The First Book of Calamity Leek Read online

  I touched a door. Its skin was set cold like cream. ‘Maybe we’re going off to fight, maybe that’s what’s happening, Annie. Maybe Aunty got it wrong. Maybe it’s not Mary and Sandra and you going first. It’s actually me and you.’

  Annie grabbed my elbow. ‘Don’t get in. Whatever happens, don’t get in.’

  ‘Don’t you want to go to Japan, Annie?’

  ‘You hear me, Clam, don’t get in.’

  The gun banged the air over our heads. ‘Weapons will get away from the doors! Grubby fingers off what doesn’t belong to them.’ Mother drove up and threw all my sisters’ furs in the van. ‘Weapons will wrap and pack all statues. And there will be no cracking of plaster. Break a nose and a nose gets broken in turn. A finger for a finger, that’s how it goes. Quite right, my angel, eyes for eyes! Action stations, weapons! Wrapping and packing! And you’d better be quick about it!’

  Mother squeezed the chair round the van door and squealed away.

  ‘Off to her Glorious Abode, most probably,’ I whispered.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Annie said. ‘I don’t like this one bit.’

  We set to carting Emilys. We started with four-year-old Emily, who was light as a blown egg.

  ‘Shall we play guess whose fur is it?’ I said. We laid down five-year-old Emily next to her sister on the van’s floor, and wrapped her in a fur so rat-nibbled it could only be Millie Gatwick’s. ‘You have first turn, if you like.’

  Annie looked at me and she didn’t say nothing.

  ‘We’re probably getting new furs, don’t you think, Annie? That must be what it is. Like that time Mother saw the back of a lorry and it gave her a bad fit of her sickness, and Aunty said we could burn all our rabbit skins for having brand-new minks. Do you remember that, Annie?’

  But Annie was already running up the path for six-year-old Emily.

  ‘Guess something about our new coats then, Annie,’ I shouted after. ‘Come on, Annie. Do you reckon it’ll be mink or fox we’re having this time?’

  But she didn’t hear me. She looked to be wrenching Emily off her plinth more careless than a carcass off a gutting hook. I jumped down and I ran after.

  We were starting on ten-year-old Emily when Mother drove back round the van door. Two big cans were stacked on her lap. Wedged behind her, a third can was upside down, spilling out on the path and the yew hedge and everywhere. Looked like it was water glugging out of its mouth. We stood aside, and Mother drove away down the path and screeched off into the Lawn.

  Annie stared after her. ‘I don’t like this one bit.’ She squatted down over the watered pebbles on the path. Rainbows shone on them. ‘It looks like slug slime,’ she said.

  It was most probably a special fertilising water I said. Possibly Heaven-sent, because of the rainbows in it.

  Annie rubbed her fingers on them pebbles and held them to her nose. ‘That ain’t no water, Clam. That smells stronger than Aunty’s rat poison.’

  I tried asking Emily if she knew what it was, but she didn’t say nothing, which probably meant ‘Keep on with what you’re doing, Clam, because it’s early and I’ve gone back to sleep after a busy night.’ So I said to Annie we better keep on wrapping and packing. And Annie kept on stopping and touching pebbles and sniffing her fingers, and saying, ‘I don’t like this, not one bit, I don’t.’

  Sixteen-year-old Emily was something hefty, never mind she was hollow inside. I took a grip on her knees and I was saying we might coat her in Nancy’s fur – the one that smelled of pig and molasses, and we could maybe use Dorothy’s too, did Annie think? – when Annie dropped her hold, and said, ‘Hush up a second, Clam. What’s that?’

  ‘What’s what?’

  ‘Something’s screaming.’

  I stood up straight. ‘Why would anything be screaming, Annie?’

  ‘It’s the pigs,’ she said, frowning. ‘The pigs are screaming.’

  ‘But why would they be screaming?’

  Before I could say ‘Don’t,’ Annie set off down the yew path towards the Lawn.

  ‘Come on back, Annie,’ I shouted. ‘We ain’t finished here.’

  But, course, Annie didn’t hear me. So I left Emily, and I ran after.

  Well, even before I ducked through the Crèmes, I could hear them. There ain’t nothing like a sore pig for wanting the whole Garden to know its pain. Scream loud enough to rattle the sky lid, a sore pig would. And they were all at it now, screaming like blades were twisting in their guts.

  In the middle of the Lawn Annie stopped running. She turned and looked at me. Under her speckles her face was white. ‘Why are they screaming, Clam?’

  My own bones had all turned to jellymeat, hearing those pigs. ‘I don’t know, Annie. I’m sorry, I don’t know.’

  Annie ran to eighteen-year-old Emily and pulled herself up on the plinth.

  She looked about everywhere. ‘There!’ She pointed west towards the supplies barn and Nursery Cottage. ‘Over there. That’s why.’

  I followed her finger. Black threads were rising towards the sky lid like they were escaping from a poor-stitched cushion.

  ‘It’s Nursery Cottage,’ Annie said. ‘There’s smoke flying out of the windows.’

  ‘Maybe Mother’s having a bonfire of dead petals at the barn. Maybe that’s what’s got the pigs all hot and bothered.’

  ‘Or maybe it’s something else.’

  ‘What else, Annie? Whatever else could it be? Annie, will you please get down off poor Emily.’

  ‘Them pigs are getting louder,’ Annie said. ‘That smoke is turning blacker. Is it just the pigs, Clam? Is it just the pigs that are screaming?’

  Well, there really weren’t no answer to that.

  Annie jumped down. ‘Come on, Clam, we’ve got to get to the yard before that starts smoking too.’

  She set off running. But racing into the Glamis Castles, she skidded up.

  Because here was Mother, coming up the other way, emptying a glugging can all about everywhere on the Lawn.

  ‘Oh, one doesn’t think so,’ Mother said, shifting aside the glugging can and settling the shotgun on her shoulder so its eye stared straight up our noses. ‘One doesn’t think so at all.’

  MOTHER’S EYES

  ABOUT-TURNED AND back up the Lawn we went, the can on Mother’s lap sicking out behind us, the air growing bitter to breathe, and the pigs screaming so bad, my skull felt near to cracking.

  Into the yew path and back for sixteen-year-old Emily, we went, the gun’s eye following us ten steps behind.

  Annie looked at me. Tears were jumping out of her eyes. ‘This is bad, Clam. We have to do something. I don’t know what to do. This is very bad.’

  ‘But this is all wrong, Annie,’ I whispered loud as I dared. ‘Mother’s not doing anything to hurt us. She’s just burning stuff. That’s what she’s doing, burning stuff.’

  ‘What stuff, Clam?’

  I didn’t say nothing.

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘Well, maybe Mother’s cooking them pigs. Maybe that’s what. Maybe she’s cooking them up so Aunty will have a big pig dinner when she comes back from her holiday from us. Mother knows how Aunty likes pig dinners, so that’s what she’s doing. Cooking up a big pig dinner. Think of it, Annie, tasty pig. Which bit of the pig do you want for dinner? I reckon a nice piece of bellyskin will do for me.’

  Annie shook out her tears. ‘We have to do something.’

  ‘Oh, Annie, Mother doesn’t want to harm us.’ I took her hand to squeeze. ‘She rescued us. She chose us. We have purpose. Happen the pigs are just being silly. Pigs are silly, you know that. Scream if an eyelash is stuck, a pig does. Aunty will be back soon.’ Tears were leaping out of my own eyes now. ‘She’ll sort it out, won’t she? Aunty sorts everything out.’

  We were back at sixteen-year-old Emily.

  ‘Aunty will be home soon and she’ll sort it out. We just have to wait.’ I squeezed her hand bone tight, and truth be told, I didn’t want to ever let it go. ‘Come on, An
nie! Take a hold round Emily’s knees with me.’

  But Annie didn’t. She stood staring up at the sky lid. Black flakes were floating down.

  ‘Come on, Annie, before Mother sees us dawdling.’

  She looked back at Mother, who was glugging the can on the plinths behind. ‘Listen, Clam,’ she whispered. Beneath her jumping tears her eyes were hard. ‘If this path goes off and meets them gates I saw, it might go to the road. I can go off to fetch Sam and get some help for us.’

  ‘Best wait for Aunty, Annie. She’ll sort it. Aunty will sort it all out.’

  But Annie kept on whispering like she hadn’t ever heard me. ‘I’m going to shove this Emily at Mother. That’s what I’m going to do. Then I’m running off.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Annie. You can’t harm Mother.’

  ‘Listen to me, Clam. I’m shoving Emily, then I’m running. You can come, if you want, but I can run fastest, so happen it would be better if you could stay and hold her off, while I run and get myself outside the gates.’

  I stared at her. ‘Who? Hold who?’

  ‘You know who.’

  ‘You mean I should touch Mother?’

  ‘Hold her back.’

  ‘We ain’t allowed to touch Mother, Annie.’

  Annie stared at me, her face all dotted black and dripping wet with tears. And I knew it then. It was a dream I was in, nothing more. In a moment my demonmale would turn up, flapping his red ears and trouble-starting like always, and after that I was going to wake up safe in the dorm with the Communicator bing-bonging and Aunty singing ‘Oh what a beautiful morning’, with Evita’s porridge pot set on the table, and our milk bowls around it, waiting for our hands to jump right in. Truly might even be back. Yes, Truly would be back, kicking and giggling in her sleep next to me. I smiled at Annie. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

  But Annie didn’t hear me. She was shoving at sixteen-year-old Emily till she dangled off her plinth and was only held up by Annie’s hand on her belly.

  Mother’s chair came screeching up behind.

  ‘OI!’ Mother shouted. ‘OI! YOU! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING TO MY DAUGHTER?’

  Annie let go her hand.

  And sixteen-year-old Emily fell off the plinth and crashed down on Mother.

  Mother went ‘UUU.’

  Her gun thumped down on the path and went BANG.

  Sixteen-year-old Emily bounced off Mother onto the path and went CRACK.

  Mother went, ‘UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.’

  Sixteen-year-old Emily’s head cracked off her neck and rolled into the yew roots.

  And Annie ran.

  ‘My baby!’ Mother cried, leaping out of her chair to go scrabbling under the yews for Emily’s head. She snatched it up to her mouth and she kissed Emily’s soiled lips. ‘My poor broke baby!’ Mother tucked up Emily’s head in her arms, and she tipped back her face, and she let out a howl at Heaven.

  And just then, in this most terrible moment, it is strange to say it, but the most miracle thing happened. Mother’s black glasses slid down her nose and I was shown her eyes.

  Yes.

  But here’s the thing. Maybe it was the black smoke covering the sky lid doing it, or maybe it was Mother’s grief and disappointment, or happen it was me, looking when I shouldn’t – because a slug shouldn’t bother a rose – but I watched them eyes, and I waited for them to shine gold at me, like Aunty’s special medicine, or like a fresh-cracked egg, or a comb of perfect honey. But I am sorry to say, they didn’t shine at me, not once they didn’t. There was no gold in them eyes that I could see. No, Mother’s eyes that I saw were made up of dead-leaf, compost-crust brown.

  I was woken from staring by Annie’s arm bashing the van door as she ran round it. Mother was woken too. She stopped crying at Heaven. She dropped Emily’s head, and went scrabbling for her gun.

  ‘OI! COME BACK HERE, YOU WORM!’ Mother shouted, pointing the gun’s eye up the path. ‘I’LL GET YOU, YOU SEE IF I DON’T.’

  But then she didn’t bother to shoot it, because Annie was already gone.

  And me? Well, happen I’ve probably told you there’s no need to bother, but if you really want to know what happened to me, well, I couldn’t stand there looking at sixteen-year-old Emily’s bodyless head, and Mother’s eyes that had lost their gold, could I? No, my legs turned my head around for the safety of the dorm, and I set off running.

  It was somewhere south of the Lawn, in the Glamis Castle rows, that I heard the bang in the air and I felt the thud in my left thigh. My leg stopped running and my body tipped over into the soil. And it was just like being a stuck pig, just like. I touched on my thigh and plummy blood pumped out.

  BOWELS

  WELL, THIS WAS no good, was it? My face in rose roots and smoke all about me. Everything in my skull shrinking fast as a salted snail. And roaring. Yellow roaring everywhere. But never mind, it was nice and warm, so my head stopped thinking and had a little sleep.

  My leg woke me, spinning sore. And my throat, crusted up for need of a drink. But here’s the funny thing. Seems that Kathy Selden cat woke me too, crying in my ear.

  ‘Go away, Kathy Selden,’ my mouth told her. ‘Go away, Kathy.’

  But she didn’t.

  I got half an eye open. Black rose canes and roaring fire. Kathy rubbing off hot stripes onto my face and crying at me. But that cat couldn’t be in Bowels, could it? Which is where I was – that was clear and certain now – I had been dragged down to Bowels and I was waiting to get put on my spit, and there sure wasn’t no mention in the Appendix of cats being allowed in Bowels.

  Hot. Very hot. I lifted my face into the roaring. Weren’t no mention of Bowels being so noisy neither. Nor so choking.

  So my head got thinking then. One sister knew all about Bowels, didn’t she?

  ‘Truly Polperro?’ I called. ‘Truly Polperro, if you’re not too busy on your spit, do you know if there’s any water about?’

  But Truly didn’t answer. The only one with an answer was that bothersome cat, crashing its head against mine and crying. But there ain’t nothing for a cat to do in Bowels, so I tried to shoo it off. I tried calling Truly again, to ask her to find some bug for that cat to play with, but she didn’t answer.

  But just then, that cat turned and started running down the path away from me. And it was then I realised it – Truly must have sent that cat to show me to my spit. That’s what. ‘All right then, cat,’ I said, and I set off after it, slithering on my belly, dragging my deadmeat leg slow as a slug down the path.

  Funny thing was, we arrived at some place the Deceiving Devil had copied just like the yard. It had the standpipe and dorm and everything. But I weren’t fooled, oh no. It was the Devil’s fence that the flames were chewing on, the Devil’s latrines that were burning orange, and the Devil’s dorm that the flames were heading for.

  Beneath the noise of screaming pigs and chomping flames, I heard coughing and crying. Bodies on spits, that would be, roasting in a row in the Devil’s dorm. Females turning and melting and dripping their fat into trays beneath. The door all bolted down.

  ‘Well, thank you, cat, for bringing me all this way and leaving me locked out of the dorm,’ I said. Though I could hear busy sobbing going on inside, so I reckoned I’d probably be let in soon enough to cook. Meantime, I reckoned on having a watch of the pretty flames right where I was lying, on the concrete by the sundial.

  ‘Good idea,’ the cat said in my ear, with a hiccupy giggle.

  ‘Truly Polperro?’ I said. ‘Is that you? Have you been hiding in that catskin all this time?’

  Truly giggled and shook off some charred fur.

  ‘How is it, Truly? How is it in Bowels?’

  Truly arched her back and bashed against me.

  ‘You know I never sent you to Bowels with my tea with Aunty. You do know that, don’t you, Truly?’

  Truly pressed up to my ear. ‘Never mind that now, Clam,’ she said, ‘we’re a bit busy down here tod
ay, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait for your spit. There’s lots of others to do first.’

  ‘Who?’ I said, listening to the crying in the Devil’s dorm. ‘Who’s to do?’

  ‘Just some naughty sisters, Clam. Never you mind about them. While you’re waiting, why don’t you have a rest under a barrow – like the composting barrow by the Hole door – that would do you nicely, Clam. It’s cool in there. Smoke-free.’

  ‘Thank you, Truly.’

  ‘No bother, Clam.’

  Off she ran, and off my belly went, slithering along the Devil’s yard. It was a slug-slow drag I made. Them sisters were sobbing in the dorm, and flames were dancing themselves about my eyes. ‘I didn’t think Bowels would be so noisy, Truly,’ I said.

  But Truly didn’t answer me. Happen she was already nosying elsewhere.

  The barrow was perfect for worming under. Hands tipped it over – CRASH! All in safe but for one deadmeat leg, and I weren’t too bothered if the flames burned that one off. It was so warm under that barrow that my eyes closed.

  Now, I hadn’t slept for more than three rabbiting seconds when somebody was wanting something.

  PAM PAM PAM outside the barrow.

  ‘I am sleeping,’ I shouted out. ‘Please come back later.’

  PAM PAM PAM and a voice shouting, ‘What was crashing? Who is shouting out there?’

  ‘I am shouting out here,’ I shouted back from the barrow dark. ‘Truly Polperro, if that’s you still playing at being a cat, I ain’t for it no more, thank you. Please show me your proper sisterly face or go back and get on your spit. Goodnight.’

  Well, that shut her up. Weren’t nothing for another rabbiting second. Then it came back, the voice, all hot and bothered and roaring, ‘It is Maria Liphook! I am locked in the Hole. If that is a sister out there, unlock my door at once.’

  ‘Hello, Maria Liphook,’ I shouted back, ‘it’s Calamity Leek! Have you been dragged down to Bowels too? You met Truly yet?’

  ‘Calamity?’ It came like a sadness. ‘Is that you?’ That sadness again, ‘Just you? Well, listen, Calamity, come quick and unlock this door before we all get burned.’