by Gene Kemp
‘You’re sure the towel is hers, no doubts about it?’
Cherry’s mother shook her head.
‘It’s her towel,’ she said quietly, ‘and they are her shells. She must have put them up there, must have been the last thing she did.’
Cherry saw her shells spread out on the open towel and stifled a shout of joy.
‘We have to say,’ he went on, ‘we have to say then, most regrettably, that the chances of finding your daughter alive now are very slim. It seems she must have tried to climb the cliff to escape the heavy seas and fallen in. We’ve scoured the cliff top for miles in both directions and covered the entire beach, and there’s no sign of her. She must have been washed out to sea. We must conclude that she is missing, and we have to presume that she is drowned.’
Cherry could listen no longer but burst into the room shouting.
‘I’m home, I’m home. Look at me, I’m not drowned at all. I’m here! I’m home!’
The tears were running down her face.
But no one in the room even turned to look in her direction. Her brothers lay on their arms and cried openly, one of them clutching the giant’s necklace.
‘But it’s me,’ she shouted again. ‘Me, can’t you see? It’s me and I’ve come back. I’m all right. Look at me.’
But no one did, and no one heard.
The giant’s necklace lay spread out on the table.
‘So she’ll never finish it after all,’ said her mother softly. ‘Poor Cherry. Poor dear Cherry.’
And in that one moment Cherry knew and understood that she was right, that she would never finish her necklace, that she belonged no longer with the living but had passed on beyond.
The Horn
SUSAN PRICE
I visited a school and met a boy named Jason, who told me this story.
He said he took some friends from the town to visit a cousin of his who lived in the country. He thought they were going to have a great day, but one of his friends spoilt things by bringing along an older boy named Millfield, who was a real big-head, a right show-off. All the time they were on the bus he kept on about the fights he’d been in, and how much beer he could drink, and all these lies. He had a swastika tattooed on his forehead. He was a proper berk, Jason said.
Jason’s cousin Sarah was waiting for them at the bus stop. She wasn’t pleased about Millfield being with them; he was the kind of person who made himself disliked in two minutes. But she didn’t say anything because she thought he was one of Jason’s friends.
Jason and Sarah took the others round, showing them the river, and the trees they could climb, and the sandstone cliffs and caves, the woods and all the things they’d come to see. Millfield kept trailing after them saying things like, ‘Is this the best there is round here? Ain’t you got any pubs, or anything good?’ Jason wanted to tell Millfield to clear off, but he didn’t, in case Millfield was really as tough as he kept saying he was.
One of the other boys, Adrian, was mad about natural history, and animals, and he got on well with Sarah. When they were in the wood, Sarah started telling him that there’d once been this huge forest there, that had grown right over the Midlands and up into Yorkshire, and this little wood was all there was left of it. But there’d been wolves, and deer, and bears in the forest once, right where they were standing. They were getting proper excited, these two, going on about the wolves and bears, so, of course, Millfield had to come up and start: ‘How could a wood go from here to Yorkshire? And there’s no bears in England. You’re stupid.’ And when Sarah said there had been, once, Millfield said, ‘Well, so what? Who cares? All these trees are stupid anyway. You should cut ’em all down and build some place you can get a drink.’
Sarah turned her back on him, and asked Adrian if he’d like to see some nestlings; and he said yes, so they went off. The others followed, and Millfield trailed after them, deliberately making a lot of noise, to frighten away any animals that they might see. Jason turned round and saw that Millfield was pulling branches off the trees, breaking saplings in two and just doing damage, for no reason. ‘Stop that,’ Jason said.
‘You going to make me?’ Millfield said. Jason had known he would say that.
Jason told him that he shouldn’t tear the trees, because they were alive. ‘They’re about as alive as you are,’ Millfield said. ‘Anyway, if I want to break ’em, I shall, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.’ So Jason ignored him, since arguing was only making him worse.
The part of the wood Sarah took them to was quite a way. Every few yards there would be a great rush of birds into the air, and bird cries all about them, and then a deep silence stretching away through the trees, a silence that seemed to echo with the sound of wings. Sarah said the birds were wood pigeons, and their being disturbed like that meant that no other people had been there for a long while, and by flying up the birds had warned all the animals in the wood to keep quiet and still.
‘The old days must have been like this,’ Adrian said. ‘Isn’t it great?’ There was nothing to tell them that it was the twentieth century except their own clothes, and it was so quiet. It could have been Roman times, when there were bears, or the Middle Ages, when there were wolves – they might have gone back in time without noticing it. It was a bit frightening, but really great, Jason said. They thought that, any minute, a bear might come along through the trees – but instead, Millfield came clumping along, saying how stupid everything was. He’d have frightened off any bears that might be about. ‘You’re the stupid thing,’ Jason said to him, and Millfield said, ‘I’ll put one on you in a minute. You want to take me on? I’ll kill you.’ He always got you into conversations like that. He was so boring.
‘Oh, shut up,’ Sarah said, and he did. Sarah brought them to where the nestlings were, and they took it in turns to peer into the nest from a distance at the ugly little things, all opening their beaks. They were careful not to get too close, or touch, because Adrian said the parent birds wouldn’t come back and feed the little birds if they did; and Sarah said that was right. Then somebody spotted a squirrel, and they turned to watch that. When they looked at the nest again, Millfield was standing there. And he’d taken the nestlings from the nest, and broken their necks, and dropped them on the ground. He stood grinning at them, sort of proud and ashamed at the same time.
They stood and stared at him. Now why had he done a thing like that? What good had it done him? He made you feel sick and tired, Jason said.
Sarah said, ‘You’ll be sorry you did that.’
‘Who’s going to make me sorry?’ he said. ‘You going to get your dad on to me? I’ll kill him. I’ve got a knife, you know.’ And he pulled this knife out of his pocket. He thought he was so tough.
‘Let’s go,’ Sarah said, and walked away, and the others went with her. Millfield followed, shouting that they were scared, scared, scared, and big babies. They didn’t answer him back, because the sound of his shouts among the trees was frightening – not because they were scared of him so much, but because it was as if no one should shout like that there – like you shouldn’t shout in a church and you feel bad if you do. Millfield’s big, yobbish yells echoed from the trees, and travelled a long way, and you got this creepy feeling that something – something a long way off – might hear and come. But Millfield went on yelling, because he thought he was annoying them.
The way Sarah was taking them went deeper into the wood, and the paths were more overgrown. It was hard to get through, a lot of the time. Millfield was making a smashing, crashing row, breaking his way through the branches. They came to a little stream, where the ground was black mud. A big tree was growing there, and hanging on the tree was a bow and arrows, and a horn, a real, old-fashioned horn, for blowing, like you see in films. The arrows were in a long bag, made of leather – they could tell by the smell that it was leather – and the arrows smelt of wood and feathers. The bow was hanging by its wooden part from the bag of arrows, and it was a long bow, longer than any of
them were tall – except for Millfield, maybe.
They stopped and looked at these things. The stream made a tiny, trickling sound as it ran beside them, but it was dead quiet there. They were scared to speak, or even to make a noise by moving. And they were scared to touch the things, they were so strange. Not the sort of things you expect to find, even in a forest, these days. Who had put them there?
Then Millfield came up and said, ‘Somebody’s been playing Robin Hood!’ And he started shouting, ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are! Come out and let’s see you in your little tights and your little green hat!’ His voice went off for miles through the trees, and kept coming back in echoes. The others heard little, quick rustles of movement in the leaves around them, and then the quiet would be even quieter, until Millfield started bellowing again. If there was somebody about – somebody who’d left that bow and arrows there – then that person could hear Millfield all right, and knew exactly where Millfield and the people with him were – but they couldn’t hear or see the owner of the bow and arrows.
They told Millfield to be quiet, but that only made him worse. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, and he was unhooking the horn from the tree. ‘Robin Hood’s supposed to come if you blow his horn, isn’t he? Shall I blow it and see if he does?’
‘Robin Hood blows his horn to call his men,’ Sarah said. ‘And you’d better leave it alone. You don’t know who it belongs to. Put it back.’
‘I don’t care who it belongs to,’ Millfield said, and he blew the horn. It made a peculiar noise, a bit like a trumpet does when it’s blown by someone who doesn’t know how to play it properly. But he blew it again, two or three times.
Sarah suddenly started running away from the tree, and they all ran with her – except Millfield. They didn’t know why. But as soon as Sarah moved, it was as if she pulled them with her on a string.
You know that feeling you get when you’re on your own in the house and you’re positive that there’s somebody standing right behind you, watching you, Jason said. It felt like that after the horn was blown, but it was even more scary, because it was in a forest, not a house. It was as if every tree was alive, just as he’d told Millfield, but alive and staring too. The silence in the forest – which was full of little noises and breaths – got quieter and quieter, but even more full of little noises and movements that you couldn’t quite hear or place, but which were all around, on every side. It was as if a net had been put round that place in the forest and was being pulled tighter and tighter, as something came nearer and nearer.
Behind them, they could hear Millfield laughing and calling them names, and tooting on the horn, just as if he hadn’t noticed anything – but then they heard him give a yell. They didn’t see what had happened to him, because they were facing the other way and running. But Millfield started running himself. They knew, because of the noise he made. And he was yelling at the top of his voice. He sounded really scared, but they couldn’t tell what he was saying.
They were out of breath, and they stopped running and listened. All they could hear for a while was Millfield – but then there was another sound. They all recognized what the sound was, but it was a long time before they would admit it, because it was so frightening. A long time after Jason and Sarah told each other what they had thought at the time, and they both agreed that the sound had been the sound that an arrow makes in films and on television. The sound of an arrow being shot from a bow, flying fast through the air, and then hitting something. But since neither of them had ever heard an arrow being shot except on television, they couldn’t be sure that was what it was. But after that sound, they didn’t hear anything of Millfield.
They were afraid to go looking for him. They all ran home to Sarah’s house, and they told Sarah’s mum that they’d lost a friend they’d had with them – they didn’t say anything about the horn, or the bow and arrows, or what they’d heard. They were too scared.
Millfield hadn’t turned up by the time the boys went home, and he didn’t show up at his own home either. So he was reported missing, and people started looking for him. He was found, in the wood, close by where he’d killed the nestlings. He was lying face down in the leaf mould, with his arms spread out, and he was dead. There was nothing to show why he’d died, and there certainly wasn’t an arrow in him. Jason read the report in the newspaper, and listened to it on the television and radio, and none of them said anything about horns, or bows and arrows, or even of there having been anybody near Millfield when he’d died. ‘Local boy found dead in wood’ – that was all. There had to be an inquest, and the coroner said he’d died of heart failure. But he’d only been seventeen. ‘So it was weird, wasn’t it?’ Jason said.
I asked Jason if everything he’d told me was true. He said it was, and he knew it was, because he’d been there.
‘It’s a good story,’ I said. ‘Your cousin Sarah was right – there was a forest, hundreds of years ago, that went from the Midlands up into Yorkshire. Know what it was called?’
‘Yeah,’ Jason said. ‘Sarah told me. It was Sherwood Forest. So like I say, it’s weird, isn’t it?’
Hi! It’s Me
MARJORIE DARKE
Understand first that I like to be noticed. Right? Having got that out of the way, I’ll explain that I don’t mean all heads turning as I walk down the street, like they do if you happen to be a movie star or someone famous. I’m talking about ordinary give and take. A friendly wave of the hand. ‘Hi!’ shouted as you pass a mate. Things of that sort.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t go round carrying a chip on my shoulder. Normally I don’t think about being noticed at all. Why should I? There are plenty of good mates in my life. We chat and fool around and generally have a great time. To tell the truth, I’ve never given the subject two seconds thought before. But today has changed all that.
I’ll explain.
Between leaving the hospital gates and passing Crenshaws, which can’t be more than a hundred metres of street, I’d been cut dead three times. Honest! No exaggeration. First it was by Bri and Linda. Well … they’re always gazing at each other so hard it’s a wonder they don’t walk into lamp posts or fall down subway steps, so I suppose it was understandable. The second lot I could excuse as well. A bunch of kids from my year at school came yahooing out from the turn-off to the swimming baths. They were all over the place like kangaroos escaped from the zoo. Probably never saw me.
But with Terry it was different.
He came loping along, his great mitts stuffed into his pockets and that spray of dark hair which never will lie flat standing erect like a yard brush. I could hear him whistling out of tune as usual, and when he came nearer I saw he was looking directly at me.
I met his gaze. ‘Hi, Terry!’
He didn’t seem to hear. I got the uneasy feeling that something was badly wrong. We were closing in and his eyes, still meeting mine, were totally blank.
I said ‘Hi!’ again, this time nudging him with my elbow as we drew level, sending him slightly off course. He brushed past as if I was a stranger. Not a flicker of recognition. Not even the faint look of irritation you might throw at someone who had bumped into you accidentally-on-purpose.
‘Terry!’ I said. Loud.
He went on walking.
‘Terry … Gerry!’ We’d always had this joke about our rhyming names. ‘It’s me, you berk.’
We were separated now and I watched his skinny back and long legs moving away down the street. It was the most skilled freeze-off I’d ever seen. And he was supposed to be my best mate! I racked my brains to search out what I’d done to offend him. I couldn’t recall a thing, and anyway, cutting people dead isn’t his style. He can be moody as hell all right, but whatever the cause he’s far more likely to react by booting a Coke can from here to next Tuesday or bellowing at you in a foghorn voice than by stalking past like this.
But there had to be some answer. Perhaps if I was to work my way through yesterday step by step I’d get a clue. I
t had been a pretty odd sort of day now I came to think about it … if I could think about it …
An unsteady feeling took hold. Not dizziness, but as if bits of my inside had wrenched loose and were floating about. Ever since leaving the hospital gates, something had nagged at me. Now I knew what it was. A haze, a kind of patchy fog, lay over the time in hospital and a lot of the previous day. Little corners were left sticking out here and there, but nothing joined up. A clear picture of a pudding dish loaded with jam tart and custard – Terry’s face very close as he shovelled the food into his mouth – fell into my head. So did the strong urge to push his guzzling mug down into the sticky yellow gunge. Had I done it? Was that why he’d treated me to the big freeze? The picture faded leaving only fog. My face and armpits sweated. Terry was still in sight, and suddenly furious, I left off worrying about him. He’d offended me!
‘Up you then!’ I shoved two fingers in the air.
He must have heard me shout, but he didn’t turn round. Neither did the old bloke or the woman who were passing arm in arm. There was a girl too, wheeling a pram. She shaved by me with only whiskers to spare. The baby, sitting up, was eating its shoe. None of them paid me the slightest attention. I could have been a litter bin or a road sign or something. It was almost like I wasn’t there! I know people can be next thing to blind when they are in town shopping. They go into a sort of trance, eyes glazed as they barge along, crushing toes and carelessly stabbing you with umbrellas. But I really had made a terrible din yelling like that. They must have heard. And it’s human nature to turn and stare at anyone who makes a racket.
