self, you wouldn’t be feeling bad right now,’ Will pointed out. He handed Jasper the knitting needles and the end of the Dispelling Scarf. ‘Put all your other thoughts down,’ said Will, ‘so there’s nothing in your head but the sound of the river, and the sound of that song.’
‘Gather from the hedges,
Golden in the dawn,
Wash it in the river,
Spread it on the lawn.’
Will glanced over Mr Fitchet’s shoulder, towards the windows. He could see Holly and Sophie sweeping the rope around in fast, round circles, and children running from every direction, jumping through them. There were Olive and Annie, Lorelei and Simone, Ivan and Alexi, and Ruby and Ben. Some of them began to pick up the words to the song, so the singing got louder each minute:
‘Card it with a carding comb,
Careful as you can,
Spin it with a spindle,
And give it to your gran.’
Suddenly Harkening Stitch sounded like the best fun ever.
Jasper sat down on one of the elegant sofas and began to knit, silently mouthing the words of the song, his white eyebrows dancing up and down as his fingers tugged and cajoled and wrapped. After a moment he looked up.
‘I’m-I’m doing it!’ he said.
‘Keep going,’ said Will.
Five centimetres of knitting grew from between the needles, then ten. First he smiled, a proper wide smile, like his face unfolding. Then he laughed, and instead of the reedy oboe, it sounded like bagpipes and brass.
‘I’m doing it!’ said Jasper. ‘Oh, Will! I’ve done it!’
There was a sound of car tyres on loose gravel below.
‘Bandits! Bandits!’ called Holly’s voice. ‘Car park!’
‘Keep going,’ said Will. ‘Just keep going.’
But the song had stopped. Car doors closed outside. Jasper looked up, his face wrinkled in doubt.
Will touched his hand. ‘Card it with a carding comb, careful as you can . . .’
Jasper kept knitting. ‘Spin it with a spindle,’ he whispered, ‘and give it to your gran.’
Will went to the window. Out on the tarmac two black cars were parked alongside the building. The children had scattered, except for Holly, who stood at the furthest edge of the car park, holding Sophie close. Four men in dark suits were walking from the cars towards the factory. All along the side of the building, the grans thrust their heads out of the windows.
‘KNITWITCH!’ one of them shouted.
Fitchet shot to his feet.
‘KNITWITCH! The Knitwitch!’ The grans pulled their heads back into the shop. Like starlings at roosting time, they ran from one end of the shop to the other. Will couldn’t tell whether they were excited or frightened. Finally they plunged into the dressing rooms, yanking the velvet curtains shut behind them.
But it was clear that Jasper Fitchet was terrified. His face turned white and his eyes went wide as empty windows. His hands fell to his sides and the knitting needles clattered to the floor.
Something scraped at the old oak door. Scritch. Scritch. It sounded like sharp claws. Let me in, it seemed to say.
Then there was a loud knock at the double doors.
Jasper began to sway.
Something shot up into the crack between the doors, knocking the iron bar out of its hooks. It sounded like a single church bell as it crashed to the floor.
Scritch. Scritch. Waving lines of dizziness rushed across Will’s eyes.
The double doors swung slowly open, and Mr Fitchet fell like a tree. Will ran to him and caught his head just before it crashed to the floor. Jasper had fainted, his hand still clutching the knitted scarf.
A corgi trotted into the room, and then another one, and a third. They were followed by two broad-shouldered men in dark suits, with curly wires stuck into their ears. They walked sideways into the room and all around the edges, looking up and down along the walls, and out of the windows. They nodded at each other. One of them touched the wire in his ear and said, ‘Green.’
Then they stood at either side of the door like two giant statues, their eyes roving.
Will stood up, his heart pounding.
A small gran he’d never met stepped into the shop, wearing a quilted rain jacket and a silk scarf knotted under her chin. She walked with soft, clipping steps to Mr Fitchet, and bent to take the end of the knitted scarf out of his hands. She peered at it for a moment, examining the Dispelling Stitch, and then the Harkening Stitch that was added on at the end. Then she took the needles in her hands, and added one final stitch. With a flick of her wrist she flung the Dispelling Scarf so it landed in a circle on the floor, surrounding the fainted form of Jasper Fitchet.
There was a gentle rustling all over the building, as if thousands of knots were untying themselves and falling loose to the floor. When it finally stopped, the air was filled with sparkling gold flecks. A breeze rushed through the factory, and soon the golden sparkles were floating like snowflakes up into the sky around the building, settling in the trees, scurrying across the car park, and spinning along the surface of the river like glittering petals.
The grans came tumbling o
ut of the dressing rooms, dressed in their own clothes again. They stood still for a second, their eyes wide. Then, all at once, they curtseyed.
It was surprisingly graceful.
One of the men in dark suits came up the spiral staircase from the basement. He was carrying two sacks under his arms. Fluffy strands of fleece poked out of the tops, the colour of walnut coffee cake, glinting with gold. He held one of them out to Jun-Yu. Her mouth dropped open for a second, before she pulled herself up and took the sack in her arms with a gracious tilt of her head.
The gran in the quilted jacket looked at Jun-Yu with a small smile and a deep nod. Then she turned to Will, looked him up and down as if sizing him up, and gave a short, satisfied bob of her head.
‘Carry on,’ she said to the room at large.
The corgis followed her out.
Jasper suddenly came to. ‘Was that—? Was that—?’
‘That was the Knitwitch, you nitwit,’ said Ivy.
‘Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith,’ said Hortense.
‘Duchess of Edinburgh, Duke of Normandy,’ said Matilda.
‘The Uber Gran,’ said Ivy.
‘The Lord of Man,’ said Dorcas.
‘Her Majesty, the Queen,’ said Jun-Yu.
All over Knittington, jumpers had unravelled. In rooms across town, the Magic Wool had freed itself, and some of it was still sticking to the trees as Will walked through the back garden two weeks later.
‘Hey, Will!’ said Rosie next door. ‘Want to see a striped dahlia?’
‘Sorry! Can’t stop,’ said Will.
The Pingles were rebuilding their shed, after they’d had an accident on Wednesday, trying to make Greek fire.
‘Hey, Will,’ said Alex. ‘Want to see the new TARDIS? Plenty of room for the jousting kit now!’
‘Another time!’ said Will, unlatching the gate and slipping through.
‘Like to help fill the bird feeders, Will?’ Miss Violet called from across the alley. ‘I’ve got the new autumn seed mix.’
‘Not just now, thanks, but I bet Sophie will.’
