live in different countries.’
‘But what if they did meet?’
‘I really don’t know.’
‘But if you had to choose, which one would win?’
‘The tiger, I think.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s a bit bigger.’
‘David?’
‘What now?’
‘What’s the biggest animal?’
‘In the sea or on land?’
‘On land.’
‘The elephant.’
‘Could an elephant beat a tiger?’
‘Yes.’
‘So the biggest animal always wins?’
‘Not always, Ratface—sometimes many small animals can beat one big one.’
‘David?’
‘That’s enough now, I want to go to sleep.’
‘Just one more question, David. Just one. Please!’
‘All right then.’
‘What’s the biggest animal in the sea?’
‘The blue whale.’
‘Would it beat a killer whale?’
‘Blue whales are peaceful. Killer whales live in pods. They leave each other alone.’
He sighed, not satisfied with my answer.
‘Now go to sleep,’ I said.
He lay down, his white hair disappearing into the soft pillow. All I could see of him was the tip of his nose, and the bulge of the blanket where his feet were. At the foot of our bed was a wooden rack. I had built it for him. It had thirty-six compartments. We had pinned nuts and leaves to the backs of most of the compartments, and put the bleached skulls of at least ten different birds and mammals on the little shelves in front of them. There was also a dung-encrusted cow hoof clipping that Ratface refused to let me clean. All the things I’d collected for him during my walks through the woods. Our greatest treasure was the spine, skull and legs of a rat. We had cut out cardboard labels and carefully written the name of each object on them. The rack was almost full. Beside it were jars of owl pellets, lids tightly shut. He was proud of his collection. I heard his breath get slower, deeper. How strange to be lying in a room with bits of animals that had once been alive. I could almost see the birds fly, feel the wind rush through their feathers, the warm sunshine on their backs and wings as they flew high over the treetops or rested on a branch. I wondered what had killed them. A predator? Old age? Then I heard Father and Mother climb the stairs. Mother’s hair was going grey, especially on the sides of her head. And the occasional strand in her ponytail. Father’s wasn’t. Only his side whiskers had a dull white dusting.
-
‘SIR! SIR! ROGER pinched me in the balls!’
Walter and Roger had both appeared out of nowhere. It was Monday morning, break time. I had been daydreaming in the doorway, gazing at the low-hanging branches of the old silver birch that was beginning to lean precariously over the wall between the playground and the fallow land next to it.
‘Roger! You mustn’t do that,’ I said placatingly—I wasn’t entirely sure whom to believe, though I did know Roger could be a damned little pest.
Roger protested loudly, calling Walter a great big liar, a milksop with no balls. And adding that he should put some more talcum powder on the sweat glands of his feet, because they smelled like dead rats.
‘Roger, you’re not being very nice today,’ I said, struggling to keep a straight face.
‘But it’s true, dammit. His feet reek worse than the shit in our cesspit.’
‘There will be no cursing here,’ I said with sudden severity.
Walter nodded. ‘It’s because I tortured him the day before yesterday, sir. When we held him prisoner down by the mud heaps. The chump’s still angry. First we punched his head and then … ’
‘Pah. Didn’t hurt a bit,’ Roger bragged, but I could tell it rankled with him. He also had a slight limp.
‘Then what happened?’ I asked.
‘Nothing too bad,’ Roger answered, his face the colour of beetroot. But Walter was only too willing to give me all the details.
‘Well, we, the lords of Elverdinge Castle, had beaten the enemy, the Bakelandt Bandits, and taken one of them prisoner.’
‘And that was Roger,’ I said.
‘Yes, yes.’
Walter was dying to tell the whole story, but Roger pulled his arm and said he wanted to play marbles. Marcus was standing on the side as usual, his back against the wall, longingly watching the game.
‘We had captured Roger and dragged him to the haunted willow with a rope around his neck. Do you know that tree? It’s split open from top to bottom and they say that it’s almost two hundred years old. It’s just behind the third heap and it’s always bare.’
I knew the tree. It did have an almost ghostly appearance if you walked past it in the evening.
Roger smiled wryly, turned round and limped off.
‘Well, we tied him to the tree and then … we … um … ’ Walter picked at the tip of his nose, suddenly unsure how much to tell this grown-up in front of him, who was, after all, his teacher.
‘Well … Jef’—he pointed an outstretched arm at the playing scapegoat—‘pulled down Roger’s trousers and tied a rope around this balls.’
‘Excuse me?’
I couldn’t believe my ears.
‘It’s true! And he pulled really hard. And Roger screamed!’
I was suddenly livid with rage.
‘Would you like me to do that to you? Tie a rope around your small testicles? And give it a good tug?’
I was talking louder than I intended. Startled, Walter recoiled and blanched from his neck to the roots of his hair.
‘No, no, no,’ he squealed.
‘Never do to others what you wouldn’t like done to yourself,’ I said sternly, trying in vain to contain my anger.
‘But Jef …’
‘I’m talking to you, Walter Soete! Don’t you forget it!’
My
