by Chloe Mayer
‘Ah,’ Dawson said. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yes. Isn’t that right, Mother?’
Annabel frowned. Maybe Reggie had been right and he really was a little old for fairy stories.
The sun had finally triumphed over the puffy clouds and its golden light wound its way around the fruitless apple trees. It was pleasant to walk under the branches and enjoy the dappled spots of afternoon sun that fell on their shoulders.
Daniel scuttled off deeper into the orchard where she could see him running his hands along the trees as he wove around the trunks. He seemed to be muttering something to himself, but Annabel was too far away to hear what he was saying.
After a while, they could hear the sound of metal repeatedly striking wood.
‘Come back!’ she called to the boy.
Presently, they came into a small clearing where a man stood leaning against the wooden stem of his axe. He was panting with exertion and his sweat glistened in the sun. Despite the coolness of the day, and the muddy puddles glinting at his feet, he was naked to the waist. His shirt lay draped over a tree stump nearby. He seemed startled as they entered the clearing and looked as though he might start frantically chopping again, lest his boss think he was being lazy. But he must have thought better of it, deciding the piles of wood spoke for themselves.
‘Johannes – your first customers,’ declared the farmer by way of greeting.
The German smiled and nodded. He was the one she’d seen looking about him when the first PoWs were escorted into Bambury.
Annabel could tell the man had been blond as a boy, but in adulthood his hair was now a duskier shade that would probably lighten and darken with the seasons. She couldn’t tell what colour his eyes were, because the sun was behind her and he was squinting against the glare. He raised a hand to his forehead to shield his face and said, ‘How much do you need?’
His accent, while clipped like the mocking Nazi impersonators she had heard on the wireless, had a gentle sing-song lilt to it that gave it a kind of lyrical quality. He hadn’t faltered on the words and had spoken quickly and naturally.
She was about to speak to an actual German soldier and even though he was probably not very much older than her, and looked friendly, she swallowed a knot of fear that had risen up in her throat.
She glanced at Mr Dawson, hoping for some kind of assurance, then gestured to her trolley, the tartan material now splattered with dirt from the walk through the orchard.
‘I … have this,’ she said unnecessarily, since he was already striding forward to take it from her.
She watched his back retreat as he headed past her to a pile of wood further down the way she’d come, and tried to study his appearance some more. But he was already bent over filling up her trolley, and the sun blazed behind him turning him into a sharp silhouette.
6
The young king often went out hunting, for it was a delight to him.
From The Two Brothers
On the farm, it was marvellous when I saw the old farmer was missing a finger. I couldn’t stop staring at it. But then, I was excited anyway just to be there; I was hoping to see some animals – cows, pigs, horses. But the only thing I saw was a fat old tabby cat. I wished I had a cat of my own to look after.
Mother was disappointed the farmer wouldn’t fetch the wood for her. She liked other people to do things for her. That’s why it would be so good if I could get rid of the Troll; she’d be so happy when I told her I’d saved her. Why, she’d be overjoyed with me. I tried not to think about the upsetting words I’d read – and then re-read and re-read – in one of Daddy’s letters in the bureau.
It had been raining, so it was a bit muddy as I followed her following the farmer on the walk to the orchard. I think that annoyed her too. She was wearing a pretty blue dress with white flowers and a white cardigan and her brown hair was curled. I’d seen the farmer notice how pretty she was when we first arrived. Then he strode off through the puddles as though he didn’t know they were there. I was desperate to follow in his path – to jump so I was in his footsteps – and splash through the water. That would have been fun, but I knew better than to try.
‘The lad should be over in the far corner chopping,’ Farmer Dawson said.
And suddenly it all clicked into place, making me gasp. ‘A real live woodchopper! I’ve never met a real woodsman before!’
It hadn’t occurred to me that firewood was made by a wood-chopper. Surely there were machines that did that – but I supposed the war meant there was no spare petrol to run them. The war was why we needed firewood in the first place; we usually used coal.
Woodchoppers were always special and important people in the stories. I thought of the kind axe-man who spared Snow White’s life and the heroic woodcutter who saved Little Red Riding Hood by slaying the wolf who’d just eaten her. He slit open the beast’s stomach so she could climb out, and then he filled the cavity with stones and stitched it up. The stories sometimes skipped over that part, but I could imagine waiting in the stomach wondering if I’d be rescued. It would be dark and cramped. And then surely there’d be such a gory mess after the wolf was cut open. Marvellous.
I could tell Mother was frightened because the man we were about to meet was a German soldier. But despite all I’d heard on the wireless, and at school from Mr Finlay, and from Daddy’s letters about fighting them, I wasn’t scared at all because the German was also a woodchopper so he couldn’t really be a baddie. I told the farmer about the father in Hansel and Gretel.
Although I was impatient to get further into the orchard to find the woodsman, I ran away from the adults into the trees so I could prepare. Taking my cardigan off, I wrapped it around my shoulders to turn it into a cloak and my sensible, brown lace-up shoes transformed into a pair of knee-high leather boots. I was in the forest, when witches and monsters and fairies and talking animals still roamed the earth. As I looked around, I saw the puny, dead apple trees soar towards the sky; they were growing into great, ancient oaks.
I ran my hands along the mystical bark of the trees and watched my fingers following the ridges of the rough wood. These trees knew what had been here before. Branches entwined far above my head acted as a giant sieve and strained the sunbeams through the leaves. Specks of dust danced in the strands of light; they glistened like stars swirling in the Milky Way.
This was a magical place. In the distance – I somehow knew – there was a village nestled in the valley. Little two-room stone cottages, with smoke cheerfully puffing from the chimneys. Horse-drawn carts would be rattling down cobblestone streets and children and barking dogs would scurry out of the way of the hooves. Merchants would be selling their wares, cobblers would be making their shoes, and the womenfolk would be setting pies on the windowsills to cool.
But here, in the ancient forest, it was quiet and still. I fancied I could glimpse a few wooden cabins, spread through the trees, and I knew that hunters or woodsmen lived there.
‘Come back!’
The voice was faint; it was coming from very, very far away.
I turned to look over my shoulder. It felt hard to see out through this world I had just created, but I could make out two figures. As though a mist were clearing, I could gradually see the forms take shape. It was my mother and old Farmer Dawson.
I hesitated, reluctant to leave the magic place, which somehow seemed more real, but I ran to join them. Still, I couldn’t help looking back. My ancient, magical forest was disappearing now, and I could see more and more of the average English orchard returning as my daydream trickled away. I looked at the sunbeams, hoping to see the constellations inside them, but there was nothing there except dust in the air. A cloud passed over the sun and, in an instant, that effect was gone too. Just the orchard. Just the air. I was back.
But it was then that I heard the sound of an axe hitting wood.
And it was like a miracle. Because I could suddenly feel some of the magic world coming back. In the corners of my eyes, the colou
rs of the ancient forest were blurring back into being. The woodchopper! He was just up ahead, I could tell, and I knew it was going to be special.
I could hear the noise the newly split wood made as it bounced to the ground. Then there was silence, although the air hummed with birdsong and insects.
As we walked into the glade, I saw he was bare-chested. His axe was upside down. The blade, which winked in the sunlight, was on the ground but he was still holding on to its long wooden handle. He was bending over it to stretch out his back.
He stood up straight then, and he was everything I knew he would be. He was tall and handsome, brave and noble. His fair hair was not Brylcreemed into place with a neat side parting like a normal man; it was loose about his face.
The woodcutter took in my mother and me, and smiled when the farmer announced us to be his first customers. He asked my mother a question, and that was when I heard his voice for the first time. He sounded exactly like a woodchopper. His voice was low with an accent that immediately placed him back in the magic world I had just left.
It was like I’d been struck dumb and my instinct was to hide myself, so I slipped behind my mother. But then I relaxed, stepped out and slowly made my way to the woodcutter so that I could watch him hurl blocks of wood into the trolley.
His blue eyes flicked up at me and he flashed me a grin as he worked.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hello.’
And I watched him in silence as he finished filling the trolley. A real woodchopper! Just like I’d imagined, but he was real.
I wanted to stay and watch him for longer but, when the trolley was full, Farmer Dawson led Mother and me over to a gap in the fence where we could walk through straight into the forest. He told us to walk a little way in and we’d find a path that would lead us out of the woods and on to the road that led to our cottage.
We’d stopped going to church a long time ago, so the next day I was completely free to spend a lot of time thinking. And I climbed the tree in the back garden so I could think about danger. Trolls were bad. And Germans were bad – but the woodchopper was a German and he was obviously good. It was confusing.
But by that night, as I lay in bed after my mother had read me my story, I thought I had come to an understanding of what was going on.
I was in the middle of a secret battle with the Troll and my daddy was battling against the Nazis – and the Fascists, who Mr Finlay said were finally on the run at least. There was danger all around.
The Troll would be prowling at night looking for children to gobble up, even right at that moment while I was tucked up in bed.
I knew my mother, meanwhile, was afraid of the Germans, and for all I knew was wide awake at this very minute – terrified, thinking about them all coming to live in Bambury. And even though the woodchopper we met earlier wasn’t a baddie, she probably couldn’t tell the difference like I could. There were good Germans, like the woodchopper, and bad Germans, like the Nazi soldiers.
But there were real Nazis sleeping not far from our house and that was a fact.
I wondered if I should find out where all the Jerries were living and watch them like I was watching the Troll. But then, I didn’t want to divide my resources, because my resources mainly consisted of me. So I decided it was better to focus on the danger that all the other people had missed. All the adults were so obsessed with the Germans it actually got quite boring sometimes, but I bet none of them had even the foggiest idea that there was a dangerous Troll stalking the village. I tried to come up with some plans for how I could drive it out.
It was hard to sleep while I thought about how to make the Troll go away and I was awake for such a long time that I realised my room was getting lighter as the sun came up and pushed through the tiny cracks around the blackout blind. I fell asleep eventually to the sound of the dawn chorus in the front garden outside my window and dreamed dreams of me keeping her safe (and her realising it).
I was sleepy later that day at school. Maybe that was why I didn’t have my wits about me.
Mr Finlay had been telling the class about how important it was to read regularly.
‘You should all be reading at home,’ he said. ‘Reading not only provides you with a new way of seeing the world, boys, but it’s the best way to improve your grammar and punctuation.’
He then began to question each boy about how often they read, whether they read real books or only comics and things like that.
Unfortunately, he started with the row of desks lining the left-hand side of the classroom. It was unfortunate because that was where I sat. He began with Donald Platt, who was the furthest back, in the corner, and who sat directly behind me.
‘Now, Platt,’ Mr Finlay began, ‘what are your reading habits?’
Like the rest of the boys, I turned around to watch him answer. Donald squirmed in his seat and looked as though he might break his pencil into two pieces he was fiddling with it so much.
‘Dunno, sir.’
He looked miserable.
‘Come now, Platt, you must read sometimes!’
Donald just shook his head. I didn’t know much about him; he was a new boy evacuated from London during the Blitz and was still here almost four years later. In other schools, perhaps, that length of time would make you not a ‘new boy’ any more, but not here.
‘Well, what sort of books do your parents enjoy reading then? What books do you have at home?’
‘Ain’t got no books!’ It was hard to tell if he was angry or ashamed, but I gasped a bit and I wasn’t the only one – because he’d just raised his voice to a master.
‘Platt,’ Mr Finlay bellowed, ‘you mean to say that you haven’t any books! Which is almost impossible to believe. Equally impossible to digest is the tone of voice with which you’ve just addressed me! Now, you come with me; we’re going straight to Mr Beecham’s office and we’ll see just what he has to say about this!’
Mr Finlay stamped down the row and clamped a fist to Donald’s shoulder then propelled him from the room. As soon as the master was out of earshot, the others began laughing.
‘I knew he was poor, but I didn’t know he was that poor!’
‘I ain’t got no books,’ William McCarthy said in a warbling, high-pitched voice. The others laughed louder, and he stood up, clutched his breast, and pretended to cry. ‘I ain’t got no books … at all!’
I laughed along too. Partly because the best thing to do is always fit in with whatever everybody else is doing. And partly because I was quite often their target myself, and any opportunity to be on the other side was definitely well worth taking. But mostly because William McCarthy’s impersonations were always spot-on and he really was doing a great job of taking on poor Donald.
McCarthy was sobbing now, while some of the others, giggling, patted him on the back to console him. ‘I wish I had just one book!’ he wailed. ‘But my parents’ – he had actually made himself laugh now – ‘ain’t capable of reading!’
His friends roared at this and he sat back down. He was a new boy too, but despite that – even though it was never quite forgotten – his sense of humour made him one of the popular boys.
I thought of the torture Donald would suffer for weeks now. I could imagine the boys dangling a book in front of his face and asking if he knew what it was. (‘Ain’t you never seen one before?’)
‘That was smashing, McCarthy!’ Martin Moore told him as the other boys returned to their seats too. His excited face was flushed as red as his hair. ‘It was almost like Platt was back in the room!’
William seemed happy with his performance too and he accepted the praise with beaming eyes.
I mustn’t let those eyes fall on me, I thought.
The door swung open as Mr Finlay entered and everyone quickly turned to face the front as some of the boys cleared their throats to shake out the last of their laughter. The teacher took up his favourite position, leaning backwards against the large wooden desk that faced the room, and con
tinued with the lesson as though nothing had happened.
‘Your turn, Mr Patterson,’ he said to me.
‘Oh …’ I said. ‘I love reading.’
He nodded for me to go on.
‘And my mother and father both love reading too. We have lots of books on our shelves at home. In fact, my mother reads me a fairy tale every night before bed.’
I was so pleased I could tell everyone about it without looking like I was bragging. I sat back in my chair, happy with what I’d said. I’d been careful not to make any of Donald’s mistakes.
But then I saw the smirks, the rolling eyes. I heard the stifled giggles. I had somehow got it wrong, and I felt a horrible roiling in my stomach and a prickly tingling on my scalp as I thought of what might happen to me at playtime.
When morning lessons were over, I tried to hide in the cloakroom but Mr Finlay poked his head around the door to check for stragglers and shooed me outside. If Donald had come out first I’d have been all right, but he must have still been waiting for Mr Beecham to cane him because I was surrounded almost instantly.
McCarthy and Matthew Lyme twisted my arms behind my back as the others, including a giggling Martin Moore, helped bundle me towards the outhouse at the back of the playground. And they were telling me that I was an odd-bod, that I thought I was cleverer than everyone else, and that I was a sissy. They were telling me that I was stupid for liking stories, and that I was a baby because my mother still read to me. Dozens of hands pushed me inside the little building and then they all leaned against the door so I couldn’t get out.
I heard them trying to decide whether to actually hold me upside down and dangle my head into the toilet, but they couldn’t seem to agree so decided to leave that for another day when they were more in the mood. But they all agreed to keep me locked in the outhouse until I’d learned my lesson and any boys who wanted to go to the toilet would just have to go in the bushes. They could take it up with me if they had any problems with that.
I didn’t want to be outside in the playground with them but I panicked as the darkness and the walls pushed down on me. It felt like I was back in the tunnel and I knew the Troll was in the air around me and could use evil magic to rear up behind me in the dark. I began scrabbling at the door.
