He gathered his school stuff and rammed it in his bag together with a selection of supermarket crisps, Coke, a pie and some chocolate for his lunch.
Don’t be mad at me, Mum. I need the energy!
Then he made himself some toast and a drink.
Should he wake Gran before he left? Would she worry if he wasn’t here? Would she remember he’d gone to school?
And what about the Verity girl? She said she’d be back this morning, but how did he know she was telling the truth? And what did he really know about her, anyway? Nothing! Was he completely off his head letting her come to the house while he was out? He didn’t even have her number to phone her.
He started chewing his nails. What if she was a teenage burglar or a serial granny-molester!
He checked his watch. Time to go.
Should he wake Gran or leave her be? Perhaps he should ask Irene to call in. No, that would finish Gran off!
He picked up his school bag and made for the door.
I’ll call in at the house at the end, see if weirdo Verity’s there. If she’s not, I’ll just have to skip school.
He opened the front door quietly and went outside.
He stood there for a moment staring at the flower beds they’d weeded the day before. It was beginning to look more like a front garden. The sun was warm on his back and he yawned and stretched.
‘Not a bad job, eh?’
He looked up and saw Verity leaning over the front gate.
‘Where did you spring from?’
Her T-shirt was so bright, it hurt his eyes. It was white with huge lettering in acid green: ‘SAVE THE PLANET’.
Perhaps the next one will say, ‘Save the Galaxy’.
Suddenly he knew it was OK. His shoulders relaxed and he smiled at her. He didn’t know why he trusted this weird girl, but he did. When she was there, in front of him, he knew it would be OK – that Gran would be happy with her. It was just when he thought about her, about how little he knew about her – that’s when he panicked.
‘You sure you’re OK to stay with Gran?’ he asked.
She nodded, and smiled at him. ‘Sure I’m sure. Go on. Go off to school. Me and your gran, we’ve got lots to talk about.’
Jake frowned. ‘Look, put my number on your mobile. Then you can phone me if there’s a problem.’
‘I haven’t got a mobile,’ said Verity.
‘What?’
No mobile! That’s weirder than ponies and badgers!
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘there won’t be any problems.’
That’s what I keep saying to Mum and Dad.
Jake turned back and opened the front door for her. He gestured vaguely. ‘There’s a spare set of house keys in the kitchen. On the hook behind the door.’
She nodded.
He hesitated. ‘Will you be here when I get back?’
“Yep, I’ll be here.’
Still he didn’t move. He frowned and fiddled with the strap of his school bag. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Doing what?’
‘Looking after Gran. Doing the cleaning and the gardening and stuff.’
‘I told you. I really like her. And I’ve got the time.’
‘But I don’t understand. What’s in it for you? Why do you want to be with her? She’s all over the place and she can’t remember who people are. She even forgets who I am, for God’s sake.’
Verity had been making her way up the passage. Now she stopped and looked back at him.
‘She doesn’t forget who I am,’ she said softly.
Jake shrugged and turned away, but as he walked down the path to the gate, her words stayed with him. She doesn’t forget who I am.
Why? Why does she remember who Verity is, when sometimes she can’t even remember my name – or Dad’s?
***
When Jake got off the school bus that afternoon, he walked past the park and stopped outside the big red-brick house. The ‘For Sale’ sign was stil there and the front gate still swung from its hinges.
This time, he didn’t even try to resist the strong pull the place exerted over him. Even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t have stopped himself; his feet took him through the gate. He looked round nervously but there was no one about. No one to see him slip into the garden.
Verity will still be with Gran. And if she’s not – if she’s here – I’ll pretend I’ve come to thank her. I’ll make up some excuse.
He walked quickly up the overgrown path, crushing tangled weeds under his feet. It was a warm day and he could sense the growth happening around him, the weeds thrusting upwards and the few remaining flowers fighting through them for their share of the sunlight.
Why doesn’t Verity weed her own garden, if she’s that bothered about flowers and stuff? It’s even worse than ours.
He knew he shouldn’t be there, but he didn’t care. Something in his head was telling him to see for himself, to explore the place. He’d passed the house a thousand times and never thought twice about it, but now – now it was beckoning him, drawing him towards it. And anyway, what was the harm? No one had seen him come in, nobody would know he was there. Quickly he moved round to the back of the house.
An old man had lived here for years before Verity came; he’d lived on his own and people used to come and look after him and do the house and garden, but no one ever saw him. Then a few months ago, he’d died.
Jake should have been feeling guilty, scared of being discovered, but he didn’t feel guilty – just curious, sucked into the drowsy atmosphere of the place with its sounds deadened by the rampant growth all around. When he reached the back wall, he flattened himself against it and stood there for a while, looking about him. The wall was in the shade but the bricks felt warm, as if they had retained some of the morning sun.
Jake listened for the sound of voices or footsteps but he could hear nothing except birdsong and, further away, shouts and laughter coming from some children playing in the park. He smiled. They were probably his mates.
He put his backpack on the ground.
There was a huge garden at the back of the house – by far the biggest garden in the street – and Jake could see what had once been flower beds and beyond them, an orchard full of fruit trees in a fenced-off area that backed onto the park.
He walked towards the orchard. He felt no sense of urgency; the place itself had made him slow down, made him relax and he could feel the tensions of the day drain away as he went further in.
There was a gate in the orchard fence and it had recently been mended; he could tell by the new wood and shiny latch. He frowned. It seemed odd that this gate should be secure and yet the front gate was falling down. Who had mended it? Verity? And as he looked more carefully at the fencing, he saw that it, too, had recently been repaired, with strands of new wire pulled taut and hammered to the fence posts.
He opened the gate into the orchard, then closed it carefully behind him, and went and sat against one of the trees and stared up at the sky.
The trees were old and gnarled, their branches growing into one another. Some were still heavy with blossom and Jake watched as it drifted away and floated lazily through the air whenever there was the slightest breath of wind. He followed the blossom as it swirled down and down and came to rest on the ground.
It was peaceful here and he didn’t want to go home. He wanted to forget everything and drift away for a while, like the blossom, and have time to think, to sort out his head.
School had been horrible. He was finding it hard to concentrate in class, hard to connect with his friends. In the English lesson, his teacher had handed out corrected homework to everyone else but she had asked him to stay behind for a chat.
‘Jake, is something wrong?’
He’d looked at his feet. ‘No. I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure? You don’t seem yourself.’ Then she gave him back his homework.
‘And this isn’t like you. So many careless mistakes.’
Jake shrugg
ed. Normally, he would have felt bad. He liked the English teacher. But now he couldn’t be bothered to make excuses. It didn’t seem important.
And his friends were beginning to get fed up with him.
‘Come and play footie,’ they’d urged.
But today he’d not been able to summon up the enthusiasm he usually felt, and when he’d shaken his head and put his hands in his pockets, they’d drifted off, muttering.
Only Tom understood. ‘Come on, mate,’ he’d said, ‘you’ll feel better if you have a kick-around.’
But Jake refused. ‘Sorry. Don’t feel like it.’
They didn’t speak for a while, then Tom dug in his pocket.
‘Want a muesli bar?’
Jake managed a weak smile. ‘It’s OK, mate, I’m making my own lunch now,’ he said, brandishing a bar of chocolate. ‘You keep your muesli bar.’
And suddenly he’d had to turn away, get control of himself as he thought of Gran’s weird sandwiches. Suddenly he longed for one of her horrible mixtures.
How can everything change so quickly? Only a month ago I was happy at school, with lots of good mates, happy at home with Gran.
He sighed, then stretched out full length under a tree, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. After a while he drifted off to sleep, but his dreams weren’t peaceful; they were muddled scenes featuring Gran, then Mum and Dad, school and even weirdo Verity.
Suddenly he was jerked awake. Someone – something – was breathing very close to him. He could feel the moist warmth on his face. His eyes snapped open and he found himself only inches away from a large furry nose.
Just for a moment he thought he was still dreaming. What was this place? And what was this THING?
He kept quite still until everything came into focus.
In front of him, sniffing him curiously, stood a small, stocky pony, its lips curled back and its tongue extended as if about to lick him.
Jake smiled. He relaxed, stretched out a hand and stroked the pony’s nose. Slowly, so as not to frighten it, he got to his feet. The pony snorted and backed away.
‘It’s OK, I won’t hurt you.’
The pony stood looking at him, snorted again, then dropped its head and began to crop the grass. It had a gleaming black coat and a silky mane. Someone must be looking after it. Looking around, Jake noticed a full bucket of water standing inside a rough lean-to shelter in the corner by the fence. He yawned and stretched, then walked over to the shelter. He had to bend his head to go inside.
He frowned. Surely this was new? Some rough pieces of corrugated iron had been hammered to a framework of wooden struts, making two sides, a back and a sloping roof. The nails were new and shiny. The lean-to was small, but then, so was the pony; it was big enough to give shelter from rain or sun.
Someone cared. Verity? Could she have done all this?
Jake glanced round the lean-to and noticed a large plastic box wedged between the roof and one of the struts. He took it down and rummaged inside it. Brushes, some bandages, a metal hook thing and a tin of oil were neatly arranged inside.
Thoughtfully, he put the box back and stood looking out from the shelter. The pony raised its head briefly and Jake noticed that one of its legs was bandaged. The bandage was clean. It must have been put on recently.
So Verity was telling the truth. She really does have a pony!
Jake walked over to the pony and stroked its warm neck. It stopped eating for a moment and nudged at his pocket. Jake smiled. ‘Sorry, mate. Nothing in there for you.’
He held the pony’s forelock to one side and rubbed the top of its head. Gradually the warmth of the creature made him feel better. He patted it, stood up straight and took a deep breath.
No good putting it off any longer – better get back home.
‘I’ll come and see you again,’ he said. Then he turned and went out of the orchard.
He picked up his school backpack and started back down the path, then hesitated. Maybe he’d just have a quick look through the windows, see if he could see any sign that Verity really was living there.
He retraced his steps and went round to the back door.
Better make sure no one’s in before I start snooping.
The back door had once been painted white, but it was grimy and blistered now and there was no bell or knocker, so he banged on it with his fist. No one answered.
He waited a few more minutes and banged again. Still no answer.
On either side of the door there were windows, but they were too high up for Jake to see through. He looked around for something to climb up on and spotted a rickety wooden table standing on some slabs of concrete which might once have been a patio but was now overgrown with weeds. He shrugged his backpack off his shoulders and started pulling at the table. At first it wouldn’t budge, but as he went on heaving, there was a tearing noise and the ivy tendrils growing up its legs suddenly came away.
It was heavy, and Jake’s arms were aching badly by the time he had dragged it across the grass to the house. But at last he had it in place underneath one of the windows and he climbed up onto it, carefully avoiding the rotting wood at its centre.
The window was streaked with dirt and it was hard to see through the glass. Jake cupped his hands round his eyes to shut out the light and gradually, as his eyes adjusted to the gloom inside, he could dimly make out some shapes.
He frowned – and stared. He’d been expecting to see a table, some chairs, or perhaps a fridge, a cooker or a washing machine – but there was nothing, no furniture at all. The room was completely bare.
But there was something covering the floor – straw!
Why? Why would there be straw on the floor?
Jake knelt down on the table and rubbed at the glass. At first he could see nothing, but then he noticed a movement in the straw. He swallowed nervously. There was something there! It was alive and it was moving!
Hardly daring to breathe, he kept staring, his heart beating fast against his ribcage. Whatever it was moved again, and as the straw fell away from its back Jake could see it clearly. A big striped snout, black ears tipped with white and a grey back.
He’d never seen one before but he knew what it was – a badger! A wild animal, shut inside a house! Why wasn’t it trying to get out, crashing against the door, frantic with fear?
And how the hell had it got there? Who had put it there? How would you get a big heavy animal like that inside a house?
The badger raised its snout and sniffed the air, rolled and settled down again. And as it moved, Jake noticed that one of its legs was in a splint.
A pony with a bandaged leg. A badger with a splint. What is this? An animal hospital?
Suddenly there was another movement inside the room, right in front of the window. Jake instinctively jerked back and nearly lost his balance as his foot went right through the rotting planks in the table. He gasped, as a big black crow flew up and landed on the windowsill. It stared at him through the glass with one expressionless eye. The other eye was milky and sightless.
A one-eyed crow. Poor thing! Surely it must want to be outside.
But there was nothing panicky about the bird. It continued to sit on the windowsill and stare at Jake, then lifted one wing and started to groom itself with its beak.
Jake scrambled down off the table and pulled it back to where it had been before. He tried to stick some of the ivy back on the table legs, but that didn’t work. There were telltale drag marks across the grass, too; it was obvious that the table had been moved and that someone had stood on it. When Verity came back, she’d know that someone had been here spying on her.
Too bad!
Jake picked up his school bag and walked thoughtfully down the path and out of the front gate. He wasn’t looking as he turned into the road, and he collided with a man jogging past.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.
This place. These animals. This feeling of peace. It’s weird. It’s like being in another world.
&n
bsp; He walked slowly up the street towards his own house. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t even bother looking out for Irene. But Irene wasn’t there this afternoon. Her front garden was deserted.
He went in through the gate and up the path to his front door, fishing in his pocket for the key. As he turned it and went inside he called out, ‘Hi. I’m back.’
There was no one in the house, but he wasn’t scared now.
Why wasn’t he scared? He tried to figure it out. No sign of Gran in the house. A few days ago he would have been frantic, worried about where she was, what she was doing, whether she’d left something burning on the stove. But he knew it would be OK now. He knew Gran was OK when Verity was with her and that Verity wouldn’t leave her alone.
Why did he trust Verity? And why did he feel so calm when she was here? The old house, too, had worked some sort of charm on him. A sense of time suspended, of nothing mattering, of peace.
He put his bag down in the hall and stood still, listening. He could hear them now. They were in the garden out the back. He could hear murmuring and then Gran’s laughter.
He smiled, and walked quietly to the back door, standing there for a moment, watching them. Verity saw him and waved but, at first, the others didn’t notice him.
The others. Gran . . . and Kenny! What is Kenny doing here?
They were both laughing, Gran leaning on a rake and Kenny with his big moon face tipped back and his whole awkward body shaking.
Verity swotted a fly away from her face. ‘Well, Jake, what do you think?’
There was something in her voice that made him look down at the ground, ashamed. He knew that she wasn’t just talking about the clearing up they’d been doing in the garden.
How does she know? How does she know I’ve been to her house? Like the way she had known when he needed help with Gran – when she had just turned up.
But he pretended she was talking about the garden.
‘Yeah. You’ve done a great job.’
Gran saw him. ‘Hello, darling,’ she called. ‘Look what we’re doing.’ Her hair was wild and she stabbed the rake down on the lawn and dragged it towards her, then let it drop.
Loose Connections Page 6
