Anyway, when we’d finished singing and Gibbs from 4b had read the lesson, Mr. Burston announced that the cricket match that was meant to be happening against St. Mark’s School in Chepstow that afternoon was cancelled on account of the storm and there being measles there. Instead, everyone—the whole school—was going to go for a walk in the Forest of Dean. It was great news because cricket is the most boring thing in the world apart from rugby, and even better, our Graves Committee would be able to collect some stuff to make the graves nice, like some moss and smooth stones and twigs from the side of the road as we were walking along.
Doing the graves was going to be a bigger job than we first thought, because when the guardians went to their lockers straight after Assembly, they found that five of the chicks were dead, and another had gone missing. That was the one that Mackenzie was looking after. All of them were being kept in the games lockers downstairs in the changing room, locked up for the night which I think was a bit like keeping them in prison. I didn’t say anything, though, because really I don’t know anything about it. The missing one was found after a few days. There was a hole at the back of Mackenzie’s locker and the poor little thing must have fallen through it to the locker underneath. It was only discovered much later when Lewis was putting on his cricket boot, and there it was, dead inside.
The fourth formers had collected loads of dead insects but when the guardians tried to feed the chicks they just wouldn’t eat them. Just as the bell was going for maths class, I said to Pugh that perhaps they should try and give them some milk on account of them being babies. He called me a cretin for not knowing that birds never ever drink milk. ‘Ever seen a house martin with bosoms, Teasdale?’ he said. I was very cross about it because I think that some birds do drink milk, so during break when everyone was crowding around the lockers in the basement looking at the chicks, I went to the library because I once heard that a captive penguin sometimes has a saucer of milk, but I’m not sure about that now, since I couldn’t find anything about it.
It was a stupid thing for Pugh to say anyway, because creatures that have milk don’t necessarily have bosoms. I should have said to him, ‘Ever seen a squirrel with bosoms?’ That would have shut him up, because squirrels are mammals with no bosoms and certainly do have milk for their babies.
Another chick was dead by the end of break, and then there were only ten left.
I love it when we go for walks in the forest. Sometimes I pretend that I’m lost in it, even though you never truly are because you can always hear other boys shouting in the distance. Lost but not really lost. No one’s ever that far away from you, but I like the feeling of being all alone. I like pretending that I’m not at school, that I live in the forest in a secret hideout that no one knows about.
One of the teachers is usually shouting to us to stay together, but it’s quite easy in the forest not to take any notice for a little while.
Everything looked different that day, though, on account of the storm. There were trees that had been blown over, lying on their sides with their roots forced up into the open air leaving huge black holes in the ground where they’d been standing, like giant graves waiting for the poor sad victims of the storm to be buried. Fresh red mud had been flung about when they’d toppled over, and as far as you could see there were ripped off branches with new green leaves on them that were already wilting a bit in the sunshine. It must have been a dangerous place to be when the storm was on. Imagine if one of those trees or even one of the branches had landed on you!
It was difficult to recognise where you were with whole trees missing, huge branches lying across the paths, and a sea of green on the floor from blown away leaves as though it was some kind of strange early autumn. Instead of the deep dark of the forest and the echoing song of the birds high up in the trees, there were whole patches of bright sunlight and the noise of the chainsaws of the forest workers beginning to clear up.
I don’t think there was a single bird singing that day. If you looked very hard you could see one or two sitting forlornly around in their strange new world looking puzzled and trying to understand all the changes. Perhaps they were thinking about their lost chicks and nests wondering how they would be able to start all over again. They’d become refugees in their very own forest. There was nothing we could do to help them, though. Back at school in the games lockers, half the house martin chicks were dead already. It doesn’t make any difference to nature, because even when we’re trying to help, we can’t.
I felt very sad about what had happened to the forest, but I think I was the only one. All the others were just excited about it, even the teachers. Mr. Tulley was talking loudly to a group of seniors about how the forest would regenerate itself and how the tree trunks would soon be colonised and become the homes of all sorts of creatures for years and years. The first and second formers aren’t allowed to run around in the forest and Miss Carson was trying to keep them all together and losing her temper because they were all getting overexcited. We third and fourth formers are a bit more free and were clambering all over the fallen trees, turning them into rival forts that needed defending.
I’m not interested in games like that, so I started slowly walking away while no one was noticing. That’s the same as I do when we’re playing cricket. I try to get to be deeply fine leg—that’s a fielding position so far away from the batting that sometimes I just start wandering off bit by bit until I’m no longer part of the match. Then I go into the long grass at the far end of the field and lie down to stare at the sky and think about things. No one in the team much notices because it’s no use having me on your side anyway.
I was suddenly quite a long way from everybody, but I could still see some boys in the distance when I turned round for a look. Nick Gower was balancing on top of a massive fallen tree, one hand on his hip and the other clutching a large stick, looking all proud, like a sailor waiting to have his photo taken on top of a huge sperm whale that he’d just harpooned.
Then I walked away and was quite alone, and that always makes me so happy. After a little while I came to a dell that was down a steep slope. It was a place that I didn’t know from when we’d been to the forest before. A magical, secret valley. Quite suddenly, I couldn’t hear the others, even when I strained my ears, and then I thought perhaps I’d been transported back in time, or travelled a thousand miles to a different forest, and I was the only person in the world who knew about it. It was like the storm had never been there because the dell was in a bit of a valley and the wind must have gone straight over and not touched it. All the trees were still standing, and it was a shadowy, still place like the rest of the forest used to be. Right in the middle there was a silent pool with the clearest water and tiny fish that went dashing off to hide when I looked in. There were two squirrels chasing each other about going ‘chic-a-chic-chic,’ and high up above my head, a lonely blackbird was calling out questions to his wife who wasn’t answering. It was as though he had no idea about the terrible storm that had wrecked the rest of the forest.
And then I saw it—a huge black glossy raven. It was resting on top of an old stump of a great big tree that must have been sawn down a long, long time ago, cut perfectly flat and smooth so you could easily have counted the rings to add up how old it was. The bird’s wings were stretched out across the stump, his head to one side and his beak wide open. I moved very slowly towards him because I thought that perhaps he was asleep and would suddenly wake up with a start. When I dared to get up closer, I saw a little bit of black feather moving on top of his head, and I was sure that as soon as he saw me, he’d flap his wings and fly away with fright. But then I saw the blood on his beak and a crimson puddle that had collected under his head. He was dead. It was only the tiniest breeze that was ruffling his feathers.
I tiptoed ever so gently right up to him and bent down to look into his eyes. They were wide open, frightened and glistening, as if he was surprised to be dead. Then I s
aw the smallest round dark red hole in the back of his head and I knew that some cruel person had shot him, probably for no good reason but for the fun of it, and had splayed him out on the tree-trunk to mock him and boast to the forest of his power and his evil. The sight of it made me feel cold and shivery, and I turned to go away. When I looked back at him the little feathers on his head were still moving.
When I got back to where all the others were, Miss Carson was unpacking the hampers for tea, which everyone was very excited about. In fact it was the picnic that was meant for the cricket match, but now we were going to have it in the forest, and that had never happened before. There was orange squash, and jam, marmite and vegetable spread sandwiches. Then there were huge round doughnuts, all sticky with sugar. They’re one of my favourite things, but I just couldn’t eat mine because of the little round hole in it, gooey with red jam, like the hole in the raven’s head.
On the walk back, we started collecting all the stuff for the graves. Miss Carson let us borrow two of the tin trays that the sandwiches had come in. Mr. England was going to take them back to school, but I got a bit worried about getting too close to his car again, so when we’d collected all of the stuff we needed, I let the others in the committee take them to the car, and I just looked on from a distance.
Theo and I had a bit of an argument about what we should be collecting, because he wanted to pick daisies from the side of the road. I knew perfectly well that they would get dried out very quickly and then go all floppy and sad. He was beginning to annoy me a bit going on about it and trying to get his way, especially since it was only because of me that he was on the Graves Committee in the first place.
When we got back to school, there was quite a little time before prep started because we weren’t going to have tea on account of having had the picnic in the forest, so we were able to start doing some of the work on the graves. I’d found some really nice pebbles on the way back and we started to make a little wall in the shape of a heart. We’d collected nearly enough moss to cover three quarters of the space leaving a little corner at the top right hand side for more graves because, actually, we all knew by then that every single one of the chicks was going to die. It was just a matter of time. Theo insisted that he put his daisies right in the middle.
‘I think they look really spastic,’ I said, ‘and they’ll all be dried up by the morning anyway. I’m vetoing them.’ I gathered them up and put them on the other side of the little pebble wall. He went into a big old sulk about it, and I thought how stupid I was to have helped him get onto the committee.
It was looking as though there could easily be an argument about it, but just then I heard crying and then some shouting. Perrington came running over to tell me that Giles Webster had been standing in the wrong place and been hit by a cricket ball that had come out of the practise nets. I ran straight over to him because it is sort of my job to look after him. He was lying flat out on the ground, and when I moved his hand away from the side of his face I could see there was a big bump already coming up. I told Perrington to go and get Matron because after all I’m not a nurse. But I was able to cheer Webster up with a bit of a joke and by telling him that he was actually a rather brave boy and stuff like that. He stopped crying very quickly which means he probably is quite brave because it hurts a heck of a lot if ever you’re hit by a cricket ball. The really peculiar thing is that it was Hapgood who hit the ball with Webster’s own bat! I noticed that when Miss Carson arrived to look after Webster, he hid it under a bit of the net so that there’d be no chance of a discussion about him giving it back.
When I got back to the graves, Theo was standing with his arms folded looking all puffed up.
‘Sorry, T-T-Teasdale. You’re out.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘You’ve been v-voted off the g-h-g-Graves Committee.’
‘But that’s not allowed. I’m the honorary chairman.’
‘Sorry, T-Teasdale. M-M-Mh-Majority decision.’ There was a pretend regretful look on his face, but I could see that he was trying not to smile.
‘You can’t do that. It’s just not fair.’
‘Majority decision, Teasdale,’ he said again, very slowly and deliberately and not stuttering for once. ‘There was a v-vote taken on it and you’re out by a m-mh-m-majority decision, and that’s the end of it, I’m af-f-fraid.’
I looked over to where Morrison was bending down rearranging some of the stones.
‘Morrison,’ I said, ‘what’s going on?’ But he didn’t even look up at me, and Rooke then started helping him so that he wouldn’t have to talk to me either. When I looked at Chirl he just shrugged his shoulders as if to say there was nothing he could do about it. Harvey Junior wasn’t there just then, but I knew there was no point talking to him because he just goes along with everything, and it was quite obvious that Theodorakis had turned them all against me.
He’s a complete scumbag is Theodorakis. He wheedled his way onto the committee on account of my niceness, and then he got rid of me.
I didn’t say anything after that, but I could feel that I was getting angry and upset, and so I decided to walk away quite quickly because I thought I might be about to cry.
I went straight to the library because I thought there’d be no one in there and plonked myself down on the battered old sofa. Then I saw that Fisheye was sitting at the big table, reading one of his books, and I wondered if he’d heard me saying to myself that I didn’t care about the stupid graves anyway, and about how silly were they going to look in a day or two with Theodorakis’s dead dried up old daisies on them.
‘Theo is such a bugger, Fisheye,’ I said to him after I’d sat there silently for a while. He put his finger on the sentence in the book where he was stopping and looked up at me. Then I started to tell him what had happened. Halfway through I remembered that I’d put forward the resolution to kick him off the committee when we were doing the burying, but the thing about Fisheye is that he’s just not the sort of person who stays angry about anything. It’s like he doesn’t even remember. Instead of telling me it served me right he said, ‘He’s a right little Mussolini, that one—a real little dictator.’ Then he looked down at the end of his finger and carried on reading.
‘I quite agree,’ I said and then told myself to look up ‘Mussolini’ in the Dictionary of Biography after we’d finished prep.
Q
The next day, Mr. England never came into Morning Assembly. After the hymn there was a long silence before everyone realised that no one was going to read the lesson, because it’s Mr. England who chooses who is going to do that straight after breakfast, which gives the person a little bit of time to practise and to ask about words that are difficult to pronounce. But Mr. England wasn’t even in breakfast that morning, let alone Assembly, which means that he probably wasn’t here during the night. That’s not so unusual because his dad, who’s a retired teacher, just moved to Monmouth all the way from Kent because his wife died not very long ago, and he wants to be closer to his son. Mr. England sometimes stays over at his dad’s new house now, but it never happens that he’s not here to give someone the lesson to read.
In the silence, Mr. Burston opened the Bible and looked around for someone to hand it to. I tried to pretend I was invisible because although I’m often chosen to read at Morning Assembly, I don’t like to do it and need to have a good look at it first. In the end he gave it to Bryant, a sixth former who never ever reads the lesson, and then the funniest thing happened. There was a bit in the chapter where an old prophet had to saddle his ass. Bryant got it all wrong and said ‘He saddled his arse and rode into Jericho.’ Everyone started to giggle like mad, the Headmaster went very red and cross looking, but even Mrs. Marston was laughing, so he couldn’t say anything about it at all except for ‘Boys, boys—pay attention, please!’ It really was the funniest thing.
Mr. Tulley was quite right about there not
being much hope of saving the chicks. Just before Assembly, the guardians went to check on the lockers, and six more had died in the night. Only four more to go. I think we all knew then that none of them would be alive by Saturday. That meant there were more graves to be got ready, but that was none of my business any longer. By then I didn’t care anymore, although I still was completely not talking to Theo.
Our first class after Assembly on Wednesdays is English, which is just about my favourite, actually. Mr. England never keeps us waiting like Mrs. Marston and the other teachers do. Usually he goes straight back to the staff room after Assembly, picks up his books and comes into class way before the other teachers. Sometimes long after we’ve settled down for our lesson we can hear the racket going on in the other classrooms because they’re all still waiting for the teachers to arrive. Perhaps they’re having a last cigarette and a cup of coffee and a chat before they get going.
But anyway, that day, he didn’t come in. We were still waiting when all the classrooms had gone quiet, and we’d even stopped talking and running around because of the silence everywhere. I started to wonder whether we’d just been all forgotten about, and then just as Macer-Wright, who’s class monitor, was saying that he would go along to the staff room to see what was happening, the door opened, and Mr. Burston came in.
The House Martin Page 12
