The Secret Five and the Stunt Nun Legacy (25 page)

‘Disastrous fire indeed!’ said Mrs Wells. ‘Impossible! Squire de Lylow has all sorts of Precautions here at the House. He employs one Person for each Candle that burns, and they have to watch to make sure it does not cause such a disastrous fire. Do you know, now you mention it, I started here as a Candle Watcher, but was soon promoted to Chief Wood-Louse Catcher before being demoted to Under Chief Housemaid. I never got over that. Anyway, the Candles are lovely when they burn brightly, and the gentle glow of the incandescent lights in the shards of silver seem to gleam in the bubbles that sparkle in our tumblers.’

‘Hmmm, good stuff, Mama!’ murmured Herbert, scribbling something in his note book and secretly wondering what the word
stuff
actually meant.

‘And another thing,’ Mrs Wells said. ‘The Squire has had Paraffin Lamps installed in the Best Rooms, and they are as safe as safe can be, compared to . . . compared to . . . erm, not having any Paraffin Lamps.’

Betty and Daniel weren’t at all convinced about the Candle Watchers, and Very Confused about the use of All The Capitals. Betty didn’t know whether to show Mrs Wells the autobiography to prove that there really was going to be a fire that would cause the Squire to emigrate to America but, before she could decide, Mrs Wells’ dialogue continued remorselessly.

‘Now,’ she said, firmly yet softly. ‘I am going to prepare a nice cold bath for you dear Children. I suppose I should use the old tin bath that’s hanging on the wall now it has been mentioned as a prop, but I am sure the Squire will not mind me using his Special Bathing Facilities while he is away in London. Get completely undressed, all of you, and I will be back down quicker than you can say compassion fatigue.’

Betty was quite shocked. ‘I’m not taking my clothes off in front of anyone, especially in front of
boys
!’

‘Oh, please do!’ pleaded Bertie. ‘I am earnestly seeking ways of destroying my self-respect and every little helps.’

‘I will!’ Daniel said in a strangely eager tone.

‘Er . . .’ said Bertie.

‘Woof woof woof?’ said Whatshisname.

Just then, much to Daniel’s disappointment, they heard a commotion from upstairs. ‘What’s that commotion from upstairs?’ Mrs Wells said. ‘My my, if I’m not greatly mistaken, it sounds like the voice of Samuel Landscape, the fairly local Policeman.’

The commotion seemed to be coming nearer and nearer! Whatshisname growled, then barked such a loud bark that it frightened all the dogs in the room. He ran under the table and cowered.

‘Why, it
is
you, Samuel,’ said Mrs Wells, as a tall Victorian Policeman dressed in a tall Victorian Policeman’s uniform appeared
in the doorway. ‘And what brings you here at such a reasonable hour? It’s not about the pig’s entrails again, is it? I made sure I tied them up very tightly before transportation up the lane, that I did. I know how much it upsets Vera the Nervous Victorian Vegetarian.’

‘No,’ said the tall Policeman in a loud Policeman’s voice as he entered the scullery, ducking his head and the top part of his shoulders so that he could get safely through the doorway. ‘It is certainly not the matter of the pig’s entrails that brings me here, Mrs Wells.’

Then he espied Betty and Daniel, who both thought that the tall Policeman looked really frightening, as well as being really rather tall.

‘Well well well Mrs Wells,’ he said. ‘What have we here? Are these the two Urchins that the Parson has told me about?’

‘Indeed they probably are,’ replied Mrs Wells. ‘I was just going to bathe them and scrub all their little nooks and crannies.’

‘Actually,’ said Betty, suddenly standing up. ‘We’re not Urchins at all. We’re really . . .’

But the Policeman held up his Policeman’s hand to stop Betty talking. ‘The narrative dictates that you stop talking,’ he ordered. ‘Sit back down on that Victorian scullery chair, girl Urchin.’

He walked up to the table and glared a long long glare at Betty. ‘Not only,’ he said in a rather official Policeman’s voice, ‘is she as unseemly as the Parson tried desperately to describe, nearly causing him a heart attack when he got to the bit about – well, never mind that – not only is she unseemly, but she’s got the cheek of the Devil himself, answering a Proper Grown Up like that.’

Betty thought it wise to sit down again as the Policeman circled the table, which took quite a long time because it was a very long oblong table, not really designed for circling. When he eventually returned to the children he looked quite exhausted.

‘Right,’ he said, reaching all the way up and wiping the sweat from his tall Policeman’s brow. ‘And what’s your name, boy Urchin with spectacles?’

‘Sir, they call me Daniel,’ said Daniel.

‘Good. And what do
I
call you?’ asked the Policeman.

‘Erm, Daniel?’ said Daniel.

‘Well, Ermdaniel,’ said the Policeman, reaching out his Policeman’s hand and grabbing Ermdaniel’s ear. ‘You’re quite a young villain, by the looks and feel of you, despite the fancy spectacles. You’re nicked!’

‘Ouch,’ said Ermdaniel. ‘What do you mean
nicked
?
’

‘I have no idea. I am so sorry,’ said the Policeman, looking quite embarrassed at his unexplained use of twentieth century television police-talk. ‘Ahem . . . I meant, by the Powers invested in me by, erm, whosoever gives me these Powers – and, by the way, pays me a Pittance for the vital work I do for the Victorian Community – I put you very much under arrest, Ermdaniel, boy Urchin!’

In which something happens to Daniel (who wasn’t, you may have noticed, murdered at all); Whatshisname cowers a bit, which is typical; the chapter, thankfully, finishes quite quickly but not before Daniel kills Betty in a fit of pique.

Betty gasped loudly when the Policeman put Daniel under arrest, as it came as quite a shock! It also shocked Whatshisname under the table, who released a loud gasp as well! The Policeman looked a little unnerved by the under-table gasping.

He looked around him suspiciously while he held tightly onto Daniel’s ear, then bent down to examine the source of the under-table gasping. ‘Bless me!’ he exclaimed. ‘Is there a Freak Circus in Town? What a strange creature!’

Whatshisname whimpered and pressed himself up against Betty’s legs.

‘The boy is under arrest?’ Mrs Wells said. ‘Samuel Landscape, I’m ashamed of you! Why arrest him? He looks such a harmless boy. Ugly, yes, but harmless.’

‘It is my Official Duty, Mrs Wells, that it is. And while I am at it,’ the Policeman said, pointing at Betty, ‘I also arrest
you
! Stand up, so I can grab your ear and make you go
ouch
as well. In answer to your penetrating question, Mrs Wells, the boy Urchin was seen consuming a stolen apple in a lane without a licence.’

‘A lane without a licence?’ enquired Betty.

‘Hmmm . . . just a syntactical issue,’ said the Policeman, shaking his head.

‘Ouch! Cool it, dude!’ shouted Daniel. ‘Anyway, it was lying on the ground!’

‘The apple or the lane?’ Betty asked.

‘And the girl Urchin,’ said the Policemen, ‘is arrested for Annoying the Inhabitants by Virtue of Improper Dress without a Licence. And Aiding and Abetting the Theft of an Apple. And any other Bye Law I can think of, including Owning an Animal with an Offensive Collar.’

‘Ouch!’ said Betty.

‘Woof woof woof?’ said Whatshisname.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the Magistrate ordered you both to have a Jolly Good Whipping, followed by standing in a corner while naming the parts of a daffodil in alphabetical order, then some hard labour for a month before being sent to Reformatory School for a year or two,’ sneered the Policeman in an official yet informal manner.

‘But we are contracted to save the world, dude!’ exclaimed Daniel, who was becoming quite nervous and dangerously close to a bout of street-talk. ‘It’s going to be in the hands of a criminally-minded evil mega-criminal, and we’re the only ones who can stop it! Apart from Amy and Ricky, that is. All we need are Brussels sprouts and a portal to get to 1980. Innit!’

‘And a digital alarm clock,’ added Betty, casting a glance at her brother.

‘Ah ha!’ ahhaed the Policeman. ‘Amy and Ricky, eh? There are
more
Urchins? I can see that promotion to Proper Constable coming my way very soon! Where are they hiding?’

Bertie had been sitting down all this time, quietly making notes in his Victorian note book, but now he thought it was time that he helped his new friends. ‘Please Constable,’ he said. ‘These two children are indeed very important people, and belong to a
very
secret club! I believe that I was just about to become a member as well. They say they are time travellers who come all the way from . . .’ He paused and looked at Betty. ‘When do you come from?’

Betty tried to wrench her ear away from the Policeman’s
grasp, but he gripped it even harder. ‘Ouch!’ she cried again. ‘We came all the way from the twenty-first century! Let me go!’

‘Ah-ha!’ ahhaed the Policeman. ‘Secret Membership of a
Very
Secret Club? That’s breaking another Bye Law, I’ll be bound. As is Fraudulently Claiming to be a Time Traveller without a Licence.’

‘We’ll let you join The Secret Five,’ offered Betty, ‘if you let us go!’

‘Yet another crime!’ said the Policeman, squeezing her ear even harder. ‘Failing to Bribe a Policeman will be added to the list of charges, I fancy. If only I had a free hand to make a note of all this in my note book.’

‘I’ve already done that,’ said Bertie, scribbling away in his own Victorian note book.

The Policeman dragged Betty and Daniel towards the stairs. Whatshisname bravely peeked out from under the table and decided to take drastic action there and then! He leapt out and grabbed the leg of the Policeman’s trousers, pulling and pulling until the Policeman said, ‘Please stop it, doggy.’ Instantly, and without any thought for his own safety, Whatshisname let go and crawled back under the table to do some serious cowering. As he cowered, he recalled Roosevelt’s assertion that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – what a joke! It was painfully obvious to him that Franklin D hadn’t seen the size of this Victorian Policeman’s boots. Whatshisname plumped for working out his own salvation with fear and trembling. To support his campaign for survival, he promptly decided to hold an extraordinary and unilateral meeting of The Secret Five there and then. Quick as a flash, using his Emergency Power of Mandate and some flexible proxy voting, he voted by two votes to one (with one abstention) to stay under the table for at least four hundred sticks.

The Policeman led Betty and Daniel by their very own ears up the stairs, all the way out of the Big House, down the lane and back into the village. Villagers came out of their typical Victorian houses to stare at them with their typical Victorian eyes. Betty
could hear the Tut-Tutting and
Good Gracious
and
Are Those Real?
as they passed the onlookers. One of them looked rather like the postman in chapter one, looking decidedly pleased with himself in his Victorian costume and hamming it up with fervour as he jeered them on their way to the courthouse.

On the way, the Policeman gruffly informed the children that the Magistrate, a rather fierce and grumpy old man by all accounts, was in court today. He was doing something strange called Petty Sessions, so in all probability there would be a classic miscarriage of justice – they would be found guilty without appeal, then imprisoned with a good stiff sentence.

Now the two children were in real trouble! They were stranded deep in 1880 with no-one to help them! No-one at all!
¹

In which we meet a Magistrate; the Policeman finds cause to laugh a bit; bad news for Whatshisname at long last; a character witness is urgently needed but unlikely to be found at such short notice; shame.

Betty and Daniel, behind our very backs, had been led by their ears into a small gloomy Victorian courtroom. They had been dragged by the tall Policeman into the dock, where they now stood side by side, one of their ears glowing red. Both children looked quite worried! Betty was worried about Whatshisname, Ricky, Amy, Uncle Quagmire, Aunt Trinny, Bertie, McFly’s ongoing popularity, the future of the world, and whether Daniel would lapse into his stupid street-talk coma again, but not necessarily in that order. Daniel was also worried, although, as usual, he couldn’t quite pin down exactly what he was worried about so he stood no chance of sorting them into any semblance of order.

In the gloom of the courtroom the children found it hard to make out the glum look on the grim faces of the spectators, but they both thought that they looked very much like the people who had jeered them on the way to court (including the postman from chapter one) and, strangely, very much like the swarthy Italian tourists from 1964 Salzburg
¹
.

As they waited for the fierce and grumpy Magistrate to enter, Betty told Daniel that things could be much worse, to which Daniel quietly pointed out that they were stuck in 1880 without
any means of returning home, he had no idea of the parts of a daffodil, they were due to be whipped to within an inch of their lives for some menial misdemeanour then dressed in a suit with arrows on and imprisoned for a very long time with only bread and water for nourishment and sanitary arrangements that would be a thousand times worse than a rampaging outbreak of severe diarrhoea on a wet weekend at the Glastonbury Festival, so how could it possibly get worse?

‘Let’s be a bit more positive, shall we?’ she whispered as the grumpy-looking old Magistrate entered the courtroom. ‘In the true spirit of The Secret Five, something will happen. It always does. We won’t be left to rot. We’re too important, remember? And courtroom scenes such as these always end up with the protagonists being released then being mobbed and feted by the press on the steps outside the courtroom. Trust me on this.’

Daniel wasn’t convinced, firstly because he didn’t know what a protagonist was, and thought it sounded quite painful, and secondly because he’d seen the utter grumpiness of the Magistrate, who had sat himself down and was now glaring very firmly in the direction of the children. ‘Quiet in the dock!’ he bellowed. ‘And stop lolling while I’m bellowing! Yes, you Urchins! No Urchin lolls in
my
Sessions, despite the fact that they are petty!’