The Borrowers Aloft (13 page)

Where, we sometimes ask ourselves, do all the sewing needles go? And the drawing pins, the matchboxes, the hairpins, the thimbles, the safety pins? Factories go on making safety pins, and people go on buying safety pins, and yet there never is a safety pin just when you want one. Where are they all? Now, at this minute? They cannot all just be lying somewhere about the house. Who takes them and why? It must—one begins to realize—be something or someone who is living quite close beside us, under the same roof; something or someone with human tastes and almost human needs; something (or someone) very secret, very hidden—under the floorboards, maybe, or behind the wall paneling. Very small, of course—that stands to reason—and very busy, always improvising, always "making do." And brave—they must be very brave to venture out into the vast human rooms (as dangerous to them as such rooms are to mice) seeking the wherewithal on which to sustain their lives. Who could grudge them the odd pencil stub, the occasional bottle top, the used postage stamp, or the leftover sliver of cheese? No (it takes all kinds, as they say, to make a world): we should accept their hidden presence and gently leave them alone. Children call them "The Borrowers."

"A
ND NOW
," said Arrietty to Homily, "tell me what-you-used-to-do..."

The phrase, run together in one eager breath, had lost its meaning as words. It described an activity, a way of passing the time while engaged in monotonous tasks. They were unpicking sequins from a square of yellowed chiffon: Homily unpicked while Arrietty threaded the glimmering circles on a string of pale blue silk; It was a fine spring day, and they sat beside the grating let into the outside wall. The sunlight fell across them in crisscross squares, and the soft air moved their hair.

"Well," said Homily, after a moment, "did I ever tell you about the time when I lit the big candle?"

"And burned a hole in the floorboards—and in the carpet upstairs? And human beans shrieked—and your father beat you with a wax matchstick? Yes, you've told me."

"It was a candle my father borrowed to melt down for dips. It shined lovely," said Homily.

"Tell me about the time when the cook upstairs upset the boiling marmalade and it all leaked down between the cracks—"

"Oh, that was dreadful," said Homily, "but we bottled it, or most of it, in acorn cups and an empty tube called morphia. But the mess, oh dear, the mess—my mother was beside herself. There was a corner of our carpet," added Homily reflectively, "which tasted sweet for months." With a work-worn hand she smoothed down the gleaming chiffon, which billowed smokelike on the moving air.

"I know what," cried Arrietty suddenly. "Tell me about the rat!"

"Oh, not again," said Homily.

She glanced at herself in a sequin, which—to her—was about the size of a hand mirror. "I'm going very gray," she said. She polished up the sequin with a corner of her apron and stared again, patting her hair at the temples. "Did I ever tell you about Poor Stainless?"

"Who was he?" asked Arrietty.

"One of the Knife Machine boys."

"No...," said Arrietty, uncertainly.

"That was the first time I went upstairs. To look for Stainless." Homily, staring into the sequin, lifted her hair a little at the temples. "Oh dear," she said, in a slightly dispirited voice.

"I like it gray," said Arrietty warmly, gently retrieving the sequin. "It suits you. What about Poor Stainless—"

"He was lost, you see. And we were all to go up and look for him. It was an order," said Homily. "Some people thought it wrong that the women should go, too, but there it was: it was an order."

"Who gave it?" asked Arrietty.

"The grandfathers, of course. It was the first time I ever saw the scullery. After that, once I knew the way, I used to sneak up there now and again, but no one ever knew. Oh dear, I shouldn't say this to you!"

"Never mind," said Arrietty.

"Poor Stainless. He was the youngest of that family. They used to live down a hole in the plaster on a level with the table where the knife machine used to stand. They did all their borrowing in the scullery. Practically vegetarians they were—carrots, turnips, watercress, celery, peas, beans—the lot. All the stuff Crampfurl, the gardener, used to bring in in baskets. Lovely complexions they had, every one of them. Especially Stainless. Stainless had cheeks like apple-blossom. 'Merry little angel' my mother used to call him. All the grownups were mad about Stainless—he had a kind of way with them. But not with us. We didn't like him."

"Why not?" asked Arrietty, suddenly interested.

"I don't know," said Homily. "He had mean ways—well, more like teasing kind of ways; and he never got found out. He'd coax black beetles down our chute—great things with horns they were—and we'd know it was him, but we couldn't prove it. And many a time he'd creep along above our floorboards with a bent pin on a string and hook at me through a crack in our ceiling: if we had a party, he'd do it, because he was too young to be asked. But it wasn't any fun, getting hooked by Stainless—caught me by the hair, once he did. And in those days," said Homily complacently, taking up another sequin, "my hair was my crowning glory." She stared into the sequin reflectively, then put it down with a sigh.

"Well, anyway," she went on briskly, "Stainless disappeared. What a to-do! His mother, it seemed, had sent him out to borrow parsley. Eleven-fifteen in the morning it was, and by evening he hadn't returned. And he didn't return that night.

"Now you must understand about parsley—it's a perfectly simple borrow and a quick one. Five minutes, it should have taken him: all you had to do was to walk along the knife machine table onto a ledge at the top of the wainscot, drop down (quite a small drop) onto the drainboard, and the parsley always stood in an old jam jar at

the back of the sink—on a zinc shelf, like, with worn holes in it.

"Some said, afterwards, Stainless was too young to be sent for parsley. They blamed the parents. But there was his mother, single-handed behind the knife machine, getting a meal for all that family and the elder ones off borrowing with their father, and, as I told you, Stainless was always out anyway directly his mother's back was turned, plaguing us and what not and whispering down the cracks—'I see you,' he'd say. There was no privacy with Stainless until my father wallpapered our ceiling. Well, anyway," went on Homily, pausing to get her breath, "Stainless had disappeared, and the next day, a lovely sunny afternoon, at three o'clock sharp we were all to go up and look for him. It was Mrs. Driver the cook's afternoon out, and the maids would be having their rest.

"We all had our orders: some were to look among the garden boots and the blacking brushes; others in the vegetable bins; my father and your Uncle Hendreary's father and several of the stronger men had to carry a wrench with a wooden spoon lashed across it to unscrew the trap in the drain below the sink.

"I stopped to watch this, I remember. Several of us did. Round and round they went—like, Crampfurl does with the cider press—on the bottom of an upturned bucket under the sink. Suddenly, there was a great clatter and the screw came tumbling off and there was a rush of greasy water all over the bucket top. Oh dear, oh dear," exclaimed Homily, laughing a little but half ashamed of doing so, "those poor men! None of their wives would have them home again until they had climbed up into the sink proper and had the tap turned on them.
Then
it was the hot tap, which was meant to be lukewarm. Oh dear, oh dear, what a to-do! But still no Stainless.

"We young ones were taken home then, but it was a good four hours before the men abandoned the search. We ate our tea in silence, I remember, while our mothers sniffed and wiped their eyes. After tea, my younger brother started playing marbles with three old dried peas he had, and my mother rebuked him and said, 'Quiet now—have you no respect? Think of your father and of all those brave men Upstairs!' The way she said 'Upstairs' made your hair stand on end.

"And yet, you know, Arrietty, I liked the scullery, what I'd seen of it—with the sunshine coming through the yard door and falling warm on that old brick floor. And the bunches of bay leaf and dried thyme. But I did remember there had been a mousetrap under the sink and another under the bottom shelf of the boot cupboard. Not that these were dangerous—except for those who did not know. Our father would roll a potato at them, and then they would go click. But they'd jump a bit when they did it, and that's what startled you. No, the real danger was Crampfurl, the gardener, coming in suddenly through the yard door with the vegetables for dinner; or Mrs. Driver, the cook, back from her afternoon out, to fill a kettle. And there were other maids then in the house who might take a fancy to a radish or an apple from the barrel behind the scullery door.

"Anyway, when darkness came, the rescue party was called off. Our mothers made a great fuss of the men, thankful to see them back, and brought them their suppers and fetched their slippers. And no one spoke above a whisper. And we were sent to bed.

"By that time, we, too, felt grave. As we lay cozily under the warm covers, we could not help but think of Stainless. Poor Stainless. Perhaps he'd gone
past
the trap and down the drain of the sink into the sewers. We knew there were borrowers who lived in sewers and that they were dreadful people, wild and fierce like rats. Once, my little brother played with one and got bitten in the arm and his shirt stolen. And he got a dreadful rash.

"Next day, the two grandfathers called another meeting:

they were the elders, like, and always made the decisions. One grandfather was my father's great-uncle. I forget now who the other was..."

"Never mind," said Arrietty.

"Well," said Homily, "the long and short of it was—we were all to go Upstairs and go throughout every room. That old house, Firbank, was full of borrowers in those days—or so it seemed—and some we never knew. But we was to seek them out, any we could find, and ask about Poor Stainless. A house-to-house search they called it."

"Goodness!" gasped Arrietty.

"We was all to go," said Homily.

"Women and children, too?"

"
All,
" said Homily, "except the little 'uns."