Four Kids, Three Cats, Two Cows, One Witch (Maybe)

by Siobhán Parkinson

  ‘It’s at a funny angle,’ Gerard explained, as he thought harder about the house. ‘Yes, that’s it. And it’s well hidden by trees. It wouldn’t be visible from the other direction. All you’d see would be the trees. That’s why I saw it on the way back to the beach, but not on my way back here again. Yes, that explains it.’

  ‘So you’re quite sure it’s not a magic house, then, are you Gerard, one that appears and disappears?’ Elizabeth said, half-sarcastic, half-hoping it really was a magic house and had actually disappeared.

  ‘No, of course it isn’t. It’s a real house, a sort of a biggish cottage, with a slate roof and a chimney.’

  ‘Derelict?’ asked Beverley. ‘Or not?’

  ‘Mmmmmm.’ Gerard was undecided.

  Kevin was looking away across the rocks and ditches among which they sat, as if he didn’t belong to this party of lost children at all.

  ‘A bit overgrown and neglected-looking all right,’ said Gerard. ‘I mean there wasn’t a car outside and somebody dead-heading the roses or anything. No sign of life.’

  ‘Curtains?’ asked Beverley.

  Kevin continued to look away to the horizon.

  ‘N-o-o,’ said Gerard. ‘But it wasn’t exactly falling to bits either. I mean, it looks habitable enough.’

  ‘Right,’ said Beverley, standing up and slapping her hands together in her decisive way. ‘I vote we head for the house. As Gerard says, a house probably means water, and we could all do with a drink. And anyway, we need to get in out of this rain that’s coming. It’s going to be heavy.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Kevin tentatively, feeling uncomfortable with that word. It sounded like a city-word, a Beverley-word, but he couldn’t think of any other way to break into the conversation. ‘Actually, I don’t think we should go to the house.’

  ‘What! Why ever not?’ Beverley sat down again with a plonk on the grass and peered at Kevin.

  Kevin looked away at the horizon again, with his shoulders hunched, and said nothing for a long time.

  ‘Well?’ went on Beverley, who didn’t have much time for moody looks and mysterious shrugs. ‘What have you got against this house, Master Kevin?’

  ‘Well …’ said Kevin, looking around. He caught Elizabeth’s eye and gave her an appealing look. Help me out, his eyes seemed to say, I can’t explain the problem without seeming to be an awful idiot.

  ‘I think,’ said Elizabeth, picking up on Kevin’s plea, ‘I think maybe someone lives there.’

  ‘Oh well, big deal!’ said Beverley. ‘That’s not a reason for keeping away from the house. In fact, it’s all the better if someone lives there. They might give us some lunch. They might have a first aid kit or something. They might be able to telephone to the mainland for us.’

  First aid kit! Telephone! Really, Beverley hadn’t a clue. Kevin tried again: ‘I think maybe we wouldn’t be welcome.’

  ‘Or maybe we’d be too welcome,’ added Elizabeth dramatically, mysteriously.

  ‘Too welcome? Oh Elizabeth, grow up! I refuse to believe that someone would want to kidnap us. We’re not on television, you know. Or in Sicily.’

  Kidnapping sounded not so bad really to Kevin. Kidnapping was nice and predictable. They tied you up and they sent letters to your parents, and somebody paid a ransom and then you got to go home. Just so long as their families could be relied on to pay up and they got to keep their ears and their fingers, kidnapping wouldn’t be so bad at all. At least they’d probably get fed. No, what Kevin feared was something spookier than common or garden kidnapping. But exactly what it was he feared he couldn’t exactly say.

  ‘What I mean is, the person who lives there, well, she’s not the full shilling – a bit odd, you might say.’

  ‘You know who lives there?’ shrilled Beverley. ‘Why didn’t you say so? And what do you mean odd? Do her socks not match? Does she talk to herself? Odd doesn’t sound anything to be afraid of.’

  ‘I didn’t say we should be afraid. I just said I didn’t think we should go there.’

  ‘Look, Kevin, and you too, Elizabeth,’ said Beverley going all reasonable, ‘we have a problem here. We have a casualty on our hands. Elizabeth is in a bad way. She can’t walk. Her ankle’s a mess.We need help. We need a doctor, really, but if we can’t have a doctor, a telephone would be a help, or even a stretcher. At the very least we need ice or cold water and a bandage. Also, we’re all hungry. A sandwich would be nice too. Or even a cup of tea would make us feel better. And it’s going to rain. So I vote, if there’s a house, we make for it. We can throw ourselves on the mercy of this odd person. It can’t be worse than being caught out here in a rainstorm with a patient who can’t move and no lunch and no way of getting home.’

  Kevin looked uneasily at Elizabeth, but Elizabeth was looking as confused as he was. Kevin couldn’t think of an argument to put up against Beverley’s sweet reason, and anyway he didn’t want to be out in this storm he was certain was brewing up, so he shrugged and gave in: ‘I suppose so,’ he said heavily. ‘Yeh, I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘Is everyone agreed, then, to head for the house?’ asked Beverley, in a sudden fit of democracy.

  There was a long moment of silence.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gerard finally. ‘But how are we going to get Elizabeth there? I don’t think we could find anything that would do for crutches.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll crawl,’ said Elizabeth humbly.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Liz!’ said Beverley. ‘Kevin and I will carry you. Gerard will have Fat to worry about.’

  ‘Carry me?’ shrieked Elizabeth.

  ‘Fat!’ shrieked Gerard, looking about wildly, his breath coming suddenly in short gasps.

  ‘Yes,’ said Beverley, in reply to Elizabeth’s shriek. ‘But not like a stretcher. Like a sedan chair. Look, we both cross our arms, and then we grab each other’s hands, to form a seat. Then we hunker down, and Elizabeth sits on the seat, and we lift her up. She can put one arm around my neck and one around yours, Kevin. Didn’t you play that game at primary school?’

  ‘Where’s Fat?’ asked Gerard in a small, sobbing voice, afraid of what the answer was going to be.

  ‘That blasted cat!’ said Elizabeth crossly. ‘It’s all his fault that I fell, you know. I hope that sheep ate him for its lunch.’

  Gerard looked at his cousin, but he couldn’t see her properly. For some reason, she seemed to be shimmering, as if she were under water. How could she be so cruel? He dared not say anything. He didn’t think his voice would be there anyway, if he tried to open his mouth. He blinked hard and Elizabeth swam into focus.

  ‘Shush, Elizabeth,’ said Beverley, noticing Gerard’s face. It had lost the bright red colour it had had when he’d arrived running back from the beach. In fact, it had lost all colour. It was chalky white and his light brown eyes looked huge in its expanse of white, big and buttery brown and very wet. Soon he was gasping for breath, flailing about with his arms and hunching over.

  ‘Where did you last see him, Ger?’ asked Beverley.

  Elizabeth was exasperated. It had been all Fat’s fault, and now here was Beverley full of concern about that nuisance of an animal. What had come over her? Elizabeth shook her head and blew hard through her nose, but she didn’t argue. She didn’t think she was in a position to.

  ‘In the field, over that hedge,’ said Gerard, pointing desperately, his inhaler halfway down his throat. ‘He was investigating a sheep. Oh Fat!’

  Gerard sat down again and drew his knees up to his chest, folding himself into the shape that Fat loved to use as a resting place. Would he ever nestle there again? Gerard lowered his head onto his knees and clasped his hands around them, so that the others wouldn’t see his tears.

  ‘Look, Gerard,’ said Beverley, hunkering down beside him and whispering in his ear. ‘We’ll get Elizabeth to this house, and then you and I will come back here and look for Fat. He can’t have gone far. This island isn’t very big. He’s probably up a tree or asleep on some nice sunny roc
k or something. When he gets hungry, he’ll start looking for you. And we’ll be there. We’ll find him. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ said Gerard in an unsteady voice, but without raising his head. He didn’t know what to make of all this unexpected tenderness from Beverley, but he was grateful for it all the same.

  ‘Come on, so, Kevin,’ said Beverley, making gestures to the others above Gerard’s head not to tease him, to let him have his little weep. She bent down and laid her crossed arms on the ground.

  ‘Cross your arms too, Kevin,’ she ordered, ‘and then grab my hands. Right. Now, Liz, wiggle your bottom onto our hands. Ouch! OK. And away we go! Heave-ho!’

  Kevin and Beverley struggled to an upright position, with Elizabeth still trying to balance herself between them.

  ‘Nice view up here!’ she announced, a good head and shoulders above her bearers, with her bad leg stuck out uncomfortably in front.

  ‘Terrible view down here!’ muttered Beverley, her head half buried under Elizabeth’s armpit.

  ‘Now, the secret is to march in step,’ said Kevin. ‘One, two, three, left, right, left.’

  And so the strange caravan lumbered forward: Kevin and Beverley toiling and trying to co-ordinate their breathing as well as their footsteps; Elizabeth trying to will herself to be as light as possible, thinking aeroplane in flight, ballerina in a sauté, swallow on the wing, butterflies fluttering, gossamer in the breeze, dandelion-seed parachutes flitting through the air; and Gerard trailing disconsolately behind, dragging the garden flare, his face more streaked than ever, and calling out hopelessly ‘Fat, Fat!’ every now and then.

  Chapter 13

  THE HOUSE THAT WASN’T MADE OF GINGERBREAD

  BEVERLEY THOUGHT THE JOURNEY WOULD NEVER END. As well as being hot and sticky and tired, she could hardly see. Elizabeth’s hair slid in a stifling, blinding, unpredictable curtain in front of Beverley’s face, and sweat poured down her forehead and into her eyes. Her shoulders ached desperately, and she had to feel her way along carefully with her feet, in case she encountered a root or a stone or a hole in the path. All they needed now was for one of them to trip, and the whole pantomime camel of herself, Kevin and Elizabeth would go pitching headlong, maybe bringing down Gerard as well.

  At last a muffled yell from Gerard reached Beverley’s ears through Elizabeth’s hair: ‘I see the house. It’s not far!’

  ‘Ouch!’ said Beverley. ‘Don’t!’

  ‘Sorry,’ came the reply from almost in her ear. Kevin’s head was only a foot away, on the other side of Elizabeth. He’d tightened his grip on Beverley’s wrists without meaning to.

  ‘I – need – a – rest,’ said Beverley.

  ‘Right, so. Down we go.’

  Gently, Beverley and Kevin lowered their burden onto the ground and sat down themselves too. As soon as her arms were free, Beverley flopped onto her back and her hands raised themselves, almost automatically, into the air in front of her. Pins and needles gushed exquisitely along her veins, as she waved her arms ecstatically over her head.

  When at last she could feel her fingers, and could wriggle them all individually, one to ten, Beverley sat up. Elizabeth was examining her ankle again. It looked ghastly.

  ‘Where’s the house?’ Beverley asked Gerard, who was the only member of the party still standing.

  ‘Stand up,’ he ordered, squinting and pointing.

  When she stood up and followed the direction of Gerard’s finger, she could just glimpse the house, less than a hundred yards away. It was only barely visible, behind a tangle of trees and overgrown shrubs. It looked quite sweet, if a bit untidy. A lilac tree held up huge blue cones as if to hide the gable end, and two laburnum trees standing companionable guard wept ringlets of gold onto the grass. Everything was overblown, reaching the end of its blossoming time, scattering petals and whole florets on the grassy earth. The chimney peered over the top of it all, as if the house were standing on tiptoe to get a better view of the pilgrim children.

  ‘Right, well now, will we give it one last heave?’ asked Kevin, talking to Beverley but looking up at the looming clouds with a worried expression on his face.

  Beverley looked at the sky, which seemed very close to the earth now, and was heavy with purplish-grey clouds. There was going to be a lot of rain, the very wettest sort of rain. It made sense to get to the house before it started.

  ‘All right,’ she agreed, longing for rain to rinse away the weight at the heart of the afternoon, and yet dreading it, wanting to get to the shelter of the house, yet strangely apprehensive about it, as if Kevin’s worries had transmitted themselves to her, in spite of herself. She hunkered down and crossed her arms again. Kevin grasped her hands firmly and Elizabeth worked her way with a practised wriggle onto the seat they made for her.

  A climbing rose had grown right over the lichen-spattered gate pillars, its dense yellow heads bobbing stately, throwing their rich, sweet scent carelessly into the gathering air, but the gateway itself was free, with just a few thorny rose twigs wound around the hinges. Gerard creaked the wrought-iron gate open, and Kevin turned around and backed through at an angle, still gripping Beverley’s hands tightly and with Elizabeth hanging on around his neck.

  ‘Ouch!’ yelped Elizabeth, as a thorn scraped her face. ‘I’m all right,’ she added, when her sedan chair stopped with a lurch. ‘It’s only a scratch.’

  Meanwhile, Gerard had got to the front door. It was a stout old door, painted what might once have been a sky blue, but was now a blistering and peeling dirty grey. It was firmly shut. He knocked loudly, and the sound echoed in the children’s ears.

  No reply.

  Good, thought Kevin. Maybe she was away. Maybe she’d stayed on the mainland. Sometimes she went to the bank.

  Gerard knocked again, this time rapping more firmly and more often.

  Still no reply. Gerard looked around at the others.

  ‘Nobody home,’ he said, stating the obvious. ‘I’ll see if I can get in around the back, and I’ll open it from the inside, if I can.’ He was already wading through fading London pride and flaming marigolds, which grew in fierce confusion around the sides of the house. He was still incongruously brandishing the tatty but intact garden flare.

  Moments later, the front door creaked slowly inwards as if of its own accord, as if the house wasn’t quite sure whether it wanted to admit this band of strangers. It must have made up its mind, however, for eventually it opened wide enough to admit the children.

  ‘Thanks, Gerard!’ called Elizabeth.

  Kevin and Beverley stumbled in with Elizabeth between them. This time, Elizabeth cowered right down, in case anything nasty like a door lintel or a cobweb got her in the face.

  The hallway was small, square and flagged. A rickety wooden staircase rose almost perpendicularly to what must be attic rooms. There was a door on the right and a door on the left. The children stood still, bunched together in the hall, and listened. Not a sound.

  ‘Hello?’ said Beverley, a tight, bright voice.

  Nothing.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ asked Beverley after a moment, sniffing the thick dank air of the hall.

  Gerard gave a stifled sob of recognition.

  ‘Cat!’ said Elizabeth. ‘I’d know that pong anywhere. Our car stinks of it.’

  ‘Does it really?’ asked Kevin, intrigued, in spite of himself, by this curious fact. ‘Why?’

  Elizabeth opened her mouth to tell him, but then she caught sight of Gerard’s pinched and worried-looking little face, and a kindness came over her. She shut her mouth and said nothing.

  Then she opened it again and said: ‘Do you think you could let me down now? It’s a bit wobbly up here.’

  Beverley looked around the back of Elizabeth’s head at Kevin, her eyebrows raised enquiringly. Kevin nodded. Now they’d got here, there was nothing for it but to see what this house had to offer in the way of food, shelter and running water.

  ‘Kitchen!’ ordered Kevin and started to back into t
he room on the left of the hall.

  He was right in his choice. It was a dark kitchen, dark and cool, like a dairy or a pantry, only not as wholesome, with a lingering catty pong here too, overlaying an earthy smell that the children would have recognised as damp if they’d had more experience of old houses.

  After their eyes had adjusted to the gloom, the children could see an old-fashioned sofa against one wall, the kind they have in psychiatrists’ surgeries in films. It was covered in wine-coloured leatherette and there were only one or two holes in it, where the stuffing was coming out. It seemed to be stuffed with straw. Beverley and Kevin lowered Elizabeth onto the sofa with great relief.

  The holes in the sofa looked dangerously like rats’ nests, thought Beverley. Perhaps it was just as well there were cats after all. At least it meant there wouldn’t be rats – or probably not anyway.

  Elizabeth stretched out on the sofa and said: ‘Thanks, you guys. You were great to carry me all that way.’

  ‘Yes, we were, weren’t we?’ agreed Beverley, whose arms had started to do their levitation act again.

  Kevin pulled a chair out. The crossbar at the back came away in his hand.

  ‘We used to have a chair like that,’ said Gerard.

  ‘Like this? Moth-eaten?’ asked Kevin, as he wrestled to reinsert the uprights into the crossbar.

  ‘Moths don’t eat chairs,’ Beverley pointed out pedantically. ‘It might have been woodworm, I suppose.’

  ‘I mean, one that the back used to come off if you pulled at it.’ Gerard went on helpfully: ‘It’s probably just that the glue has dried up. You just need to reglue it.’

  ‘Well, do you know what?’ said Kevin skittishly. ‘I’m after forgetting to bring my pocket-pack of Uhu. Isn’t that just terrible, now!’

  Everyone tittered. Their nervous laughter echoed eerily around the empty kitchen. The children’s gazes followed the half-hearted laughter, taking in the bleak little room. Like the house, the kitchen looked only half-derelict. Even the chair was only half-bockety.