School Days

by Ruskin Bond

  One day Mr Clayton said to my mother: 'Dis boy is like a young Samuel, and gwine be a preacher one day. Mark my word. He honest and does tell the whole truth. And as from today, he will watch over my garden like Adam. And I will give him a whole penny for the whole week till school holidays end.'

  My mother bowed low and raised the broom ever grateful.

  'I so thankful, neighbour Clayton. Sunshine not roaming about with them bad boys stoning the dogs, and thiefing up you pineapple and soursop and sapodillas.'

  'I done try everything to stop them from thiefing mey fruits. I get a bad dog, but even that dog eat mey food and run away. I sprinkle broken bottles around the garden but is only I who getting mey own foot cut up. Madam, if them boys don't stop robbing me of my honest living I go just have to try the one last thing. . . .'

  My mother dropped her broom.

  'Not the sea-in-the-bottle curse? O Lord, neighbour Clayton, please don't put that magic spell on none of them bad boys. Take out you belt, and swell up they skin blue-black, but don't put that lifelong curse on them. Now that my Sunshine is your watchman there is no need to put that curse on nobody.'

  Everyday now I watched the garden as Mr Clayton rode off to sell mangoes, oranges, star-apples, and chataigne, a small black nut, loaded in the wooden box chained to the back of his Raleigh bicycle.

  That weekend I asked my mother what was this sea-in-the-bottle fairy tale.

  'You young people does make a joke of everything we big people knows is true. That same curse is what kill Widow Critchlow onliest son. The boy thief the Shango preacher breadfruit. And preacher Lucas put the sea-in-the-bottle curse on the poor widow son.'

  So loudly I laughed that my mother struck me with the broom.

  'You think is "nancy story - fairy tale, " eh?'

  Coughing, my eyes were filled with tears from laughing.

  Daily, from my window I watched the backyard - crowded with guavas, cashew nuts, plums, coconuts, and a banana tree with a large bunch of bananas.

  'Boy, see that bunch of bananas. Guard it as the apple of you eyes,' Mr Clayton repeated as he swung his leg high over the saddle, clinging the bell, and shouting as he rode through the village: 'Fruits, fresh fresh fruits! Two for the price of one.'

  As soon as his voice died away, I leaped over the galvanised fence between his house and ours, scrambled up the plum tree, and filled my pockets. Behind his pigsty was a pepper tree with peppers thick like my little finger. In a spoon of salt I crushed the pepper with each plum which I sucked dry and pelted the plum-seed as humming birds pecking at the red rosy cashew, a longish meaty fruit with a light green nut that hung from thin crooked branches.

  That cashew tree was my next target.

  Much too tired to ever notice any plum missing, Mr Clayton gave me the penny which I dropped into my Ovaltine bank under my bed. Soon I would be able to buy the Parker fountain pen from Chin Lee, the Chinese shopkeeper. For a long time now I had been dropping pennies earned from errands, including the extra penny for guarding the banana tree.

  But one day stepping on a plum-seed, my neighbour shouted out: 'Sunshine boy, what kind of watchman you is? It look like I not going to pay you no penny. Why for you letting them bad boys thief mey plums and mey cashew nuts! I warning I going to put the sea-in-the-bottle curse on they head.'

  I was ready with an answer for the silly old man.

  'Is not no boy what stealing you nice sweet plums, Mr Clayton. I see with my two eyes those black ugly birds picking the plums. Don't worry. I have my slinging-shot ready and a pocket of small pebbles for them thiefing birds.'

  All right boy, I believes you. I going to sell mey fruits again. But here is another extra penny. Please keep you two eyes on that bunch of bananas. I getting three whole penny for each banana.'

  These extra pennies were filling up my Ovaltine bank. Soon I would be able to buy myself a real pen instead of the twig I sharpened and heated into a hard point, which I dipped in the small jar of ink squeezed from black berries growing on vines along the fence.

  No sooner had he gone than I leaped over the fence, and with my pocketknife cut a yellowish banana from the underside of the greenish bunch.

  'Ha, ha' I laughed the next day. 'Mr Clayton blind like a bat. He can't see behind the bunch.'

  And, the next day I stole my second banana.

  On the third day, Mr Clayton did not go to sell fruits.

  'My patience run out,' he complained to my mother. 'I is not Job, nuh.'

  From the Chinese shop he came back with a green bottle shaped like a banana.

  Aha, this is the fuss and last time for that thief,' he swore. 'They gone too far this time.'

  'What you going to do with that baby bottle, Mr Clayton?'

  'Boy, I paying you a whole big penny not to bother big people with you chupid question. When school open, ask you teacher questions. Next time you ask chupid questions, I go give you two hot slap, one slap on each side of you face, and it go burn you more than them hot peppers.'

  I held my breath. Did he suspect me?

  'I paying you a whole big penny for what?' he thundered. 'Cause in this two last weeks, you let them bad boys steal mey cashew nuts, mey dried coconuts, mey mangoes, mey oranges and even mey peppers behind the pig pen. But, now they touch the forbidden fruit. They think I born yesterday? Or I blind like Mr Lomas? But this bottle going to capture the real thief.'

  Mr Clayton held up the green bottle to the sunlight.

  I studied the bottle which tapered in a narrow neck at each end. I knew mothers put two nipples one on each end and fed their babies from one of the nipples they pricked with a long heated needle.

  The next day Mr Clayton was busy pasting the green bottle with some yellow polish, the kind he pasted on his canvas shoes.

  'From now on this bottle going to be my new watchman.'

  Though I felt he had gone crazy with his old wives' tale, I yet begged Mr Clayton not to fire me. All I was thinking about was the green fountain pen the Chinese shopkeeper promised to knock a whole penny off.

  But Mr Clayton said nothing to me as he rode away to sell his fruits.

  What could that yellow bottle do? My teacher from the city often laughed about this piece of village black magic.

  The bottle glittered in the sunshine almost blinding me. It hung by a yellow cord from the stem of the bunch and looked like a banana itself. Perhaps my neighbour believed some boy would take the bottle for a banana, bite into it, and break all his teeth.

  Very funny, I smiled as I vaulted over the fence, and twisted off yet another banana from the back of the bunch. Then, tapping the bottle, I saw water moving to and fro like waves in the sea. 'Maybe Mr Clayton thinks a baby is stealing his bananas.' I laughed and greedily bit off a large chunk of the banana not quite ripe yet.

  Footsteps, and quickly I swallowed in large lumps the whole banana, and hid the greenish peel under my bed.

  Earlier than usual my mother had come home from the sugarcane fields where from between rows of sugarcane beds she plucked weeds or sprinkled salts at the roots of the young sugarcane for fifty cents a week.

  Just then, too, Mr Clayton came rolling in his bicycle, which he leaned against a coconut tree, and tramped through the bushes directly to the banana tree. He loosened the cord, and swung the bottle to and fro. 'The sea is rough - the waves are high!' he shouted jubilantly. 'Soon the village shall know the thief!'

  My mother stopped her sweeping and rushed to the window.

  Up and down the road Mr Clayton was howling, showing off the bottle. Another worst day for Waterloo,' he cried aloud. 'That thiefing boy had better come forward. He stole my bananas. And the sea-in-the-bottle was on the banana tree.'

  My mother was looking at me as I stood outside our gate, looking at the village children flocking around Mr Clayton, swinging the bottle before his eyes.

  'See this bottle. I filled it with sea water. Yes, this bottle is filled with salt water from the sea. Now you all knows that the tide r
ise in the early morning and again the tide rise in the late evening.'

  I held back laughing aloud. But my stomach began aching, and I doubled over.

  'Speak up!' Mr Clayton bellowed. 'Which one of you children stole mey banana? Speak before it is too late. For before the sun goes down today, I will ride down to the sea and toss this bottle deep down into the water. When the tide rise, the belly of the thief will also rise.'

  Down in my stomach I felt more stabbing pains.

  'When the tide go out and fall, the belly of the thief will flatten out normal again,' he harangued.

  Fearfully boys and girls looked to one another. Wildly they begged the other to confess. Some of the girls began crying while the boys began looking suspiciously one to the other.

  'Up and down for the rest of his life the belly of banana thief will rise and fall like the tide!'

  I gulped down air, my stomach churning like an angry sea.

  'Dear children of Waterloo, confess your sin. Please, I am begging you. For when I tosses this bottle into the sea what happen to Widow Crichtlow onliest son will happen to one of you. You thief mey plums, mey papaya, mey cashew nuts, even mey green peppers. But there was no curse on them trees.'

  My mother shouted: 'Come right dis minute in dis house, Sunshine. Stop listening to what doesn't concern you. Let the guilty person pay for they own sin. I has to sweep under you bed.'

  Too late for me.

  The next moment my mother with the banana peel in her hand was chasing after Mr Clayton just as he was about to ride off with the bottle down to the sea.

  'Please, neighbour Clayton, spare my boy. I'm a poor widow. Who will see about me in my old age? Please, don't throw that bottle into the sea, and curse Sunshine for the rest of he life.'

  Mr Clayton hopped off his bicycle.

  My mother, dragging me by the hair, while I held on to my stomach, began whacking me with the broom.

  'I promise you, neighbour that this untruthful boy go water you garden twice daily, till school open again, if you will only spare this wotliss boy.'

  Mr Clayton scratched his head, narrowing his eyes at me.

  'This wotliss boy make a fool out of a big man for too long,' Mr Clayton said, rolling the bottle about in his palms. 'Then Sunshine gone and make me falsely blame these innocents children here.'

  He turned to the boys and girls: 'Can you trust a friend who tells untruth, who tell sinful lies to you?'

  Not one of them answered but stonily fixed their eyes upon me so that I felt like crawling into the bottle.

  My mother dealt me another loud blow.

  A lump of banana popped up out of my mouth.

  In a chorus, singing 'Banana boy!' all the boys and girls mocked and teased, running off, in two's and three's, and continued chanting through the village that Sunshine was the banana thief.

  My mother was crying. 'I give you my blessed word, neighbour Clayton. If this little lying boy just miss one day watering you fruit trees, I myself go throw him and - and that bottle in the sea.'

  My neighbour seemed very pleased.

  Later that afternoon my mother twisting my ears, dragged me across to the pink hut of Mr Clayton.

  'To show you, neighbour, that this boy mean to keep his promise, Sunshine has come to give you back all the pennies he didn't honestly work for.'

  The Brothers and the Witch

  Ian Fellowes Gordon

  So many of the well-confirmed tales of the supernatural have as their setting either the extreme north or the extreme south of the British Isles that one is inclined towards the theory that occult and supernatural beings prefer the wilder coastal settings. Be that as it may, the following events have been told so often and are so firmly established in local lore that many Cornishmen believe in their reality as firmly as they do in the historical reality of, say, the Duke of Wellington - who, it just happens, was achieving high fame at the time.

  IT WAS AN AUTUMN EVENING IN THE YEAR 1810; AND THE TOWN was Helston, where the Lizard peninsula can be said to begin. The peninsula leads down to the Lizard Point, the most southerly feature of England's mainland. Helston is the home of the famous Flora dance and was later in the century to claim as one of its sons, the boxer, Bob Fitzsimmons.

  Two apprentice saddlers, Charlie and Jim Williams, were in their attic bedroom in one of the roads off the steep high street, rather uncomfortably perched on stools.

  'But what's wrong, Charlie?'

  'Nothing. It's nothing at all. Just that I'm not tired. I don't see why, just because we're apprentices, we have to be in bed by nine. I could stay up for hours. We could have a game of cards, now, couldn't we?'

  Jim, the elder brother, all of thirteen years, but a strapping lad, almost a man, looked at his eleven-year-old younger brother. Why, if ever a boy needed eight hours between the blankets, it was little Charlie Williams. There were great black shadows under each eye, the complexion was pale, almost grey.

  'Never mind, Charlie. I think Mr and Mrs Carver know what's best for us. And in a year or two, we'll be our own masters, able to get to bed when we want.'

  'I suppose so. But I still don't want to go to bed. Not here - in the Carvers' house. I have terrible dreams, Jim.'

  'That's because you eat too much things last night. A huge great slab of Mrs Carver's bread and cheese isn't the thing to dream on. And washed down with her ale. You're too young for that. Just try cutting down on the grub.'

  'Oh! all right.' Young Charlie threw the last bit of bread and cheese into the fireplace.

  It had taken the boys a month or so to get used to the Carvers. Helston was quite a distance from their home at Marazion and Mr Carver had at first seemed gruff, almost hostile, and definitely so when the boys made stupid mistakes. 'Saddler can't suffer fools gladly, lad. It's more than the business is worth, having shoddy work turned out.'

  But a moment later Mr Carver was all smiles. 'I'm sorry, lads. I get a bit gruff sometimes. But I like the pair of you. Sure you're getting enough to eat?'

  'Oh yes, sir. And thank you, Mrs Carver, it was a beautiful supper, really it was. '

  The cosy Mrs Carver, roughly as wide as she was high, would then embrace the boys in turn.

  So it was a happy enough life. But this new hatred of going to bed which was being shown by young Charlie Williams worried his elder brother. He would lie in the next bed, unable to sleep while the younger brother seemed to fight the onslaught of sleep. Usually Jim was asleep before the muttering and the rolling in the next bed had stopped.

  The next morning he was, for the first time, horrified at his younger brother's appearance. The boy was ashen and his lips were trembling so that he could hardly speak.

  'Now Charlie, you must tell me. What are these dreams you're having?'

  'It's nothing. Tonight - well, I won't have any supper at all, not a morsel. And if I have the same dream, I'll tell you about it'

  'The same dream? Why, do you always have the same one?'

  'Yes.'

  'But you've got to tell me now. The dreams are exactly the same?'

  'Not exactly. But almost. And they're - they're awful—'

  To the older boy's dismay, young Charlie burst into tears and cried as if his heart would break. Jim held him tight, and eventually the weeping stopped. 'I'm sorry. Just being a cry-baby.'

  'No, you're not. We all get to cry a little, now and then. But you mark my words, if you're like this tomorrow morning, I'm getting Mr Carver to fetch the doctor. He'll give you some physic, and that'll put you right.'

  'Very well. Tell you about it tomorrow, if it happens again.'

  The day passed fairly uneventfully, except that the dog-tired Charlie made more mistakes than usual and Mr Carver was obviously holding himself in rein. Jim took him aside. 'It'll be all right, Mr Carver, sir. Charlie just hasn't been sleeping. And if it's the same tonight, I'll ask you if you'd be getting the physician to see him.'

  'Physician? But don't you think, Jim my lad, that it's maybe just homesickness?
I could always send him home to your parents for a few days, there's a stagecoach or diligence leaves quite often—'

  'I don't think it's homesickness, Mr Carver.'

  Mr Carver was concerned. Perhaps the boy was not getting enough to eat and drink, and that would be a terrible disgrace. Mrs Carver would make sure he got a really good supper from now on. And though he didn't approve of young lads having much ale at the best of times, maybe a mug or two more of it might give the lad a good night's sleep. Certainly did for him: an extra quart and he slept as if he'd been hit with a blacksmith's hammer. That is, until he had to get up and run some of it off, of course.

  He intimated these thoughts to Jim.

  'We'll see, sir. I think maybe tonight he ought to have a very light supper, just as a try-out, you might say. And then I'll tell you about it in the morning.'

  That night the two brothers went to bed at the usual hour, both of them rather hungry. For at least half an hour Jim Williams stayed awake, hoping to hear the peaceful breathing of a younger brother being welcomed into the arms of Morpheus. But he was tired from his own exertions in the saddler's workshop and he fell asleep, leaving Charlie still tossing and turning.

  In the morning he was again shocked at his brother's appearance. Without wasting time, even before they got out of their little wooden beds, he demanded the full story. 'Come on. I'm going to hear all about this dream, every bit.'

  'You wouldn't believe it.'

  'That's for me to judge.'

  All right, then. Well, it happens just the same way every night. Don't even know whether I'm awake or asleep when it happens—'

  'When what happens?'

  'You see this bed of mine's nearer the door than yours is. Every night a horrible woman comes in that door, makes straight for my bed—'

  'What's she look like? Like Mrs Carver?' To Jim's delight, he managed to draw a pale smile over the other's features.

  'No, but she is fat. She seems to be dressed in brown or black, though it's hard to see, really. And her long, sort of grey-black, hair, it's piled on her head like a bun. Reminds me of someone round these parts, but, well, I just can't remember exactly. But she's terribly strong, grabs me by the neck. I can't possibly call out or do anything. And yet she weighs - she hardly weighs anything at all. She gets to fix a bridle, right over my head. I think it must be one of Mr Carver's—'