The First Book of Calamity Leek

by Paula Lichtarowicz

  ‘Is this the injuns, Clam?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Millie, and now I’ll have to say it again.’

  ‘Don’t bother, eh.’

  ‘And all around the oak, Nancy, an army of fearsome injuns—’

  ‘Ha!’ Now I should say this laugh weren’t from Millie or Nancy. Oh no. It was thrown out loud and sudden from the wall by the mending room.

  ‘Annie?’

  Weren’t like injuns were for laughing about.

  She shook her head and snorted.

  ‘Annie, ain’t like injuns are for laughing at.’

  ‘Sorry, Clam, but Truly Polperro said she didn’t see no injuns outside the Wall. That’s what Truly said – “no injuns”.’

  Well.

  Well, I tried not to look at Annie like she hadn’t just chucked the whole truth of our Creation into the shit pit. ‘Annie,’ I said low and warning, ‘you ain’t to interrupt me.’

  Annie shrugged. ‘All I’m saying is, there’s something peculiar here.’

  I started up again quick. ‘And all around the oak, them snarling injuns—’

  ‘But Truly didn’t see no injuns. Didn’t you hear me, Clam?’

  ‘With them ears, eh eh eh!’

  ‘Shut up, Nancy.’

  ‘Yes, Nancy, please be quiet a moment.’ Annie hunched up before me, flashing her green eyes right up in my face. ‘Clam, listen. I know that the Appendix says injuns are prowling outside the Wall, waiting to rip off our heads, course I know it says that. But listen, Truly told me she didn’t actually see no injuns out there. Not with her eyes.’

  Well.

  Well, the hiss that escaped me then was hotter than steam. ‘Blasphemy, Annie. That is utter blasphemy you’re speaking, and you better get it scrubbed clean out of your head.’

  ‘No need to shout, eh, Flap-ears.’

  ‘Well, yes, Nancy, yes, there is need to shout,’ I said, shooting her a look and then shooting my eyes straight back to Annie. ‘You scrub out that blasphemy right now, Annie St Albans. Right now. Right now. Right now.’

  Course, when I look back, I see I should have crushed Annie’s blasphemy like I would a snail in petals. I should have torn out its body, and split its casing under my heel, before it set about devouring the whole crop. That’s what I should have done. But I only had words, see. And Annie wasn’t ever one for hearing my words.

  But now it wasn’t just Annie. Now Dorothy was up and grasshopping her bones all hot and bothered about the dorm.

  ‘It is peculiar,’ Dorothy said. ‘There must be a reason why Truly saw no injuns out there. Caterpillars turn to pupas, and pupas to butterflies. Algebra. These are things of perfect reason. Where is the reason in what Truly didn’t see?’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘We have better than reason, Dorothy, I am very surprised to have to tell you. We have the Ophelia Swindon Archives to listen to, the Showreel to watch, and our very own Appendix to read and treasure and to consult at any point, Dorothy. And if I could run out now and get it from the schoolroom, I think we’d find I for Injuns – red-skinned, feather-skirted, whooping demonmale warriors, set to prowl about Outside the Wall and tear wandering females into pieces with machetes or arrows. However, I will give you three perfect reasons, if you want, and you can choose any one of them to chew on. Number one – maybe Truly didn’t climb all the way up the Wall – it is a long way. Number two – maybe the injuns were sleeping – it was night. Number three – maybe they were sick, so they couldn’t whoop.’

  ‘Like me,’ sickly Eliza Aberdeen whispered from her lump.

  ‘Like sickly Eliza. And here’s another reason. Number four – it was dark – happen Truly couldn’t see proper. Or happen they were hiding. Or busy killing things – numbers five and six.’

  No one said nothing to this sense.

  Except then Aunty did. And I will always thank her for that.

  ‘Poo,’ Aunty said, pulling the bolts and swirling daylight into the dorm, in a shiny dressing gown, with yellow hair and her living eye painted up silver. Nosy bluebottles came zipping in behind. ‘Pooey. You’ve created quite a stink in here, haven’t you, dear hearts?’

  Aunty held her nose. She was still wearing her night-time moisturising gloves. ‘Nancy, Mary, Millie, run these slop buckets to the latrines before my skin is impregnated with faecal odour. Im-preg-nate, nieces. It means ruin beyond hope of repair. Do avoid it, nieces, if you can. Shake a leg, darlings, before I’m overcome.’

  Aunty moved out of the door to let them pass. She grabbed Mary’s plait. ‘Split ends, Mary Bootle, I won’t warn you again. Nancy, show me the belly. Dear oh dear, we are a little doughball, aren’t we? I can see I’m going to have to start weighing you, niece. Millie, how’s that T-zone?’ Aunty pinched Millie’s chin and dropped it quick. ‘Quel horreur, white spots! We must act without delay! All nieces are to hose down immediately and apply an oatmeal scrub and buttermilk all-body conditioner. Only then may you take breakfast and proceed to general Garden duties. Lessons and fight prep will be held after lunch. And darlings, do remember to soak your hands for the full ten minutes, before you even think about guzzling the milk. No milk for you, Nancy dear,’ Aunty shouted out the door, ‘until we’ve ditched that podge.’

  Aunty’s eye looked over us, and her mouth snapped open in a full-teethed smile. ‘My eye, but I’ve missed you, nieces. It shocks me to say it, but I really have.’ Mr Stick went counting down the row one by one, and bounced on the belly of Adelaide Worthing. ‘But where was I? Oh yes, I was saying there’s a wonderful surprise waiting outside. Oh, but hush my mouth, I don’t want to ruin it. Chop-chop, girls, headscarves on, and out with you!’

  Well, first off out, like the dorm was burning, was Annie St Albans. ‘Aunty, is Truly well? Can we see her now, please, Aunty?’

  ‘Yes, please, Aunty,’ I whispered. There would be some clear and common reason why Truly saw no injuns, which she would want to say to us. Most probably – Truly being Truly – at some length. Possible she was looking the wrong way. Yes, it was possible that was the most sensible reason of all. And I ran out to tell my sisters this. And I bumped into Dorothy’s back.

  ‘Something’s missing,’ she said. She was stopped dead in the eaves’ shady safety, ‘Something’s gone missing.’

  I looked quick round the yard.

  Schoolroom, beauty parlour, kitchen on the left. Our dorm and the pigs behind us. The fence and the gate to the roses in front. Hen coops stinking out chickenshit on the right of the yard, and behind them, the cowshed and the hives. Latrine shed and standpipe in the top corner, the hosepipe curled and ready on the latrine wall like it should be. Trestle table and bales stacked against the dorm wall, like they should be. Hens flapping round the sundial in the middle of the yard. And Maria banging away in her Hole below. Everything looked the same as any other morning of any other blessed yard day.

  ‘What could be missing, Dorothy?’ I said. ‘What is it now?’

  Dorothy didn’t answer me. She pulled her scarf end over her nose and ran off to the sundial. She squinted up at the sky, then down at the dial. ‘That’s it! There’s no Sun!’

  ‘Bingo!’ Aunty shouted from the yard gate. ‘Well spotted, Dorothy, you are a smarty-pants!’ She swirled around. ‘Take a look, would you, nieces.’

  There weren’t no Sun, because out past the roses, the meadow and the bog, the Wall of Safekeeping had grown taller than ever. Fat red bricks were piled on top of the old yellow ones. It stood up higher than the High Hut, higher than the plum trees. And on the Wall’s high rim, glass pieces sat twinkling like the prettiest of teeth in a gum.

  I looked up at our Wall, and it was all I could do not to shout ‘Bingo!’ with Aunty, it really was. Instead, I gave Nancy a happy pinch. ‘See, Aunty’s too clever for Him and His games! There ain’t no way no hiding injuns are ever going to sneak over that!’

  ‘Quite something, isn’t it, nieces?’ Aunty pointed Mr Stick at the Wall and started to spin faster than a Poppins umbrella. ‘I d
on’t mind telling you, I broke some of the bottles myself. You see, you, my precious little pennies, are just too priceless for Mother and myself to risk any more midnight mishaps. Isn’t that just lovely to know? And here’s my thought for the day – greasy skin lets boils in. À bientôt!’ And Aunty spun off through the yard gate, slamming it so happy she was probably off to see Mother.

  Course, Annie went chasing after, ‘Aunty, please, please, can we see Truly?’

  But Aunty was already spinning off into the Glamis Castles, swiping at buds and bees, and singing about there being somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, where there was a place that she’d been to, once in a lullaby.

  MAKING A BODY BEAUTIFUL

  BEES MAKE BEAUTY. This is a truth known by everyone, but not by you, Doctor Andrea Doors. Which is what is written down and clipped on your coat, in case you forget who you are, being so busy nosying after me.

  You come in this stinking room, like you do most days, and you come on over, and read these pages I have worked on most of the night, even though I didn’t say ‘Please do.’ And your forehead cracks up, and you say you’d like to learn a bit more about this Goddess Daughter, if I wouldn’t mind stopping writing for a minute.

  Well, sorry, but I do. There’s a lot needs setting straight before Jane Jones comes back. And then there’ll be a lot to get started on.

  ‘She sounds interesting,’ you say. ‘Making night and day and rainclouds.’

  It’s us that make the clouds, Doctor Andrea Doors. But if you don’t know that, I ain’t telling you.

  You flip through my pages a while, and I do some jab thrusts at the ceiling. And over on the chair by the wall, that lump of female that is always sat here lets off a moan. And you turn and smile at her and turn back to my pages, and then you frown. Which don’t help those cracks of yours at all.

  ‘Were you locked up in the dorm for one night or two?’ you say.

  And I don’t say nothing.

  And you say, ‘You know, Calamity, in my work I’ve met a lot of girls who have experienced bad things. Girls who felt confused and perhaps a little bit afraid, and who didn’t want to talk, because they felt it might be best to keep those bad things locked up inside. But in the end, many of them decided it helped to share their thoughts with someone. They decided it didn’t seem so lonely that way.’

  Well, all you have to do to stop loneliness here is set loose my sisters.

  ‘I know you’re writing down your memories, which is a wonderful start—’

  And I ain’t saying nothing till Jane Jones comes back.

  ‘—and there’s no rush, Calamity, you must take your time. I’d just like to suggest a little game for tomorrow. Do you think you might think of a word you like? A word you might like to say out loud? Would that be worth a try?’

  Well, I reckon I’ll have a spit now. On your shoes. Which will shut you up, I reckon. And it does. See, I ain’t saying nothing till Jane Jones comes back to talk protection, and that’s the truth. But I am going to write you a quick book, Doctor Andrea Doors. I think I am going to do that. From the look of you, it is clear you ain’t acquainted with beeswax, and it just might help fill up your lines. It might keep the demonmales from noticing a while. Though I ain’t promising nothing. Bees make beauty, but beauty can’t ever stop you cooking up once you’ve been started. Nothing can stop that, Doctor Andrea Doors.

  And I ain’t promising nothing for that lump of female that you are always smiling at and calling Mrs Waverley, and that has been here so long her bottom’s probably grown itself into the chair in the corner. Course, it ain’t like she does anything but drip from her nose and cry, which Aunty always said – and is also mentioned in the Appendix under S for Secrets, Snot and Skincare – ‘is most unfeminine, and ruins the tear ducts and turns your eyes to pissholes, and if a lady still has her eyes, well she’s a damn sight luckier than some, and shouldn’t ever forget it, nieces, nor should she ever use them for pissing either!’

  Course, an egg white poultice might help Mrs Waverley with her bloated tear ducts, but like Aunty also said, ‘I want the best for you nieces, but heavens above, I’m not a miracle worker.’

  So here it is.

  A BOOK ON HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL (UNLESS YOU’RE TOO COOKED ALREADY). BY CALAMITY LEEK.

  BASIC RULES TO MAKE THE BEST OF WHAT YOU HAVE

  Bind back what sticks out. Push up what hangs down. Don’t squeeze pus spots.

  TOOLS

  THE STANDPIPE – HOSE DOWN YOUR BODY ONCE DAILY AFTER MORNING LABOUR (BEFORE LUNCH AND LESSONS). SOAP AND LATHER TWICE. USE A STONE TO MASSAGE.

  THE TOOTHBRUSH – USE WITH PASTE AFTER EVERY MEAL.

  THE COMB – APPLY ONCE DAILY AFTER THE STANDPIPE. CHECK ANOTHER’S HEAD FOR LICE. ALL HAIR THAT IS GROWN LONG ENOUGH IS TO BE PLAITED UP. NOT TOO TIGHT TO BREAK THE ENDS.

  SUN-PROTECTING LOTION AND HEADSCARVES – TO BE WORN AT ALL TIMES OUTDOORS.

  FACE – WEEKLY TREATMENTS (APPLY BEFORE BEDDING DOWN).

  HONEY MASK – FOR A SOFTENING EFFECT.

  OATMEAL/BUTTERMILK FACE MASK – FOR A DE-GREASING EFFECT. WIPE FACE. SMEAR ON TREATMENT. AFTER TEN MINUTES, WASH OFF. OATS AND GRITS IS BEST FOR BLACKHEADS.

  HANDS – SOAK HANDS DAILY IN A MILK BOWL AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE FOR TEN MINUTES. PLEASE NOTE – IT IS ALLOWED TO DRINK OFF THE MILK AFTERWARDS – IT BEING GOOD FOR WHITE TEETH. (NB GLOVES TO BE WORN AT ALL TIMES DURING GARDEN LABOUR. NAILS TO BE CLEANED OUT AND FILED DOWN NEAT).

  HAIR HELP – YOU CAN’T BE TOO CAREFUL HERE, YOU REALLY CAN’T.

  HONEY, CURDS, EGGS MIX – APPLY ONCE A WEEK, UNLESS YOU’RE A TANGLED BUSH-HEAD LIKE ANNIE ST ALBANS, IN WHICH CASE YOU NEED TO DO THIS EVERY TWO DAYS.

  ADDITIONAL MEASURES –

  EGG YOLK CONDITIONING IS GOOD FOR GREASY HAIR LIKE NANCY’S, AND MIGHT ALSO BE GOOD FOR MRS WAVERLEY, IF YOU WANT TO TELL HER. UP TO YOU, DOCTOR ANDREA DOORS.

  VINEGAR AND WATER IS A PERFECT FINISHER FOR A MOTHER IS COMING TO LUNCH! DAY.

  BODY – HEAT UP BEESWAX WITH WATER AND FLORIBUNDA ROSE ESSENCE FOR CREAMY MOISTURISING EFFECT. APPLY WEEKLY TO FULL BODY, NIGHTLY TO HANDS, FACE AND NECKS AFTER CUSHION LABOUR. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS FILLS IN ALL KNOWN CRACKS, DOCTOR ANDREA DOORS !!!!!!!!!!!!!

  AND HERE’S THE APPENDIX’S QUICK B FOR BEAUTY REMINDERS –

  BEAUTY ISN’T A PART-TIME JOB – IT’S A FULL-TIME COMMITMENT.

  BEAUTY ISN’T A GIFT – IT’S A WEAPON.

  Hope this helps, Doctor Andrea Doors. I wouldn’t bother with your hair, seeing as it is dead, but do try rubbing beeswax in your face cracks. But like I say, it ain’t a cure and won’t deceive them demonmales for long. Sorry, but you’re too far cooked for that.

  By Calamity Leek. THE END.

  SPITTING IMAGE MARIA

  ANNIE HADN’T BUDGED her bottom from the mending room door.

  She was squatting there after breakfast, knocking on the wood and waiting for Truly to knock back, when I went to rinse my teeth at the standpipe. And she was stood there, picking at the lock on the bolt, while us other sisters were gathering to read the duty list on the dorm wall. Never mind that duties were to be done, the list said, without any distractions from a certain body in a certain room, if nieces know what’s good for them. Out of sight is out of mind, ladies. Never mind all that, because even while we ran about preparing for duties, Annie was still glued to the mending room door, picking at the bolt and calling ‘Hello, hello’ to Truly through the cracks.

  I dragged Maria out of her Hole, and over to the standpipe to give her a hosing down. Maria wasn’t ever listed as being a capable working body, but I reckoned that didn’t mean she couldn’t learn something by watching us, did it?

  ‘Annie, you coming on over to the Boules now?’ I shouted, keeping one hand on squirming Maria. ‘I reckon those sorry old Boules need some fair old TLC, and you’re listed with Mary and Millie and me to do it.’

  But Annie didn’t say nothing for dropping herself belly down in yard dirt.

  ‘An
nie?’ I said. ‘Well, don’t mind Annie,’ I said loud and clear to Maria, releasing her to run herself screaming dry in the yard, ‘because there’s them that are bothered about harvesting petal protection for all, and there’s them that ain’t. And besides, Maria, happen we might just pop by the Sacred Lawn on the way, and ask Emily for a miracle for Truly, happen we might.’

  Course, Annie’s head popped up at this. But then she shrugged and turned back down to start on talking to the crack under the door.

  We did stop off near the Sacred Lawn. Me, Mary Bootle and Millie Gatwick, and Maria, course. We had to be quick, the Lawn being Out of Bounds In All But Exceptional Circumstances, and Emily needing her space. But then I reckoned Truly was exceptional, wasn’t she? And Aunty was still off in the north with Mother.

  Still, I kept all my toes in the Glamis Castle soil on the south border of the Lawn and all off the grass. I kept my head ducked out of the Crème de la Crème climbing rose arch, which we had growing at every entrance to the Lawn circle – north, east, south and west, most probably so Emily could have a nice view from where she was stood in the middle, and nice smells too. Course, I couldn’t see more than Emily’s toes from outside the arch, but never mind, I closed my eyes and stuck my nose in a low-down Crème de la Crème and sniffed up its sweetness, and I asked Emily if she was listening in there to please help Truly get better, I really did.

  Mary Bootle finished first and turned and set off stomping down the barrow path east through the Silver Anniversaries. Mary was swinging her plaits something cross, and never mind them plaits were the longest in the Garden, they were bashing petals off the fullest Anniversaries as she went.

  I shouted for her to wait up. But Mary didn’t hear me, being too busy shouting on about the duty list always letting the Pontefract twins take care of the second-wind toddlers, and not her, and it wasn’t fair, was it? And that’s what Emily should really sort out if she was going to sort anything, and matter of fact, that’s what she asked her to do first, so there.