by Janis Mackay
My rucksack was filling up. I grabbed two bagels from the cupboard and an orange. Then I scooped up a half-empty packet of chocolate biscuits and a few figs. I had learnt a few things about Agatha Black. Her sweet tooth was one of them.
I got to school just as the bell screeched. I had wanted to hand the essay in early, without anybody seeing me, but because I had spent ages getting all the time-travel equipment ready, I was going to have to do it in front of the whole class. I hung my jacket on a peg and shuffled into the classroom. Will and Robbie thumped me on the back and threw me our secret gang wink.
Mrs Veitch raced through taking the register then said, “Now, if there are any last entries for the Scottish Borders Young Historian of the Year competition, come forward and hand them in.” She scanned the room. “I need to collect them now.” I felt my face flush bright red. At the table at the back I saw Agnes pull an envelope out of her bag. I felt like an idiot. If she was going to enter, she would definitely win. I would probably come last. Then Dad’s voice was back: trying never hurt, son…
I made a grab for my envelope and dashed forward, feeling really embarrassed. I kept looking at the ground, so I didn’t see Mrs Veitch’s face but Robbie told me afterwards that she practically wet herself. I hurried back to my desk and slipped onto my seat, still bright red and totally embarrassed.
“Right. Goodness! Very good. Well – er – no one else?”
I shot a glance at the back table. I saw Agnes push her envelope back into her bag.
“Well then – bonjour, toute le monde,” sang Mrs Veitch.
“Bonjour Madame Veitch,” we all sang back.
“And I hope you haven’t forgotten: on Friday, the last day of school, it will be the shortest day of the year. Can anyone remember the name of it?”
Mrs Veitch got her second big shock of the morning. Yours-truly stuck up his hand and said, “The winter solstice!”
Agnes kept looking at me. I don’t know if she was also thinking about the solstice, or if she was thinking that me and her were pals now because she’d been up a tree with Agatha. I scowled at her. At playtime she was in her usual spot by the bike shed with her usual book to hide behind. Except she wasn’t reading the book. I know because it was upside down. But Will was seriously impressed by her. It was his idea that we go and hang out in the bike shed. I think he wanted to talk to her but he didn’t know what to say.
While Will was staring at Agnes, Robbie was interrogating me about the essay. “I practically fell off my chair,” Robbie said. “When you got up and actually handed in an essay! Man! I couldn’t believe it. Like, no one could. Sure, Will?”
Will stopped gaping at Agnes. “Sure. Jeez, you should have seen Mrs Veitch’s face. Her jaw dropped. She didn’t know what to say.”
“I thought she was going to have a heart attack. Serious. It was priceless. So what? You turned into some big swot?” Robbie nudged me and laughed. “I didn’t even know you could read! Only joking!”
“I told you I wasn’t lying.” I lowered my voice because Agnes, at the other end of the bike shed, was listening. “Agatha is from 1812 and she told me all about it. I just wrote it down. It was easy. Anyway,” I whispered, “I’m going to get her back there.”
They gazed at me, doubtfully. “How?”
I shot a glance at Agnes who quickly looked away. I stepped in closer to Robbie and Will. “I’m going to do an experiment.”
And at lunchtime that’s exactly what I did.
22
When Agatha saw me burst through the gap in the hedge she clapped her hands and cheered. “Sledging time,” she yelled. “I heard you coming. I was busy in my drawing. I have quite a pretty collection now. Come in and look, Saul. I have done a likeness of Agnes, yet it isna as lovely as she is.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’m not great at goodbyes and this was going to be one major goodbye. I smiled at her awkwardly. She must have sensed something. “Pray, what is the matter, Saul?”
I glanced down at my rucksack. Then I looked at the yew tree. I could feel this lump in my throat. We could have the picnic first, then do the experiment. “I brought bagels,” I said, not looking at her but fumbling about in the bag. “They’re nice. And I got you an orange. Remember, you saw one in Mrs Singh’s shop – I mean, in your house, when you just arrived. Oh yeah, and I got you chocolate biscuits, and figs.”
By this time Agatha was standing right in front of me. “Am I to return? Is that it, Saul? You have all in place? I am going home, is that it?”
I had the food in my hands. “We can have the picnic first. You like chocolate. Well here, it’s a biscuit. With chocolate on the top.”
Agatha took the biscuit and ate it and all the time she didn’t take her eyes off me. “I will miss chocolate,” she said.
I knew if I was going to do this I had to get on with it. Macrimmon said you had to really want it. You had to focus your mind on the intended journey. “Your dad won’t believe it when you suddenly turn up in the parlour,” I said, trying to make it sound easy. “Then your monkey will screech the house down. He’ll jump on your shoulders. And if that horrible Dick calls you names just tell him to get lost.”
“I will,” Agatha said. But she didn’t look too happy.
“Remember, you’ve got your life to live. That’s what you’re always saying. But… you could stay here if you want.”
“No, you are in the right, dear Saul. Of course I wish to return home. Indeed I must return home. It’s only, I didna think it would be this moment. You surprise me. Have you everything ready?”
I nodded. “Finish your lunch,” I said. “I’ll get everything set out.” Wide-eyed like she couldn’t take in this was happening at last, Agatha nibbled at the bagel. I dashed into the den and brought out the plate of earth. I put it by the yew tree. I went back for the bowl of water, spilling some as I carried it. Next I hung up my glass crystal on a branch. A weak pale sun that was hardly higher than the hedge didn’t do much to make bright-coloured rainbows. I pushed the glass crystal and watched it swing. So did Agatha. “It’s a crystal,” I told her, then I stuck the candle in the snow. “Hey,” I nattered, waving a box of matches in the air, “this is easier than rubbing stones together. Watch!” Except it took me loads of tries before I actually managed to light the thing.
“How magical,” Agatha said, but she didn’t sound that impressed.
I got out my jotter, turned it to the page with the gold star, then wedged it by the tree. Agatha, sucking juice noisily from the orange, stepped closer. I could picture her frowning behind me. “It’s a gold star,” I muttered and looked back over my shoulder to see her gazing at my drawing.
“Pray tell, Saul, what carat gold is the star?”
“That doesn’t matter, cause the main thing is,” I said, getting up and practically knocking her backwards, “that you have to totally believe it’s going to work.” I could tell she was ready to open her mouth and argue but I rubbed my hands together. “Right then,” I said, “you stand beside the tree and touch the bark.” She didn’t look too convinced but I patted her on the shoulder. I was sure we could trust Macrimmon’s law. You had to be pure of heart, he said. Agatha Black, I could tell, was that. And you had to trust. “Believe it, ok?” I said. Agatha nodded.
“Here, Agatha, press your palms against the tree.” She did. “Now close your eyes.” She looked round at me, mouthed the words, “Thank you,” then closed her eyes.
“The song?” she murmured. “What of the song?”
I hadn’t forgotten the song. At least some good might come of giving my pound away to the busker last night. The tune he played was still going round and round in my head. “I’ve got one,” I said. I stepped closer. My heart was pounding hard. “Are you ready?”
She nodded. She still had my clothes on, but I reckoned it wouldn’t matter. I bent down and swirled the water. Next to the water the candle was flickering bravely. I stood up, closed my eyes then started to hum the tune.
&nb
sp; I don’t know how long I stood there, under the yew tree, humming that strange tune. It was like I was dreaming. I saw Mrs Singh and her red sari. I saw Agatha with her arms flung out wide. I saw the car swerve round her. And the sliding door of the cinema. And snow. And Agatha jumping hopscotch. I even saw things I’d never actually laid eyes on, like Dick pressing his nose against the window pane, and Albert Black gazing into the fire, and Pug all dressed up on market day, smoking a pipe, and Agatha scrubbing potatoes, and making paper fish flap in the air…
After what felt like ages I opened my eyes.
“It hasna worked,” Agatha said. She dropped her hands from the tree, brushed passed me and walked through the snow to the den.
I ran after her. “You didn’t want it enough,” I shouted.
She was sitting slumped on the floor of the den, tracing a circle on the floor with her finger. She didn’t look at me. “Yea havna proper gold.” She sniffed and a small tear rolled down her cheek and fell onto the floor.
***
I left her there. I didn’t know what to say. I felt like a failure. I trudged over the wasteland. I stepped in my own footsteps, going the other way. These footsteps had been confident, the ones pointing to the den. Now I felt like Albert Black, a loser. I was supposed to be an apprentice time traveller and I hadn’t managed to shift her an inch.
“You look sad.”
I glanced up in fright. Agnes was sitting on the wall at the edge of the wasteland. She had a hole in her shoe. She didn’t seem bothered that she was sitting on the snow. I was stumped for words. She was right. I was sad. Agatha Black said I was the only one who could get her back. I had tried. I had failed. I was sad.
“I hope you win the competition.” She jumped off the wall and came over to me. I was just standing there, like I had been struck dumb and frozen, all at once. “Imagine if you win, Saul. Mrs Veitch will have a hairy fit.” Agnes started to giggle. “And you would get £200. Imagine that!”
The cuffs of her sweatshirt were all frayed. She could probably do with £200. She shook back her hair and smiled at me. “I’m going to see Agatha.” In a funny way it felt like a relief, somebody else knowing her real name. “I won’t tell anyone about the den,” she said. “It’s the best secret den ever. It’s like a real house.”
“She’s done a picture of you,” I said, not believing I was actually talking to this girl. She’d been in my class for years and I had never said a word to her.
“Bet she’s made me look much nicer that I do.” I shrugged. What was I supposed to say to that? “She’s pretty special, isn’t she?” Agnes went on. She stared at me with her pale blue eyes. Suddenly I really wanted to tell her the truth. And the way she looked at me made it easy.
“I dunno what she told you,” I mumbled. I waited for Agnes to say something but she just kept on gazing at me. “She got herself lost here. She’s from Peebles, but, like, two hundred years ago. She was trying to help her dad. She’s too good. She should never have agreed. Anyway, he got her lost. She nearly got knocked over by a car and that’s when she found me. I was going to the shops when, wham – this girl, dressed all funny, started screaming. She grabbed me. So, she said it’s up to me. I have to help her get back.”
Through all this garbled speech Agnes didn’t look a bit amazed or gob-smacked. She didn’t look at me like I was lying, or crazy.
“So that’s it,” I said. “Weird, I know, but…”
“I know,” Agnes said.
In the distance I heard the church bells. I had to get a move on. Was Agnes skipping school? “Um, better get back then,” I muttered. Agnes just smiled again. She was the kind of girl that could be invisible. Half the time she didn’t even come to school and I swear the teachers didn’t notice. Will said she was so clever they couldn’t teach her anything anyway.
“It’s great you’ve been helping her.” Agnes said. “Agatha told me she’s having a brilliant time here. And you’ve fed her and showed her things.”
I shrugged and went red. “We haven’t done much,” I mumbled. I thought about the sledging plan. We could still do it. There was a floodlight on the sledging hill. Even in the dark we could go sledging. “Um, tell her, if she wants, we could go sledging after school.” Agnes looked at me, like she was waiting for an invitation but not daring to ask. “And, um, you can come too, if you like,” I added, hurriedly.
“I’d love that,” she said. “I haven’t got a sledge, but I could watch.”
Well, I didn’t have a sledge either, but Will had a good one, and Robbie had two. “That’s ok,” I said, then I grinned and she did too. I waved to her. She waved back, then I turned and clambered over the wall. I ran all the way back to school. And even though I had tried the experiment and even though it hadn’t worked, I didn’t feel such a rotten failure anymore.
That afternoon I sent notes to Will and Robbie about sledging.
So can’t wait
Robbie wrote on his note.
Beast
Will wrote on his.
“What’s your cousin up to this afternoon, Saul?” Mrs Veitch asked.
I crumpled the notes and dropped them under my desk. I shook my head, thinking, how come she’s bothered about Randolph and not Agnes? I said, “He’s getting ready to go back.”
“Ah, of course,” she said, smiling at me. It was like I was the teacher’s pet all of a sudden because I had done the essay. I squirmed in my seat and looked down. “Everyone,” she said, “likes to be home for Christmas.”
23
The sledging turned out to be really good fun, at least to start with. Agnes sat on the snow watching us. She didn’t even have a proper coat. Then Agatha waved for her to join in and soon you’d think the five of us were the best of pals. It was really busy at the sledging hill and some of the kids from school shouted, “Hiya Randolph,” to Agatha and she waved at them and shouted “Hiya” back. The same people threw us some pretty weird looks because Nessa Nobody was playing with us, but I didn’t care. She wasn’t nobody. She was poor, that was for sure. When we were on the sledge together I saw she had newspaper stuffed into her boots. “This is fantastic, isn’t it, Saul?” she shouted as we zoomed down the hill on Robbie’s sledge. It was pretty good fun. The hill was worn smooth; each time we went down it got faster and faster.
Agatha went down with Will on his big blue sledge. When we were all trudging up the hill I could hear him getting in a right state. “That was great Randolph. It was fast. Bet you don’t have sledging hills in London, Agatha. I mean, Randolph. I mean, long ago.”
“Much has changed, Will,” she said, throwing back her head and laughing. “The river isna frozen over, but this hill is the same. The snow is the same. And we slide down it on whatever we can find. Tin trays at times.”
“Cool!” Will said.
“Aye,” said Agatha with a twinkle in her eye. “Cool indeed.”
Robbie had all three sledges lined up for a race. Will ran down the hill. He was going to mark the finishing line and check the winner. Robbie got on one sledge. Agnes got on another and Agatha got on the third. Robbie gritted his teeth and held the rope. The girls were going to go down head first. I got the oh-so-exciting job of standing at the starting line and shouting “Ready – steady – GO!”
They zoomed down the hill, screaming and laughing. I was left at the top of the hill, cheering them on. Robbie got a good start, but then Agatha caught up fast. I watched them till I could hardly see them anymore. I pulled my Rasta hat down over my ears when suddenly I felt a snow ball land on the back of my leg. “Watcha, nerd!” I felt my blood run cold. I didn’t turn round. I didn’t have to. I knew who it was. The voice came closer. “Look at that. Your pals gone off and left you out in the cold, eh?”
I wished the others would come back, but I knew they’d be ages. I could still hear them laughing, way down at the bottom of the hill. I heard Crow’s footsteps crunch down on the snow. He was getting closer. He was probably after more money. My heart was pounding.
I wasn’t going to hang about and find out what he wanted. I bolted away and ran down the hill. I fell on the glassy snow. I rolled over, and over. Then I staggered to my feet. And I kept running.
“Agnes won,” Will said and he held his hands together – inches apart, “by that much.”
“What’s up with you?” Robbie said, dragging his sledge over to where I was slumped down in the snow, panting like mad. I didn’t know whether to tell them. “I know! You came to help pull the sledges back up? Good man! Do you want a go?” The last thing I wanted to do was go back up that hill. I got to my feet, feeling my knees throb. I shook my head. I was shivering. My gloves were damp with snow and my cheeks were numb with cold.
“Nah, it’s getting late,” I mumbled, “and I’m cold.”
Robbie flipped open his phone and the next thing he was chatting to his mum, asking her to come and pick him up.
We all trudged along the side of the river to the car park, pulling the sledges behind us. “Here in the spring are a million primroses. Oh, it’s the bonniest place then.” Agatha pointed to the river bank. She had, I noticed, completely dropped the Randolph disguise.
“What’s a primrose?” Will asked her.
“Oh, a dainty little pale-yellow flower. I do love the primroses.” Then she started chatting away about Pug and how he would love to go sledging. Then she said she was going to tell her dad all about the modern sledges so he could make one. “That would be a safe occupation, I think,” she said, laughing. “And it might bring him fame and fortune!”
The others laughed about Agatha’s monkey, but not me. I kept looking back over my shoulder. I couldn’t see Crow. Mind you, I couldn’t see anyone. Out of the floodlight it was pitch dark. When we got to the car park, Robbie’s mum was waiting with her Land Rover. It was big enough to get Robbie and his two sledges in, plus Will and his one sledge, but not big enough for all of us.
