The First Book of Calamity Leek

by Paula Lichtarowicz

  ‘Well, Clam, was it the lid?’

  ‘All right, Millie Gatwick, wait on, will you.’

  I looked about. Looked like it was day at last. The Sun was shoving Himself sneaky through cracks in the planks, and sizzling holes in our straw. Down the row, most of my sisters were still curled in sleep. Next door the pigs were farting for their breakfast. In the mending room, well, it was really best not thought about what was in there. And down in her Hole, Maria was starting up her howling.

  ‘Well, Clam?’ Millie’s eyeballs boggled close. Millie Gatwick, I don’t mind saying, had uncommon wobbly eyes. ‘My dear frogspawn friend’ was what Aunty most liked to call her. And one day it was most probably true, like Aunty said, that them eyes would plop right out of Millie’s face.

  ‘Well, Millie—’ I said. Except then my head filled up with thinking about Truly.

  ‘Yes, Clam?’

  ‘Well, Millie—’

  Well, first I thought on reminding her what the Appendix says straight off, on the page stuck inside the casing, ‘Remember! Some truths are for Mother and Aunty to know and for nieces to never find out!, and happen lid-opening may be one of these, Millie.’ Then I thought on trying the easy explanation, ‘Well, you ain’t actually old enough to be told.’ Then I thought about saying the sad but likely one, ‘Actually, Millie, Truly was mighty foolish to go climbing, and it is a sad but likely truth that she got too close to His moonstain without her headscarf on. Happen that’s why her words burned up.’

  But then I didn’t say none of these. ‘Well, Millie,’ I said loud and clear, looking past Truly’s cold straw space to the fur lump along from me, ‘Annie St Albans knows exactly what Truly said she saw up there. Annie knows, and Annie ain’t said yet, has she?’

  Annie’s bushy head popped out of her fur, and two green eyes flashed at me. ‘Will everyone hush up a second, I think I heard something.’ She jumped up and raced up the other way, past Dorothy and Sandra, to the wall next to the mending room. She tapped on a plank. ‘Truly Polperro, it’s me, Annie. Truly, can you hear me?’

  ‘It’s only wind you can hear,’ Dorothy said. ‘That or something knocking.’

  ‘But what would be knocking?’ Annie said.

  I lay down, listening to the thumping noises that had started up, far off outside.

  ‘Why is something knocking out there?’ Annie whispered. ‘What could possibly be knocking?’

  Well, there weren’t nothing set down nowhere in the Appendix about outside knocking, so I flung some straw over my head, and curled up tight. And I shut my eyes and ears, and I shut out Annie’s why and what-ing, and that non-stop knocking, and poor deadmeat Truly, and the whole sorry day.

  The dorm door stayed bolted up all day. The knocking kept on. Now and then a bored pig snorted next door. At some point I dreamed. It was my demonmale, tormenting me like they are sent to do to us. Which Aunty said, when I told her, was a ‘sadness’, but what wouldn’t kill us should make us stronger for War. D for Demonmales explains more. Only I should say Adelaide Worthing was rescued youngest, and she don’t have no demonmales in her dreams, none at all. Which is a blessed relief for her, it really is. And I’ll just say here, the worst, if you’re interested, was Nancy’s. He was a fat one in her dream, always bubbling pans and sharpening knives. Mine weren’t so bad as that, but he did have hair all over his face. Most times mine was laughing at me and grabbing for me, so I had to wake up fighting him off. This dream just gone, I was trapped up in a chair he was pushing through trees. He bent over to rub his demonbeard on me. I grabbed his ears. They were red with cold. He was laughing, and I was laughing.

  I woke cold and full of his nasty laughing.

  The dorm was black and breathing quiet. I turned away from Truly’s straw and shuffled myself along to Nancy’s warm bottom, so as her snores might carry me back to a safe and empty sleep.

  Course, Nancy felt me shunt her. And her teeth were something curdled when she turned and smiled at me and whispered, ‘I’ve been laid here thinking, Clam. I’ve been laid thinking ain’t it funny how the loonhead was all quiet in her Hole, eh, until a certain Calamity Sneak dragged her out. A Calamity Sneak who knows Maria ain’t ever known for staying close and quiet in crops. Who knows she always runs back for the yard in the end. Eh, sister Sneak, what do you reckon to that?’

  Well, what I reckoned was Nancy hadn’t got over Jean Valjean. ‘Nancy, I can’t keep saying sorry for Jean, he was a sick piglet,’ I whispered. ‘Like I wanted Truly to turn deadmeat, and us all to get corrected and bolted in, like I really wanted that. And like I said to everyone, “Don’t go Out of Bounds,” but that hasn’t been remembered by no one, has it, sister?’

  Nancy grunted, but she didn’t throw me a fist.

  So I didn’t spit her.

  ‘I think my stomach has eaten itself up,’ a voice said from down the bottom end of the row. Possible it was little Adelaide doing it. To say true, in the dark it weren’t ever easy to tell which squeak came from Adelaide, Cinderella or Fantine.

  ‘Well, I tell you, my skin is certain cracking up,’ Sandra said. She jumped up, and went running down the row to peer at her face in the water bucket by the door. ‘Either that or I am sprouting blackheads. And I never sprout blackheads.’

  Course, this from Sandra set all my sisters to stirring, never mind that outside was night again. All except for Annie, who was sat up by the mending room wall, and didn’t look to have ever slept. Annie, who had her whole body glued to the planks between her and Truly, who wasn’t doing nothing but shaking her head like it was trapped full of worry bees, and she didn’t want to let them out.

  ‘Has anyone seen Gretel?’ Millie called out from the middle of the row. ‘Only she’s gone and gone off. Don’t nobody go squashing her, will you?’

  ‘Has anyone seen my red shoe?’ Sandra said, poking about under the bucket. ‘They’re the ones Aunty gave me to practise walking for War, because I’m going first, because I’m eldest. Only I can’t go if I can’t find my shoe, and I can’t find my shoe being stuck in here with so many blackheads.’ Sandra Saffron Walden – pretty as a snowdrop and about as senseful as one too.

  ‘Once a stomach has eaten itself, will it start on eating up everything else inside a body?’ little Adelaide called up from the bottom end.

  ‘No,’ clever Dorothy said. ‘Least I think not. Least it’s not written in the Digests. Happen we should take our minds off our tummies and Truly and everything. Shall I shout out some sums?’

  ‘We could sing,’ Mary Bootle said. Mary, who didn’t have a better dream in her life than one with a bagful of babies. ‘How about “Hushabye Mountain” or “Stay awake, don’t rest your head”? In fact, I’ve got a truly scrumptious lullaby all ready I could sing, couldn’t I?’

  No one said nothing.

  ‘It’s truly scrumptious, truly truly scrumptious.’

  ‘Will you quit saying about Truly,’ Annie shouted out, all quick and loud and hot. ‘Just quit it!’

  And no one said nothing to that.

  Under her straw, sickly Eliza coughed. ‘When I am ill I like a story best of all.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Mary Bootle sighed, ‘but Truly Polperro is best for tales. Remember the one she tells about the eel that grew wings. One day it sneezed and flew out the stream and over the Wall and up the sky, and straight through the sky lid into Heaven’s Garden. Or what about the mole that liked digging so much it burrowed under the Wall and was never seen again. Or what about the climbing rose, who loved growing, but whose tallest bloom got chopped off when it got to the top of the Wall, which made her so sad her petals turned to tears, and she cried herself into rose water. I think I liked that one best of all.’

  Which had us even sadder.

  ‘Well,’ I said, bright as I could, ‘my throat sure is dry, but I reckon I could remember something of the starting of us. I mean, not as well as Truly tells tales, but I could. And Appendix truth is much better than tales, isn’t it?’

&nbs
p; Millie Gatwick was crawling up the row, calling out for her rat.

  ‘Well? Do you want to hear it or not?’

  ‘Can you not do the flying eel?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Suppose,’ someone muttered.

  ‘Suppose?’ I said. ‘I am talking of our truth and purpose and you say “Suppose”?’

  ‘Well, go on then, Flap-ears, if you’re going to bother.’ Nancy Nunhead that was, squirting over the shit bucket.

  ‘Alrighty, hold on, will you?’ I said. I sat up and looked about at the shadow lumps of my sisters, twitching about like grubs in their straw. The night outside was corpse-still. Down in her Hole, Maria was quiet. Next door, the pigs were sensible and settled to snoring. There was still no shifting from Annie up by that wall, and still no noise from poor old Truly on the other side of it. Well, a clear reminder of our purpose was about the best thing we needed on a night like this, it really was.

  ‘This is a perfect tale for the dark,’ I said.

  I cleared my nose on my smock, and settled myself down in my straw. Then I closed my eyes for better remembering the most glorious story ever told – the truth of how we sisters came to be.

  C FOR CREATION

  ‘IN THAT PLACE before time ever was, the Mother Goddess lived in Heaven and watched over all the Universe. She watched over the planets and she watched over every twitching creature down to the skinniest gnat, and even them insects which are so tiny they don’t seem to twitch at all, but they do.

  ‘Well now, after a while the Goddess got tired of watching over everything – which don’t sound like much, like the watching Aunty does over us – but, like Aunty says, is a thoroughly draining business indeed. So She plucked off a hair from Her head and bit it in two – for having a hair and a spare. She planted them two ends in Heaven’s Garden, and by next morning they had sprouted. One grew immediately All Wise and All Useful, and was naturally shaped as a Daughter. The other grew stunted with pus-soaked blackspots, and most unfortunately into a Sun.’

  ‘Yuck.’

  ‘Yes, yuck, but don’t interrupt. Now you don’t need me to tell you, this male hair was pure trouble from the word go. Matter of fact, He didn’t like to do nothing other than start up fires. He would suck hundreds of bugs into the sky, and click His fingers to strike up flames and roast them. Which is where lightning comes from, if you didn’t know, and the thunder is the sound of their poor backs cracking.

  ‘Course, the Goddess would have squashed this nasty Sun of Hers to death right then, if She could. But being grown from Her, He was immortal. Which was something problematical. So She called Him to Heaven’s drainage ditch, where there was a waste disposal lid to the stinking Universe below, and She said, “Sun, I’ve made you a world of your own to rule. And isn’t that nice and Motherly of me?’

  ‘“Where, Mother?” Her Sun said, looking out to the Universe, and seeing nothing but black.

  ‘“It’s just past this planet,” She said. And She rolled a pebble in Earth and lifted the lid and chucked it out. “It’ll look bigger once you’re down there. Wriggle through the Earth to the other side and your own world will be straight in front of you.”

  ‘Which, by the way, is called a little white lie. Which is a most useful tool, sisters, when dealing with demonmales.

  ‘“Off you pop then,” said Mother. And She opened up the waste disposal lid, and shoved Her Sun out of Heaven.

  ‘Once He stopped screaming and falling, it took Him no time at all to wriggle deep into the Earth. Matter of fact, He was very happy down there, tunnelling away and sniggering about all the fiery nastiness He would get up to in His own world, when – BUMP! His nose smashed up against rock. He pushed and shoved, but no matter, He had hit the pebble in the planet’s heart. And like all males, He got angry then. In fact, He got Himself so wound up with rage that He couldn’t back out. Yes, sisters, He was trapped good and proper.

  ‘And up in Her Heavenly Garden, the Goddess looked down at the quiet Earth. She shut the lid and winked at Her Daughter, and told Her to take over the Universe, while She retired to grow roses in peace and quiet.’

  ‘Well, we know all this, Clam.’

  ‘Thank you, Nancy. And I suppose you know the poor Goddess Daughter didn’t get no peace and quiet for long? Oh no. Because deep in the Earth’s Bowels, Her angry Brother had started chomping up worms and millipedes. Day after day He chomped them poor old bugs and beetles, and day after day He grew fatter and hotter.’

  Down the row, someone sobbed.

  ‘Better huddle up, sisters, because now our story gets proper nasty. One morning, when everything looked to be waking up perfect on Earth, the peace and quiet was disturbed by a sound like pain, sisters, only worse. The ground groaned. It shook. And a mighty ball of hair and grubs and sizzling fire burst out of the soil, and shot straight up the sky. Yes, sisters, it was Him – the Sun, who is also known as Demon and Devil and One Whole Heap of Stinking Trouble – shooting up and crashing into that very disposal lid that separates our sky from Heaven.

  ‘There was a big BANG! and all of Heaven shuddered. But, though the lid shook something terrible, it didn’t crack, and thank goodness for that. But most unfortunately, bits of Him – like lumps of burning hair and chewed-up grubs – flew off from the impact, as it is known, and fell back to Earth. Here they turned solid, and we all know what else they turned into, don’t we?’

  ‘Is it demonmales, Clam?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, but I really didn’t need an answer, Millie. Nasty stinking demonmales. Set to wage His War on Earth. But we shall come to them in a bit.’

  ‘Do we have to, Clam? Only Truly never says on them, in case it causes bad dreams.’

  ‘Well, I won’t say look where Truly’s thinking has got her, I won’t say that. What I will say is the Sun shoved at the lid all day, but no matter, He couldn’t break through. By evening He was starving, so He retreated to His Bowels, to feast on what grubs He could still find alive down there. And He left a stain of Himself in the sky to mark the spot, like a dog does, and the Goddess Daughter covered up the lid with dark blankets, and tried to forget about Him.

  ‘But the next morning, when She pulled the blankets away, well, He only went and tried again, didn’t He? Shooting up for another bash like He hadn’t learned His lesson the first time. Which males don’t, by the way.

  ‘Course, the lid didn’t budge. And it was never going to – what with Him weak from eating only grubs. He needed proper meat to eat. Males do.

  ‘There was nothing to eat in the sky, so He looked down at the Earth. And there He saw those nasty lumps of demonmales twitching to life. And He saw other species staring up at Him, and turning blind from looking into His burning fury. He saw those species that are not protected with fur or feathers, starting to roast from His terrible heat. And what did He think to Himself then? They look tasty. That’s what. And this is when He realised His most dastardly plan. Who’s crying? Well, who is it?’

  ‘Me. Only Truly Polperro always tells happy stories.’

  ‘Well, “Me”, this will be a happy story when we’re done, but first the truth must be told, and this is it – the Sun set His demonmales to grab the planet’s furless females and spurt fire inside them, to cook them up for Him to eat.

  ‘So the demonmales set to, and for years they have been using demonic tools called Love and Marriage, to trick females into letting themselves be spurted with fire. When females are cooked enough, inside and out, the demonmales drag them down to the Bowels of the planet to finish them off on a spit. Every night, when we are sleeping, He’s busy down below eating female flesh. And every day He grows stronger. And one day, unless He is stopped, He will smash through the lid of the sky and take over Heaven.’

  ‘But what about Truly?’ a little voice wailed in the dark.

  Well, that stopped my telling sure as piss on a matchstick.

  ‘Yes, Clam, what about Truly? Won’t she be dragged down to Bowels, now she’s gone and been—’r />
  ‘Well,’ I said quicksharp. ‘Well, thank you very much, whoever, for cheering us all up. Now just remember, Truly ain’t known to be sure and certain dead yet, is she? No. And even if she was foolbrained to go climbing the Wall without her headscarf, there were protecting clouds about. And His moonstain ain’t never as strong as His real burning self. And she did fall in the Wall’s shadow. And I’ll say it again, Truly ain’t known to be dead just yet, so cheer up. Or if you can’t cheer up, can you hush up a bit, so I can get on?’

  Well, the sobbing wasn’t quietening, but I sat up and raised my voice and said, ‘Come on, sisters, this ain’t sisterly. See, sisters, you aren’t the only ones crying. No, the Goddess Daughter also blubbed like a baby when She peeped through the lid and saw what was happening to all the females on Earth. So She tried to think up a plan.’

  ‘Is this us, Clam?’

  ‘I am coming to us, if you wait on and let me tell you.’

  ‘In your own time, eh, Clam.’

  ‘Thank you, Nancy.’ Mother alone knows why she chose to rescue Nancy, she really does. ‘Anyway, so the Goddess Daughter pulled out a hair from Her own head. She planted it unbroken, so it would grow practically perfect in every way.’

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘Yes, all right, Millie, she don’t like her name being shouted out by us. And the Goddess Daughter said to this new Daughter, who is also known as our Mother, “Pop down to Earth and build an army to take on the demonmales at their own game.” She said, “I’ve got just the spot to grow them, it’s called North Wales. There’s a pretty Walled Garden, and what’s more, the Sun doesn’t bother with Wales very much.”

  ‘So Mother tumbled down from Heaven. Except, and this is most unfortunate, sisters, a breeze blew her off course, so she landed in an oak tree outside the Garden, not in it. So He sent an army of His foulest demonmales racing to the oak. And all at once the ground swarmed with—’