by Chloe Mayer
I wondered whether to follow her in secret: that was quite fun. But decided—
‘Can I come?’
‘May I come, please?’ she corrected me.
‘May I come, please?’
She turned to look at me for the first time. I stood up straight. I always liked going out with her, and it would be a perfect way to meet the woodcutter again.
‘Are you ready to leave?’
‘Yes. I just have to put my shoes on.’
She gave a slight nod that meant I was allowed to do just that.
When we were in the village, I trailed behind her as she used her ration book to shop. We’d run out of tea a few days ago and had been using and re-using a tiny amount of tea leaves. I was happy to see that while she was here she was stocking up. We didn’t have much food at home. Mother never seemed to worry too much about that. She didn’t eat much, but picked at whatever food there was when she was hungry. Her bottle of gin was getting lower and lower though, and I wasn’t sure what she’d do when that had gone.
But if there was nothing to eat, Mother didn’t seem to mind going without. I’d heard her remark to my grandparents once that I had an abnormally large appetite, and it must be true because I was often quite hungry. We were eating dinner with them at their house at the time – it must have been last summer – and Grandad had laughed as I gobbled up the lamb chops and told her that it was because I was a growing boy. But I felt ashamed because, just a couple of days earlier, I’d eaten a hard piece of cheese – more rind than anything else – that I found on the floor at the back of the larder. And I often filched pears or plums from trees in people’s front gardens. I felt my face flush as I thought Mother was probably right and I wasn’t normal. My tummy rumbled now as I thought of Grandma’s dinners and I offered to hold the ration book as Mother did the shopping – pointing out our allowances for meat and butter as we worked our way along the High Street.
I was excited at the thought of seeing the woodchopper again. I’d secretly followed Mother and watched her as she gradually became friends with him, but it would only be the second time I’d actually met him myself. She kept telling him she needed more wood, although I knew we had mounds and mounds in the coal cellar now.
The visit was good, although I didn’t learn much more about him. He and Mother chatted about boring things like what she had heard politicians saying about the war on the wireless. Although I didn’t speak to the woodcutter myself, at one point he winked at me as I watched him work. That made me think it’d be fun to come back and talk to him by myself one day, without Mother.
After he’d loaded the wood into our trolley, Mother told him she was going back to the farm to settle up with Farmer Dawson. But he wasn’t at the farmhouse when we knocked, and she said she didn’t want to traipse around trying to find him while she was dragging the trolley, so we turned back to the orchard. I was glad we’d get to see the woodchopper again for the second time that day.
As we walked back through the apple trees I saw two old women further up, some way ahead of us. They must have come from the road, and were making their own way to the glade to buy some wood.
‘Look, Mother,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ she muttered, and stopped. ‘It’s the Bishop sisters.’
She seemed to hesitate, and looked around. ‘Let’s not walk all the way back into the orchard; there must be another way to get into the woods from here.’
I followed her to the fence that marked the farm’s border with the forest, but it was unbroken here and there wasn’t a gate. Mother seemed annoyed, and tutted, but then pulled up her skirt and climbed over it like a tomboy, which made me laugh.
‘You’ll have to lift up the trolley from your side to help me,’ she said.
It was heavy with wood and I struggled to push it up as she pulled it over the fence. Once she’d heaved it onto the ground she said, ‘All right, come along then, hurry up.’
I clambered over the fence. ‘Why are we going home this way?’
‘Please stop pestering me with questions!’
But I didn’t mind taking this way home. I almost wanted to giggle – what a funny adventure we were going on together.
Now we were in the forest, Mother set off at a brisk march and I hurried to follow her. I realised we were cutting across the woods so we’d find the path that would lead us home further down – away from the woodchopper’s clearing. She seemed to be struggling as she pulled the trolley along the forest floor. Leaves and small twigs kept jamming the wheels. She had to drag it behind her after they stopped turning altogether. She got redder and redder in the face and looked more and more annoyed, but I was enjoying our adventure.
I was still trying to hide my wide smile when my mother suddenly let out what was almost a yelp. She stopped short and I almost went straight into the back of the trolley. I looked around to see what she was staring at, and was struck dumb when I saw the Troll looming up about ten feet ahead, blocking our way.
I was too frightened even to scream. But the terror had me in its tight, sweaty grip. I felt as though I might be physically sick, just vomit right there on the forest floor, and I began to tremble.
Mother’s voice, when she spoke to it, sounded strangely high-pitched so I knew she was frightened too. But to my amazement she greeted it politely.
‘Er, hello there,’ she said.
I remembered dully how sure I’d been that I would be able to protect her against danger. But danger was here, in this forest, standing right in front of us, and I realised that I was just a child. A little boy. I was helpless against it. And worse, so was she.
I began to really shake. How could she protect me from the Troll? She wasn’t brave at all.
I wished Daddy was there.
Then I thought of the strong woodchopper with his axe that had glinted in the sun. Him, I thought, let it be him. Please let him come to save us.
The Troll slowly turned its eyes upon me. It opened its revolting hairy mouth and a tongue slithered out. It looked at me and licked its lips like it was hungry.
To my left, I saw the monster had lit a fire. It was burning just for me.
I knew it as surely as I knew my own name that there was a huge cast-iron pot somewhere nearby. It had made its spells in that pot and now I knew it wanted to boil me up, eat me and chew on my bones.
I saw other things too. I saw that it had set up a new nest in the woods and strung a sheet across its lair to protect it from the rain. There was broken-down furniture it had found or stolen. It had made itself comfortable. It had been biding its time, patiently waiting for me to arrive.
How did it know I would be coming by here? I hadn’t even known myself. It had evil powers, I realised, and could see the future. That must be why it had stolen scraps from our street – to cast a spell that would bring Mother and me to its lair.
It was holding something in one of its great fists. Something round and shiny, that almost looked like a can of food but was more likely some kind of weapon. A cutting, eating tool.
I felt a flash of heat in my underpants, and realised I’d wet myself slightly before I clamped down to stop the flow. The warmth spread and then cooled so that the wet was cold against my skin.
But my mother was still shrilly chattering to the Troll as if we had just bumped into a neighbour on the High Street. ‘We, er, seem to have got off the path somehow. We’re just on our way home. Excuse us.’
Suddenly, she was off, pulling the trolley behind her so fast it was bouncing up in the air as it hit rocks, despite the weight from the wood inside.
My fear was so total, so all-consuming, that it took me a second to understand that she was leaving.
I can’t walk, I thought. My legs won’t work. I can’t follow her and she’s leaving me here on my own with the monster. That letter! That letter said she didn’t feel a thing for me. Could that be true? God, she’s leaving me. She’s—
Don’t think about it. Focus on the monster.
It was still looking at me with its dead eyes. It hadn’t said a word to my mother. It was like it didn’t even see her. I was the only one it had eyes for. It hadn’t moved, but I knew it was thinking quickly behind that expressionless, hideously hairy face. It was deciding whether to strike.
I realised I was moving. My legs were working after all and I was running to follow my mother as she scuttled like a frightened deer through the forest.
She was going to leave me, I thought. She was going to leave me behind.
She didn’t stop until we found the main path that we could follow back to the village. My lungs felt tight and I couldn’t breathe, and she was panting from the effort of pulling the trolley. We both stopped to rest for moment now we were standing within the safe lines of the path, laid out beautifully clear and man-made before us.
‘He’s a nobody, harmless,’ she said, so quietly it was almost like she was saying it to herself.
Was it a lie to reassure me? She was already pretending what happened hadn’t been important. But she’d been frightened; I could tell.
I tried to nod to make her feel better. She didn’t notice I’d wet myself.
A day or two later, when I could think of the experience without feeling sick, I decided that – if I played by the rules – it would be safe enough for me to go back to the forest. Of course, now I knew the Troll had made a new lair in the woods, I’d have to be careful. But I still wanted to get to know the woodcutter for myself. It was dangerous, but I would simply have to brave the black magic in the forest in order to find the good. I thought as long as I stayed on the path, the monster wouldn’t be able to get me any more than the wolf would have been able to get Little Red Riding Hood if she’d actually followed the sensible advice.
Either way, I kept a careful lookout for signs of the Troll but didn’t see anything and before too long I arrived at the orchard safely. Once there, I straddled the fence, which I turned into a chestnut-coloured mare as soon as I had a leg either side of it. I was in a jousting tournament, so I leaned forward with my eyes narrowed and managed to lance my opponent and race to victory at the other end of the arena. I laughed as I conjured up King Arthur, who nodded at me to signal his approval, and the Lady Guinevere waved her handkerchief in delight. One of the ladies of the court went so far as to blow me a kiss. I saluted to the monarch, then allowed myself to pump my fist in triumph to the roar of the crowd. I would, no doubt, be invited to sit at the Round Table now.
‘Thank you! Thank you so much!’ I called to the rabble. I glanced back to see the nobleman’s aides lift him up from the grass where my joust had pushed him, and help him into the castle. He would be all right; I had bruised his pride and his chest, but the damage went no further than that.
I directed my mount to leave the city walls, and allowed her to carry me where she would. I looked around. Apple trees. But as we rode further into the woods, the fruit trees gradually gave way to oaks and I recognised the magic forest I’d discovered here the other day. I jumped down from my steed.
‘Wait here.’ I patted the side of her neck, which felt as muscled and hard as a plank of wood on a fence.
I wandered deeper into the trees. The mud from a few weeks ago had all dried up and we were in the heat of summer now. I listened for the secret sounds of the forest.
Sure enough, soon I could hear the unmistakable sounds of a woodcutter and I stopped to watch him work. I wrapped myself in a cloak of invisibility and stood behind a tree at the edge of the glade.
‘Does your mother know you’re here?’ He seemed amused to see me.
I stepped out so he could see me better but I just shook my head. Mother probably hadn’t noticed I’d left the house.
‘Are you here to help me cut apple wood?’
I laughed as I eyed his heavy axe. ‘It’s as big as I am!’
He feigned surprise. ‘You can speak!’
I edged closer to the tree to hide my face. I could feel my cheeks turning pink. He shrugged and returned to his work.
I watched him for a few minutes before creeping closer. He grinned at me as he wielded the axe. He was so powerful he had turned a whole tree into nothing more interesting than logs for the fire. He’d worked hard, and most of the apple trees in this part of the orchard were cleared now.
A pale blue cotton shirt with a grey patch sewn on the back was lying across a tree stump, but I thought his grey trousers may have been part of his soldier uniform once. Eventually, he stopped working and sat down with his back against a tree at the edge of the glade. He poured steaming tea into a mug from a flask that looked like one we had at home. He was out of breath.
‘Is your name Hansel?’
‘No.’ He was surprised. ‘Just Hans.’
‘Oh.’
I scuffed at the ground with the toe of my shoe. I let out a sigh and looked around as though I really should be leaving.
‘Hans comes from my name: Johannes. Have you heard of that name?’
I shook my head, but moved a little closer to him.
‘Johannes means John.’
‘John?!’
‘Yes.’
I laughed uncertainly. Surely he was teasing me? A man like him would never be called something so boring and ordinary as John.
‘Hansel just means Little Hans. My grandmother called me that sometimes when I was a little boy. When she was feeling kind.’
I knew it. He was Hansel! ‘Like in Hansel and Gretel! You know that story?’
He smiled and shrugged which meant I wasn’t sure if he was answering yes or no and he leaned his head back against the tree. ‘Sit down,’ he said.
I climbed up on the chopping stump opposite where he sat and crossed my legs. The rough scars from the axe’s blade poked splinters up against my bare shins and through the material of my short trousers. I gazed down at him, just across the way.
‘Why aren’t you away at war?’
‘I’m nine!’
‘Oh! I thought you were much older! Maybe fifteen or sixteen.’ I was delighted.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Daniel.’
‘Dan-sel?’
I laughed. ‘No! Daniel! Daniel!’
‘You have been here twice with your mother to buy the wood, yes?’
‘Yes. That was me.’ I chewed my lip. ‘Please don’t tell her I came. I’d get in trouble.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I promise. Where is your father?’
‘Oh, he’s fighting. He’s very brave. He’s—’
Oh dear.
‘He’s …’
‘It’s all right, Daniel. I understand.’
But suddenly, I realised I didn’t understand. Would my father kill Hansel if he were here right now? I looked at him lying there, the axe casually next to him, and I remembered the tight muscles in his arms that I’d seen that first time, which were even bigger and stronger now. I tried to remember what Daddy looked like. It had been weeks and weeks since I’d seen him. All I could think of was the sound of muffled weeping in the shelter and all I could picture clearly was the photograph in the silver frame in the sitting room. He was standing next to Mother on their wedding day. He was skinny and shy and was wearing a suit with a stiff tie.
Maybe Hansel would win. Maybe Hansel would kill my father.
I found now that I couldn’t even hold the image of the photograph very clearly in my mind. Mostly, when I looked at that picture – careful not to let my fingerprints mark the glass – I looked at Mother. She looked so young. She was laughing at whoever was holding the camera. I would try to match up the two images; the Mother in the photograph (before she had me) and the Mother I shared the house with.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to think about either one of my parents. I jumped down from my perch. Embarrassingly, I felt as though I might cry.
‘Don’t go! There is no need for you to go. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
He was standing up.
I turned away to leave, but some
thing made me hesitate. Something about his apology – so kind, as if I were an adult – made me want to stay. I bent to untie and retie my shoelace for something to do. I blinked a few times and my annoying eyes, although they burned from the effort of holding back tears, seemed to settle down.
I turned my attention to my other shoelace.
‘No, it’s just that Mother is waiting, I have to go.’
‘Ah. Well, if you have chores or …’
‘Well. No. I mean, I do, but … maybe I can stay out a little bit longer.’
‘All is good!’ He stretched and picked up his axe. I moved from the stump and placed a block of wood there for him to chop.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘What is this story you said? About Hansel and Gretel?’
So I told him everything I knew about the story while he worked, and I saw him smile with recognition, and I knew I was telling him the story of his own childhood.
On the way home, I kept a careful lookout for the Troll, but didn’t see it. I thought it had probably moved to the woods permanently now its tunnel-home had been destroyed, but decided I’d better keep a close eye on its burned-out lair by the tracks too. Just in case.
I made my way to the tunnel and watched the entrance for a while before going down. I looked inside and even shouted ‘Troll!’ a couple of times to make sure it wasn’t inside. When I went in I saw at once I was right to be careful – it had gradually been repairing its nest. Everyone knows Trolls love living underneath bridges and now it seemed it was moving back.
That powerful heat I’d felt inside my own body when I burned its lair tempted me, and I wondered whether to destroy this one too. But then I remembered that funny feeling I’d had afterwards, and decided I’d let the Troll think it was safe to return. It’d be easier to keep an eye on it in the tunnel as well, rather than if it was living loose in the forest.
The summer holidays meant I had plenty of time, so I decided to go back to the railway line the next day to watch for it and work out what it was up to.
I had a messy jam sandwich wrapped in paper with me because I thought it’d be fun to have a nice little picnic by myself up on the hill while I waited for the monster to show itself. But when I arrived at my observation post, I was just in time to see the Troll leaving the mouth of the tunnel.
