Authors: Kate Thompson
‘And you are . . .?’
‘Stark raving mad, to come to a place like this,’ said Tina.
‘It’s quite possible,’ said Mother. ‘But you’re welcome anyway. Albert said there were three of you, but I thought his sums must be wrong. I’m so glad to see a girl!’
But Tony had waited long enough. ‘Stop waffling, Mother,’ he said. ‘Get this clobber off me!’
She did. I could hear Danny laughing behind me as the pony shook himself hard and rolled in the snow, threatening to flatten some of the smaller animals. I heard the outraged squeals and grunts, but I didn’t see the havoc. Something else had caught my attention. I was looking over at the huge façade of the house, and wondering whether it was an old building or a new one built in traditional style, when I spotted someone who was clearly reluctant to come and join the welcoming throng. Beside the door a
small
, thin figure crouched against the wall. It could only be Sprog.
Maggie took me by the arm.
‘Come on in,’ she said. ‘You must be worn out.’
There was something strange about the girl, and I turned back to get a better look. But the front of the house was blank. She had already gone.
2
I DIDN’T SEE
her inside, either, and when I asked about her, Maggie said that she was shy, and would turn up when she was ready. I succeeded in staying awake over breakfast, which we ate in the cavernous kitchen at the back of the house. To my disappointment, Maggie ordered all the animals outside, except for the dogs, who were always allowed in, and Darling, whose success in her mission gave her special privileges.
‘Just because they can talk doesn’t mean they’re people,’ she told us. ‘We don’t want them getting soft and spoilt.’
I wanted to hear more, but my exhaustion overcame me. Maggie showed us all upstairs to where seven or eight bedrooms opened off a maze of corridors and landings. When we had seen them all, Maggie told us we could take our pick. I chose the one that was nearest.
In the enormous double bed I slept right around the clock, waking only once to sleep-walk my way to the bathroom. When I was finally ready to get up, it was around midday, and the whole of that huge house seemed to be empty. I wandered through the silent rooms, hoping to
find
someone; hoping as well that I might, accidentally-on-purpose, stumble across the lab.
But I didn’t find anyone or anything. Even the kitchen was empty; the bare wooden table cleared and scrubbed. The idea came to me that everyone had gone; moved on, or been kidnapped, and a momentary panic erupted from my solar plexus and shot through my limbs. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Sprog.
It was only a glimpse, but it was enough. She had been at the kitchen door, watching me, and had slipped back into the shadows as I turned. I looked up and down the hallway and behind the enormous umbrella plant that stood beside the front door, but I couldn’t see her.
‘Sprog?’ I called.
‘Don’t call me that,’ she said, emerging from the drawing room behind me.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I thought it was your name.’
‘Well it’s not,’ she said, firmly. ‘My name is Sandra. You can call me Sandy if you want.’
‘OK,’ I said. But I wasn’t really thinking about what she was saying. I was too busy trying to get a good look at her without appearing to be as gobsmacked as I was. Because she was one of the weirdest people I’ve ever seen. She was even thinner than Tina, with long, spindly arms and legs, like a stick insect. She had bony hands, with round, prominent knuckles, and her feet seemed far too big for the rest of her; almost clownish. And her face . . .
I dropped my eyes, aware that I was ogling.
But
it was already imprinted on my mind. Her face was like one of those mummies that you sometimes see pictures of. The skin was brownish, and stretched so tightly over her bones that I could see the shape of her skull beneath.
I didn’t succeed in hiding my shock, because she said, defensively, ‘I’m one of you.’
I didn’t understand. ‘Oh?’ I said.
‘I’m not one of those smart animals. I’m one of you. Like Danny. I’m Danny’s sister, you know.’
‘Oh,’ I said again.
‘Half-sister, actually. I don’t like it when the animals call me Sprog. Because I’m not.’
I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but I didn’t want to say ‘Oh’ again. So I said, ‘Fine. Pleased to meet you, Sandy.’
She grinned with unexpected delight and her defensiveness evaporated. ‘Pleased to meet you, too, Christie. Come on. I’ve been ordered to give you the grand tour.’
Sandy took a bunch of keys from a hook beside the back door and led the way outside. Oggy and Itchy were lying beneath a bare elder bush chewing on mutton bones, and I wondered briefly if there was ever going to be an end to that old sheep. They abandoned them and joined us, and Sandy unlocked the door of the garage beside the house. Inside was a small BMW, surrounded by mountains of household junk. There were dusty trunks, bits of garden furniture, a
shelf
of power tools, and boxes of screws and nails.
‘Just in case you ever need to fix anything,’ said Sandy.
‘Nice car,’ I said.
‘We never use it. Hardly ever, anyway. Sometimes Mother has to drive across the country to get supplies and equipment or seeds.’
‘She needs stuff for the lab, I suppose?’ I said.
Sandy looked askance at me, and didn’t reply.
‘Where is it?’ I went on. ‘The lab, I mean.’
‘Out of bounds,’ said Oggy.
‘No exceptions,’ said Itchy.
‘Completely forbidden,’ said Sandy.
I was disappointed. I wanted to see what a modern lab really looked like, and what went on there. And I wanted to know what Maggie was doing.
‘Why is it out of bounds?’ I asked.
But if any of them knew, they weren’t going to tell me.
3
WE CLOSED THE
garage door behind us and followed a well-trodden pathway in the snow until we came to a fork. One way led towards a smart courtyard surrounded by cut-stone buildings and the other vanished into the shadows of an avenue of tall trees.
I saw Tina walking across the courtyard with a bowl in her hand, and I called out to her. She called back and waved in a cheerful fashion which didn’t seem like her at all. I started out along that path, but Sandy said we’d go there on the way back, and led the way with light, springy strides between the trees. Before long we came out of the avenue into a large, bare orchard. Darling was there, rooting for grubs in the withered grass beneath the snow. She was with two of her brothers and a pair of blackbirds, who flew yickering away in panic when we arrived, then returned to natter and cluck from the branches a few yards away.
‘Is that all you have to say?’ said Sandy.
‘Ah, naff off, Sprog.’
I wasn’t looking. The three starlings had got mixed up and I was trying to work out which one was Darling. All I heard was a foreshortened
rattle
of alarm, and when I turned to look, Sandy was standing several metres away with the furious blackbird in her bony hand.
She couldn’t have been there. No one could move that fast. My senses were playing tricks on me, somehow.
‘My name is Sandy,’ she was saying, sternly. ‘What’s my name?’
‘Sandy!’ piped the blackbird in strangled tones.
‘Again?’
‘Sandy, Sandy, Sandy!’ said the blackbird.
‘And don’t forget it!’ said Sandy, launching the bird into the high air, where it hung for a moment before diving for cover in a dense bramble thicket.
‘Apples,’ said Oggy.
‘Huh?’
‘Apples, pears, plums, cherries. Hardy varieties,’ said Sandy. ‘Sometimes they even have a bit of fruit on them. Which the birds always get before we do.’
‘You should get up earlier,’ said Darling.
But my thoughts were elsewhere. ‘How did you catch that bird, Sandy?’ I asked.
She made a grabbing motion in the air with her long hand but it was meaningless. I had enough on my plate with the talking animals; I couldn’t handle any more mysteries just now. It was easier to believe that my perceptions were faulty.
So that was what I did.
4
BEYOND THE ORCHARDS,
in a south-facing hollow sheltered on two sides by the hills, was a double row of perspex buildings reflecting the white sky. When I first saw them I thought that they had to be something spectacularly space-age. I was sure that the lab was there, and maybe more; an electronics factory or a communications centre or a space programme. But they were hothouses, that was all. For growing Fourth World’s food.
Danny was there with his mother. They were planting out seedlings from trays into a newly-dug bed. When Danny saw me he came trundling over, grabbing a spade on his way.
‘Digging, Crumbly,’ he said, shoving the spade into the soft earth with characteristic vigour. ‘Dig, dig, dig. I digged all that!’
‘Good for you, Danny,’ I said.
‘And now I’m planting. Look, Crinkly, look!’
He did his wobbly dance again, back to Maggie’s side and, with his big, clumsy fingers, removed a delicate seedling from the blocking tray, roots, soil and all. Choosing the spot carefully, he set the seedling into the earth and gently firmed it in.
Oggy sniffed at it approvingly.
‘It’ll grow,’ said Danny. ‘It’ll be a big cabbage for our dinner. They all will.’
He indicated several neat rows of plants that he and Maggie had already put in. Darling and the other birds were hopping between them probing the soft soil with their beaks, and flitting off with worms and grubs.
‘Great to get some help at last,’ said Maggie. ‘It’s been quite a struggle since Bernard and Colin left.’
‘It has, that,’ said Sandy; a bit sourly, I thought.
‘Who’s Bernard?’ I asked.
Sandy said, ‘My father,’ and Maggie said, ‘My partner,’ both at the same time. A slight unease entered my heart from somewhere, but I didn’t have time to examine it.
‘You dig,’ said Danny, thrusting the handle of the shovel into my hand. It was the last thing I felt like doing.
‘I . . . well . . .’ I began.
Maggie laughed. ‘No need,’ she said. ‘We’re almost finished here now.’
‘No,’ said Danny. ‘Not finished.’
‘You stay, then,’ said Maggie. ‘Do some more digging. The rest of us are going in for some lunch.’
Danny dropped the shovel as if it was red hot and made for the door, the little flock of birds scattering ahead of him. The rest of us followed, more slowly.
Maggie fell in beside me. I was flattered and anxious, both at the same time.
‘You all right, Christie?’ she asked.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Fine.’ I prayed that I wasn’t blushing. I felt I might be.
‘Good,’ said Maggie. ‘And Danny seems very happy.’
‘Danny’s always happy,’ I said. But I knew what she meant. There was something different about him. As though he belonged here in this off-beat place in a way he had never really belonged out there. In normal society.
We were walking through the snowy orchard. Ahead of me were three of the most unusual people in the world, two unusual dogs, and a flock of unusual birds which, I noticed, seemed to be growing larger. It wasn’t only Danny who didn’t fit in with regular society. None of them did, and nor, I realised, did Tina. I didn’t know how it had come about, but she was already side-lined by the established community. People like her were considered to be failures or dropouts; embarrassments to be avoided by the great shopping majority.
I dropped behind the others as we walked back, thinking about that ‘normal’ society, which wasn’t so normal any more. I thought about Mom and Maurice and what might be happening at home. I could still hear that answer-phone talking into space, and now I could hear the click as my receiver went down. I wished I had said something. I wished I could talk to Mom now.
But what would I say?
Maybe it was right that I had brought Danny
and
Tina here, where they could be accepted for what they were. But one big question remained unanswered. What about me?
5
TINA JOINED US
for lunch. She was wearing a pair of clean jeans and a red sweatshirt, presumably on loan from Sandy. There was a spring in her step, and as she sat down at the table I realised, with something resembling a pang of envy, that she, too, seemed to be radiating contentment.
‘The goat kids know nearly as much as I do,’ she said to Maggie. ‘But there’s no talk out of the pups yet. I think they’re still too young. They keep going to sleep.’
‘Pups?’ I said.
‘I’ll take you to see them when we’re finished,’ said Tina. ‘They’re absolutely gorgeous! Teeny, tiny Dobermans, all round and podgy.’
‘You want to watch their mother,’ said Sandy. ‘Don’t go in on your own until she knows you.’
‘Watch their father and their uncle, too,’ said Oggy from under the table. ‘Grrr. Nasty on a dark night.’
‘He’s right,’ said Maggie. ‘And none of them are talking dogs, so there’s no point in trying to reason with them. But they’ll all be fine when they know you. As soon as they realise you’re part of the family.’
I spoke without thinking. ‘I’m not part of the family. My family lives in Cork.’
An uncomfortable silence threatened to fall, and Maggie nipped it in the bud. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course they do. And you’re free to go back there any time you want to.’
I knew I wasn’t, though. Not while the oil crisis lasted.
‘Can I use the phone? Ring Mom?’
‘We don’t have one,’ said Sandy. ‘Who would we ever want to talk to?’
‘What about your dad?’ I said. ‘Where has he gone?’
‘That’s a big story, Christie,’ said Maggie. ‘We won’t go into that now. But we have an Internet connection. Do your folks have e-mail?’
There had been a lot of talk about it, but they never got round to it.
‘How can you have the internet without a phone?’ I asked.
‘We just don’t have a receiver. Decided against it.’
‘Why?’
Maggie avoided the question. ‘There’s a public phone in the village,’ she said. ‘Oggy will take you, won’t you, Oggy?’