Everlasting Lane (7 page)

When I told him he said, ‘I used to live in London. That’s where my dad lives.’ His eyes twinkled behind heavy lenses. ‘He says it’s much better than living in Amberley.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Are you Tommie?’

‘How do you know?’

‘Anna-Marie told me.’

His face blazed bright red. His lip stiffened. And he punched me.

‘What is it, Lambchop?’ asked Mr Gale looking up from the blackboard.

‘Nothing, Sir,’ I said, rubbing my arm.

‘Right. Good,’ said Mr Gale, ‘but maybe writing:
I must keep my Neanderthal outbursts to myself
, thirty times during playtime will encourage you to contain your enthusiasm.’ He returned to his chalk. ‘Oh, and as Winnie’s causing you a bit too much excitement, why don’t you move that big ol’ stool next to Smelanie? You won’t find self-control so much of a struggle under her influence.’ Smelanie—I mean Melanie—Finch blushed as she slid her pencil case, rubber, ruler, gonk and dictionary to one side.

Tommie turned around as I moved my stool and settled into my new place, his lenses flashed with anger as he mouthed: ‘I hate you!’

I must keep my nandatarl outbursts to myself,

I must keep my narandatall outbursts to myself,

I must keep my nanatall outbursts to myself,

I must keep my nranndatawl outbursts to myself …

It just wasn’t a word I knew, although I turned Smelanie’s dictionary inside out trying to find it.

Melanie Finch wrote feverishly all morning long and even glancing at the clock didn’t slow her down. Her pen flashed across the page leaving dazzling loops and curls. It made my own writing look rubbish but when I asked to borrow a rubber, Melanie puffed.

‘You’re not allowed to use a rubber.’

‘What?’

‘You’re supposed to use a pen,’ she hissed. She wrestled my pencil from my hand, ‘
Pens
are for writing,’ and shoved a pen in its place, ‘pencils are for maths, and crayons,’ she returned to her story, ‘are for babies.’

‘Why?’

‘
Why?
’ She looked at me as if I was demented. ‘It’s the
rules
,’ and with an exasperated huff she turned her sharp little shoulder blade towards me.

As the lunch bell rang, Melanie’s hand was a skyrocket. ‘Finished, Sir!’

“Finished, Sir!” squealed Mr Gale, marking books. He didn’t look up as he said, ‘Well done, Finchy. Leave it on the ol’ desk.’ A thick finger indicated a tall, untidy pile. ‘I’ll look at it later.’

‘Couldn’t you read it now, sir?
Please?
’

‘Tell me, Finchy, does the last sentence read
and then I woke up and it was all a dream
or words to that effect?’ He still hadn’t looked up.

Melanie’s voice, when she did answer, was soft as snow and twice as cold. ‘I didn’t have enough time.’

‘Oh, Finchy, you know how I feel about all that Alice-in-Wonderland-crap,’ said Mr Gale. ‘Now, put it on my desk and I’ll look at it later.’

Melanie slapped her story on top of the tottering heap before returning to her place, cheeks flushed with fury.

‘Psst.’ I looked up. ‘Hey.’ It was Tommie Winslow. ‘Peter,’ he said, ‘can I borrow something?’

I nodded warily. After all, I had nothing to lend.

He leant back towards me, his chair balanced on its back legs. ‘This,’ he said grabbing the piece of paper on which I’d been working. With a smirk of triumph he reduced it to a crumpled fistful and launched it smartly in to the wastepaper bin.

During playtime I wandered around the playground peering into classrooms, checking apparatus, studying the fancy dovecot that gave the school its name. Tommie was on the field playing football. I could feel him watching me, so I tried to look as if I had more important things on my mind whilst listening to the footballers’ cries, the hopscotch and the singsong rhythms of the skipping-rope rhymes:

And then I saw Anna-Marie.

Back towards the school was a climbing frame and swings. It was a double swing but the seat of one was missing so the chains hung loose. Anna-Marie, her tatty cardigan now knotted about her waist, was sitting on the other, one foot dragging in the dry dirt.

I was about to run up to her when Tommie appeared and grabbed my arm. ‘Do you want to play footie?’ he said, pulling me away. ‘You can be on my team but you’ll have to be goalie.’

Before I could answer we were distracted by a loud voice. This scary-looking woman, a dinner-lady who could just as well have been a dinner-man, was shouting at Anna-Marie. ‘Mrs Carpenter says nobody plays on the swing!’

‘I’m not playing, Miss Lennox,’ said Anna-Marie, shyly investigating a bruise that had appeared at her throat. ‘I don’t play games.’

‘You don’t follow rules either,’ snapped Miss Lennox. ‘Now, off the swing!’

‘Why?’ asked Anna-Marie. ‘I’m not hurting anybody.’

‘If you don’t get off this swing, I’m going to take you to Mrs Carpenter.’

‘Hello, Juliette.’ A very pretty young woman with a bundle of dark blonde hair had emerged from a nearby classroom. ‘Is there a problem?’ The new lady wore a tracksuit and a bright blue bib with ‘GA’ printed on the front in big white capitals.
A whistle and a pendant hung side by side around her neck flashing in the sun.

Miss Lennox’s eyes rolled up and down the younger woman from the top of her curly mop to the toes of her plimsolls. ‘No, Miss Pevensie,’ she said with a sigh. ‘No problem.’ She glanced at Anna-Marie. ‘Just the Queen of Sheba here doesn’t think the rules apply to her.’

‘It’s a stupid rule, Miss Pevensie,’ whined Anna-Marie. ‘It’s just a swing. It’s not like I’m going to kill myself.’

‘Come on,’ nagged Tommie. ‘Are you playing?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m going to help Anna-Marie.’

‘No, you’re not!’ he said. ‘I am!’

‘Oh, look, Miss Pevensie,’ said Anna-Marie as she saw us coming, ‘it’s Tweedledum and Tweedlethick.’ She looked at us as if we were a pair of brown blobs floating in her semolina.

Miss Pevensie puffed out her cheeks. ‘Lordy, Anna-Marie,’ she said, ‘why don’t you do us all a favour,’ as she spoke she seized a fistful of the hair on the top of her head, ‘and get off the swing?’

Anna-Marie sighed and slid to the ground. ‘Okay, Miss Pevensie,’ she said, and then, ‘Well, Miss Lennox, you’d better get me to the old … dear before I change my mind.’ The skipping-ropers stopped to watch as Anna-Marie marched across the playground towards the school building, Miss Lennox spluttering in her wake. Some of the older girls, including Melanie Finch, laughed or hissed at her as she passed.

‘Anna-Marie,’ I said, ‘I—’

‘And you two,’ she snapped, ‘can bog off!’

Tommie Winslow was much friendlier after lunch. I didn’t know why. He lent me his felt tips and showed me, to Melanie’s annoyance, the answers to the maths.

‘Well, Winnie,’ said Mr Gale, ‘Peter’s done very well on his multiplication.’ Tommie nodded. ‘And now I can … I can … I can re
tire
with satisfaction. I’ll tell you what though,’ he said slapping Tommie hard on the shoulder, ‘why don’t you accompany me to the big ol’ blackboard and explain it to the rest of the class?’ Tommie didn’t move. ‘Stage fright? Not to worry, Winnie my boy, pack yourself off to Mrs Carpenter and explain it all to her instead.’

‘Please, Sir.’

‘
Please,
Sir.
Please,
Sir,’ repeated Mr Gale, veins throbbing on his temples. ‘Listen, boy,’ he snarled, ‘I am
not
paid enough to put up with your silly games. Don’t take me for a fool, boy! D’you hear me? Don’t take me for a fool!’ Tommie nodded, his thick-rimmed glasses filled with fear. ‘Maybe fifteen minutes at home-time every day this week will make my point for me.’

Tommie’s face collapsed. ‘A week?’

‘Oh, and, Lambchop,’ continued Mr Gale with a smile, ‘if you don’t understand, ask
me.
That’s my job. What would I do all day if Winnie were to start teaching the class? That makes sense, doesn’t it?’ I nodded. ‘Fine, fine,’ he said. ‘Glad to get that cleared up.

‘Now,
kids,
why don’t you get out your folders and finish off your river poems? And if you’ve finished your poems you can … How about a poster for the summer fair? Or something.

‘Winnie, take young Lambchop here down to the office
and ask Mrs Ingalls to give him a topic folder of his very own. Wha’d’you say? Splendid.

‘Put your hand down, Smelanie. You sound like a gerbil.’

Tommie led me from the classroom to the playground and into a small space between the bins behind the generator.

‘Won’t we get in trouble?’

Tommie shook his head. ‘What do you think of him?’

‘Mr Gale?’ I said. ‘I don’t know. He gets really angry.’

‘I think he might be mad,’ whispered Tommie. ‘Once, I was off ill for three days and he read my note to the class. It said that I’d been sick and … stuff. Who would do that? Well, everybody laughed and … Well, some of the girls called me … Well, stuff for weeks. He thought it was funny,’ said Tommie. ‘My dad says I should stand up for myself.’

‘Are you friends with Anna-Marie?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Tommie. ‘I thought
you
might be friends with her. That’s why I didn’t like you.’

‘
I
thought I was friends with her.’

Tommie frowned. ‘Did Anna-Marie ever ask you who your favourite Roller was?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh … What did you say?’

‘Woody.’

Tommie laughed. ‘Ha,’ he said. ‘It’s Les. You see, apart from me, Anna-Marie isn’t really friends with anyone.’

Back in the classroom, Tommie returned to his seat but shot straight back up again, letting out a yelp. Mr Gale rushed to him and placed an arm around his shoulder. ‘What on earth’s wrong?’ Tommie flinched as he removed a drawing pin from his behind. ‘Oh, my Lord!’ exclaimed Mr Gale. ‘Whoever’s responsible for this heinous crime? Speak now or forever hold your penis.’ Nobody even looked up from their work. ‘Oh, well, Winnie,’ said Mr Gale, a big grin on his face, ‘it looks like we may never get to the
bottom
of it.’

Tommie turned to me. ‘See?’ he mouthed. ‘Mad!’

My name is Peter Lambert. I am aged ten years old.
‘Lambchop.’
I was nine years old the night my father died.
‘Lambchop!’
Or ten. I don’t remember
—

‘Lambchop!’ Mr Gale was scowling over my shoulder, his large fingers squeezing creases into my work. ‘It’s not much to show for a whole—’

I grabbed the crumpled paper from his hands and tore it into strips. Melanie gasped and everybody else stared at me like
I
was mad.

Mr Gale looked startled. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, nodding towards the pale-eyed children whose table stood apart from the rest beneath the window, ‘we should put you with the special-learners.’

I slipped the shreds of torn paper into my pocket.

At the end of the day Tommie was in his detention and, still upset from Anna-Marie at lunchtime, I was pleased to find Kat waiting for me, lurking with her back to the crowd of mothers standing by the gate. She seemed relieved to see me and took me quickly by the hand but it was already too late. This one woman had turned round as Kat called my name and was staring at her open-mouthed. I recognised her right away. It was that fat lady from the Lodge.

‘Well, bless my soul!’ she cried.

Kat was about to speak when I squeezed
her
hand as hard as I could, you know, before she broke the rules of the game. I was just in time.

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled to the fat lady and we scurried off like two blind mice.

There was no pavement on the main road, so, hand in hand, we pressed back against the cushion of the hedgerow as vehicles passed. It was warm and we breathed the scent of honeysuckle and other sweet summer smells. Kat took a deep breath, sighed and began pointing out the boundaries between the different farms.

‘Isn’t it beautiful, Peter?’ she said. ‘Wasn’t it right to come here?’ And then, ‘Oh, my goodness! Look!’ In the distance, maybe half a mile away, there was that man again, the one I told you about, in the middle of a field turning from one direction to another. Kat stopped and stared. She bit her lip and trembled. ‘I haven’t seen him in years.’

‘Who is he?’

‘That,’ said Kat, ‘is the Scarecrow Man.’