CHAPTER TWELVE
A Rubbish Day
Rachel fell against the bed. Her thoughts back in the here and now, she felt like going back to sleep, but she had a packed day ahead of her. Since her father’s dismissal and trumped-up charges of pilfering from the company’s stationery cupboard, her parents’ once buoyant finances had sunk without trace, and her parents had sat her down with a hot cup of tea and explained their financial woes.
With tears in their eyes, they had told her she would never walk the hallowed halls of Plums’ Preparatory School ever again. Rachel had taken the bad news in her stride, but those bittersweet memories of her old school still chipped away at her pride.
Rachel thought about Gravelings, her new school, and their dull grey uniform that had all the charm of a prison cell: the grey pleated pinafore matched the grey tie, grey shirt, grey socks and shoes. By her bedside, her starched grey blazer hung stiffly in a closet – ironed to death by her mother’s hand, while her old plum school uniform gathered dust in the musty cramped attic high above her head.
Rachel thought about her father, who still hadn’t found a fulltime job and her mother, who now sold homewares from door to door, and she thought about the Wednesday that had turned her world upside down.
On occasions, she had dropped subtle hints to her parents about the whereabouts of George, but to her frustration, her father would always push her questions onto her mother, who would change the subject and ask her to put the kettle on or tidy her messy bedroom.
Last week, she had asked her mother about paying Larry and Lydia a visit in Upper Inkcome. ‘Oh – they sold up and moved away,’ she had told her outright. ‘They moved somewhere up north,’ she had added hurriedly.
People were always moving up north, thought Rachel ruminatively.
Stuck down south in Lower-Inkcome-by-the-sea, Rachel wished for her old life back. Her friends hadn’t called in over two months, and not one of them had come down for a visit – or even a sleepover.
However, on one special occasion, Stewart had lied to his mother, and he’d sneaked away to visit her down by the seafront, but somehow she had found out, and he was well and truly grounded after that.
There wasn’t a day that went by when she hadn’t thought about the island and the deserted town of Little Inkling, and she wondered if she had imagined it all, but the scar on her left hand wouldn’t let her forget.
The bedroom door rattled.
‘Do you hear me in there?’ Lorraine cawed. ‘WAKEY, WAKEY – RISE AND SHINE,’ she added boomingly.
Rachel rolled over and tucked herself into the foetal position, closed her eyes and tried to keep her breathing on an even keel.
‘It’s another beautiful morning,’ Lorraine remarked as she tried to open the obstinate bedroom door. With another hefty shove, the door flew wide open so hard it catapulted the starfish doorknob through the air where it finally impaled a dirty white sock to the timber flooring.
So, in one fell swoop, her mother snatched the doorknob up off the floor and placed it out of harm’s way on the chest of drawers. ‘Well, that’s another job for Paul to add to his list of things to fix.’
Rachel played possum.
Lorraine let out a resigned sigh and shook her head: her eyes followed the trail of wrinkled clothes that ended at her daughter’s bedside.
Rachel pretended to snore. The smell of musky perfume grew that little bit stronger as her mother bundled up her discarded clothes.
‘C’mon, sleepyhead – you have a big day ahead of you,’ said Lorraine serenely and threw the bundle of clothes on top of the bunk bed, bent down and planted an affectionate kiss on her daughter’s head. ‘You can’t fool me, Rachel – I know you’re awake.’
Rachel arose and spluttered. Unable to contain herself, she rolled over and snatched a handkerchief from under a pillow. Burying her nose in the cotton cloth, she let out a muffled sneeze.
Lorraine sniffed her wrists.
Rachel wiped her nose. ‘What perfumery are we trying to sell today, Mum?’ she asked, thinking about her mother’s fledgeling business.
Lorraine beamed. ‘Well, on my left wrist we have a pinch of Catmint and Mugwort,’ she said, ‘and on my right, we have Skullcap and Willow.’
Rachel shied away from her mother’s upturned wrists. ‘I don’t like any of them,’ she told her bluntly. ‘Which wrist does Dad prefer?’
Lorraine sighed and sat on the bed, almost kicking over one of the overflowing buckets as she crossed her long legs. ‘I haven’t seen him all morning,’ she huffed. ‘No doubt he’s with the love of his life.’
Rachel grinned. Her father’s new shed had become a home from home. The monstrous shed took up most of the back of their garden. Her mother didn’t much care for his wooden masterpiece – but she knew that she must never come between a man and his shed.
Her mother had painstakingly rebuilt her rockery stone by stone, as the feckless deliverymen had thrown the shed’s heavy lumber over their windswept fence, crushing her mother’s labour of love.
Although it wasn’t her father’s fault, he still slept on the living room couch, as her mother’s elephantine memory hadn’t forgiven him yet.
‘I hope Dad hasn’t forgotten about today,’ said Rachel.
A long, drawn-out harmonious tone drifted into the bedroom, and the front door juddered open with a big bang and a loud crash. ‘THE VAN’S ARRIVED,’ Paul bellowed up the stairs. ‘BE BACK IN A MO, LOVE.’
‘Talk of the devil,’ Lorraine snorted. ‘DON’T BE TOO LONG TALKING TO FABIO, PAUL – RACHEL HAS TO BE AT THE SCHOOL GATES BY NINE.’
‘OKIDOKEY,’ he shouted back and slammed the front door closed.
‘It was nice of Mr Faramundo to give Dad a job,’ said Rachel.
‘We financed Fabio when his business was about to go under, and the bank turned him down,’ Lorraine said. ‘He’s been grateful ever since.’
Rachel smelt the simmering salty sea breeze coming in through the cracked open window. Her niggling hunger pangs craved food, and she said resignedly, ‘I s’ppose I’d better go down and have some breakfast.’
Lorraine giggled. ‘Um – your father’s already gone and eaten the lot,’ she chortled. ‘I’ll go and make you some more while you take a shower.’
Rachel’s stomach groaned in disappointment.
✽✽✽
Rachel sat at the breakfast table. Nibbling on her jammy buttered toast, she began to memorise Gravelings’ autumn term timetable. Five minutes had passed, and she let out a frustrated sigh and reread the classes and times for September. This wasn’t like her at all: a few months ago, she could remember anything for an eternity, but since leaving the island, her gift of recall had diminished to such an extent, she could just about remember the front page of her father’s newspaper.
Rachel shuddered at the thought of losing her gift, but she had to face facts that maybe she was just an ordinary ten-year-old girl with an ordinary life – and she had to be prepared for that.
Lorraine rushed into the room. ‘Here’s your cuppa,’ she spouted, plonking the overflowing brew and saucer well away from her daughter’s new grey backpack. ‘Ah, I see you have Chemistry at eleven?’
‘Yes, but it won’t be the same without Mr Luddy,’ Rachel replied.
Lorraine stifled a chuckle but grinned.
Rachel glared back at her mother, knowing she knew some serious gossip to unleash and asked, ‘OK, Mum – let’s hear the latest rumour?’
Lorraine quickly pulled up a chair. ‘Well, Vivian Harlequin phoned me up the other night to tell me the good news,’ she said all of a quiver. ‘Edwin Luddy will be teaching at Gravelings from now on.’
‘I – I don’t believe it,’ said Rachel, amazed at her mother’s latest revelation of idle tittle-tattle. ‘But why did he leave Plums, Mum?’
Lorraine drew Rachel close as if the walls would be interested in their hushed conversation. ‘Apparently, Lucinda and Edwin had a blazing row at Plums,’ Lorraine whispered. ‘From what Vivian told me, Lucinda burst out of her office in tears and ran into the girls’ toilets.’
‘I can’t remember a day when those two weren’t at loggerheads,’ said Rachel perturbed. ‘I wonder what they were arguing about this time.’
The Cooks’ cuckoo clock suddenly whirled on the wall.
A dishevelled peeling songbird sprang out on its rusty-coiled spring, squawking as it bounced up and down. It screeched another seven times, blew a rude raspberry and then sprang back into its pine home.
‘Paul needs to get that clock fixed,’ moaned Lorraine irritably. ‘I’ll never understand his obsession with book fairs and rummage sales. We have enough rubbish of our own without giving others a home, and we don’t have any more space – and our attic is chock-a-block.’
Rachel listened expectantly. ‘Our clock’s running a bit early,’ she began, but she grinned on hearing their doorbell ring. ‘Toby’s dead on time again – I don’t know how he does it. I’ll go and get the post, Mum.’
At the front door, Rachel struggled to pull it open – but it bounced back almost throwing her against the wooden bannisters. ‘Hiya, Toby,’ she puffed, smiling at her postman in his neatly pressed uniform.
Toby tipped his imaginary hat at her. ‘Hullo, Rachel – you’re up with the lark this morning,’ he said in his smooth Irish brogue, swishing his long quiff of black hair out of his deep-set brown eyes.
‘It’s my first day at school,’ Rachel replied, ‘and I don’t want to be late,’ she added in an overbearing voice, hoping her father had overheard her blatant hint, but Fabio held him deep in conversation.
Booming voices cut short their discourse, and she peered at the refuse lorry that rumbled slowly up the road, lumbering over the speed bumps.
‘Good morning, Toby,’ Lorraine said over Rachel’s shoulder. ‘I wonder what wonders you have for us in that sack of yours.’
‘Looks like another bunch of bills, Mrs Cook,’ said Toby glumly, handing her a wad of brown envelopes held fast by a thick rubber band. ‘Oh, and this red envelope is from the local council. It looks like they want to bleed us folks even drier.’
‘What do you mean, Toby?’
‘The entire town’s getting these demands this morning.’
‘But we can’t afford another rate rise,’ said Lorraine thunderously.
‘The council’s getting desperate for money – and they even charged my wife’s sister, Maggie, for staying with us for a month. Thankfully, she’s going back home to Upper Inkcome tomorrow,’ he told her with a sigh of relief. ‘My dog, Paddy, won’t be sorry to see her go, either. It’s her perfume you see – it always brings him out in a nasty red rash.’
Lorraine’s eyes shone with opportunity. ‘Um – maybe Maggie would like a change of perfume,’ she said and turned her wrists towards him.
Toby’s nostrils turned upwards in utter disgust. ‘Ugh – what on earth is that awful smell?’ he gagged uncontrollably and retched.
Rachel’s nose curled up too as an unpleasant pungent pong stagnated by the front door, which refused to depart in the stiff breeze.
A man coughed. ‘Sorry, Toby – but you’ve dropped something,’ the roughly dressed man said and handed him a large grubby brown parcel. ‘Morning, Mrs Cook – my, you’re looking very smart, Rachel.’
‘I’m wearing grey at Gravelings today, Mr Marsh,’ she retorted.
‘Morning, Pete,’ sniffed Lorraine politely, but she shrunk away from his overpowering stench, and tried not to be too obvious as she tried desperately to close the front door to keep the binman’s vile smell out.
‘But – but I’m sure I didn’t pick this parcel up on my round this morning,’ Toby stressed, looking horrified as he just spotted a couple of strings of spaghetti dangling down his pristine jacket.
‘I found the parcel down by the front gate,’ Pete insisted, glancing down at his watch, shaking his head worriedly. ‘Right, I better get going – I’m running late again, and I have a pick up at number thirty-three.’
‘Oh, my – oh, my,’ squeaked Toby. ‘I’m going to be late, too,’ he added in sheer panic, plonked the brown parcel into Rachel’s surprise hands and belted across the Cook’s garden, hurdled over their fence, staggered, and almost slammed into the side of the shocking pink ice-cream van.
‘See you in two weeks, Mrs Cook,’ said Pete pleasingly. ‘Well, it might be four if the council gets its way,’ he added grimly and trotted towards his bin lorry, shouting at his workmate to grab the Cooks’ rubbish bags.
Rachel did a double-take and reread the parcel’s name and address:
To: Miss Rachel Cook
Willows End
11 Forestry Glen
Lower-Inkcome-by-the-sea
Her hands trembled as she slowly unwrapped the slightly damp parcel.
Lorraine gasped as Rachel held out her raggedy backpack. The honey stain from her father’s amber nectar hadn’t washed out in the lake, and with nervous anticipation, she untied the straps and reached inside.
‘Is – is it in there?’ asked Lorraine apprehensively.
‘No, Mum – your wedding ring isn’t here,’ replied Rachel dejectedly, but she felt something else instead and pulled out her grandmother’s birthday present. To her utter amazement, the torch hadn’t rusted and still worked. Even in the sunlight, its ray of amber light illuminated their warped gate and her father’s scruffy shoes.
‘Toby is in a bit of a rush this morning,’ Paul sniggered as he came up the garden path. ‘Dear, dear me – looks like he’s dropped one of his red envelopes,’ he added gleefully, picking it up off the long dewy grass.
Lorraine just glared at him.
‘Now, what did I do?’ Paul exclaimed, looking bewildered.
Rachel broke the stilted silence. ‘I got my backpack back, Dad,’ she beamed, swinging the backpack in front of his eyes. ‘It’s as good as new, well, apart from the honey stains and a touch of mildew.’
‘Is the wedding ring –?’ Paul began.
Lorraine just shook her head, choking back her tears.
Paul gave Lorraine an apologetic smile and gently took her hand. ‘There’s a memory I want to give you,’ he told her tenderly, smiling up into her distraught face, circling her wedding finger with his forefinger. ‘Like the moon around the earth, whenever you feel the loss of your ring, remember my love will encircle your finger and your heart forever.’
Lorraine welled up and threw her arms around him. ‘You always said the right thing to me, but back then I was too stupid to listen,’ she sniffed and kissed him on the lips and hugged him again.
Rachel groaned with embarrassment. ‘Mum, Dad – the neighbours are still putting their bins out,’ she hissed at them. ‘You’re not invisible!’
‘What’s the address on the envelope?’ Lorraine asked, pulling away.
Paul’s face turned sour. ‘Number thirty-five,’ he told her glumly.
‘Paul – it’s been almost a year since they barred you from The Golden Toad,’ Lorraine huffed. ‘Why don’t you let bygones be bygones, eh?’
Paul shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t you think Rachel should be the one to deliver the envelope to those two,’ he said peevishly, nodding his head towards the road. ‘I’m getting fed up with all this secrecy.’
Rachel hadn’t the foggiest idea what her parents were on about.
‘I s’ppose there’s no time like the present,’ Lorraine sighed. ‘OK, Rachel, I’ll keep your backpack safe, while you go and deliver this letter to number thirty-five. The Nutty Pine’s just a short walk down the road.’
Rachel gave the envelope the quick once over and studied the neat handwriting that appeared familiar, but she couldn’t place the sender:
To: Morag Nook & Elspeth Cranny
The Nutty Pine
35 Forestry Glen
Lower-Inkcome-by-the-sea
‘Now, Rachel, just make sure you hand-deliver this envelope,’ Lorraine insisted. ‘Knock as hard as you like – they’re both a little bit deaf.’
‘But what if Morag and Elspeth aren’t in?’
‘Oh, I think you’ll find someone will be in.’
✽✽✽
As Rachel walked along the undulating pavement, she thought about her parents’ wedding anniversary bash that never happened and the crystal honey jar and diamond ring that hadn’t turned up in her backpack.
Brushing those unhappy thoughts aside, she quickened her pace and watched her neighbours busying themselves with their daily chores.
Over at number fifteen, the Shuttlecocks were manhandling their old patchwork sofa out of the front door, shouting at their small terrier, Terrence, who thought it was the best game ever.
Waving at Mrs Muckle at number twenty-three, Rachel wondered how she and her husband coped with so many children underfoot. As she marched towards number thirty-five, she took in her surroundings.
On the day of their arrival, her parents had told her the treehouses in the Forestry Glen were very cheap but certainly not cheerful. Every house had a tree in its grounds; the trees were protected by law and couldn’t be chopped down, or harmed in any way, however, that hadn’t stopped the developers from building in the leafy glen. Bricks and mortar surrounded every tree to create an urban treehouse for the not so well off.
Messrs Wattle & Daub, their estate agents, were desperate for a sale and promised her parents that none of the trees had grown or shrunk in donkey’s years. They said it was something to do with the unusual soil in the glen, and they had urged her parents to sign on the dotted line.
Rachel unlatched the Nutty Pine’s gate, closed it and peered up at the towering treehouse (their woody home rose higher than her own home).
Their spick and span pine treehouse had plenty of porthole windows, and their plush raised garden beds blossomed with colour and variety. Their pristine front door appealed to her immediately, and she admired the stained glass window that depicted a squirrel eating a pinecone.
Rachel knocked, but nobody answered; she sighed and knocked twice as hard, but still, nobody came to the door. In frustration, she banged on their front door with a clenched fist until it finally swung open.
‘I’M NOT DEAF YOU KNOW,’ the young boy mumbled disgruntledly with a toothbrush lodged in his mouth. Froth dribbled down his chin and down his grey school uniform. His toothbrush fell out of his mouth and hit the pine flooring with a sharp crack.
Rachel’s eyes welled up. ‘George – is that really you under that school uniform?’ she asked in shock, wanting to pinch herself just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming that her missing friend stood right in front of her.
‘Is that really you, Rachel – without any mud on you?’ he retorted.
Rachel threw her arms around him and hugged him. ‘I’ve really missed you, you know,’ she whispered, but two pairs of eyes loomed beside them.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said the woman with the dull grey eyes with matching dull grey hair, ‘but George needs to get ready for school.’
Rachel broke the hug, looking half embarrassed as she stepped back, splitting George’s toothbrush in two. A red-haired woman, with piercing green eyes, bent down and picked the felled toothbrush up off the floor.
‘I’m pleased to make your acquaintance at last,’ said the grey-eyed woman, giving her a broad but reserved smile. ‘I’m Morag Nook – and this is my sister Elspeth Cranny,’ she added with a courteous nod.
‘Please to meet you,’ Rachel beamed, shaking their hands.
‘George has been staying with us for a few weeks now,’ said Elspeth, flicking her waist-long red hair to one side. ‘Now, I think we’ve done quite a good job smartening him up since he came into our care.’
‘My hair was my best feature,’ George chuckled.
‘I’m surprised you could see where you were going with that long mop hanging over your shoulders and bushy eyebrows,’ scoffed Morag. ‘I should have turned you over and used you to clean the kitchen floor.’
The cuckoo clock on the wall whirled. A majestic songbird glided out and sung a mellifluous array of notes. It sang another seven of them and glided back into its shuttered pine home.
Morag checked her wristwatch. ‘Late again,’ she bemoaned.
‘Right, first thing tomorrow, I’m going to take that cuckoo clock back to the pawnshop,’ Elspeth told Morag petulantly. ‘I’d rather have our old clock back, even if it looked dishevelled and blew raspberries at us.’
‘Oops, I almost forgot,’ said Rachel. ‘Toby dropped this on his round,’ she added and handed Morag the red envelope.
Morag’s face looked puzzled. ‘It can’t be,’ she gasped.
Elspeth peered over Morag’s shoulder in awe. ‘Bless my soul,’ she said, appearing overwhelmed. ‘The envelope must be at least ten years old, so another half an hour won’t make any difference. But first, our charge needs a new toothbrush and a crisp clean jumper.’
‘Gladys won’t be pleased if you’re not on time for your ride,’ Morag told George. ‘Your new headmaster’s a stickler for punctuality, too.’
Rachel had a thought. ‘George, why don’t you ride in the van with us this morning? Dad can get us to the school gates in no time,’ she offered.
George gave her a surprised look. ‘So, your father’s van has flashing blue lights and a siren?’ he asked her frivolously, sounding unconvinced.
‘No, but his colourful ice-cream van will distract the schoolchildren long enough, so we can get through the gates and into assembly on time.’
✽✽✽
Rachel dashed back towards her house.
A pair of legs protruded from the underside of the ice-cream van. Her father banged his head and then cursed as his wrench fell onto his chest.
‘Dad is there a problem with the van?’ she asked apprehensively.
Hot and sweaty, Paul rolled out from underneath the van, struggling to get up as his right leg had gone to sleep. He rubbed his greasy baldpate with an even oilier hand and puffed, ‘No problems at all – just tightening up the brake hoses and a few other odd jobs that need doing.’
‘You better get your skates on, Paul,’ said Lorraine, who had spent a few frustrating minutes cleaning out the back of the untidy van. ‘You’ve got roughly half an hour to get Rachel safely to the school gates,’ she added cajolingly, giving him a flannel for his grubby face and hands.
‘Oh, I’ve told George we would give him a lift,’ said Rachel.
‘Yes, of course, Rachel,’ replied Lorraine. ‘Look, I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark about him. Well, it was better for him – you know.’
‘I know that now,’ she said, returning her mother’s warm smile.
‘Take good care of him, Rachel,’ said Lorraine guardedly. ‘Trust me, you really don’t want the wrath of Morag and Elspeth on your doorstep.’
At number thirty-three, the refuse lorry screeched to a halt.
‘Oh, fiddlesticks,’ barked Lorraine. ‘Start the van up, Paul – I forgot the kitchen dustbin. Now, wait here, and I’ll go and get it.’
Lorraine took to her heels and ploughed through the front gate.
Rachel pulled herself inside the van. She had just brushed the last bits of a crushed ice-cream cone out of the passenger seat when her mother came thundering into the cul-de-sac with a hefty black sack in hand.
‘All aboard the ice-cream express,’ Paul announced. He started the engine, and the van chugged into life. ‘Bung the bag in the back, love.’
‘Good luck at school, Rachel,’ said Lorraine and waved her goodbye.
Scraping the bottom of the van over a steep speed bump, they edged towards Mr Mallings house at number thirty-three. Pete Marsh and his workmate piled rubbish bag after plastic rubbish bag into the back of the lopsided lorry that looked ready to keel over in the slightest gust of wind.
Harold Higgins, the Cook’s elderly next-door neighbour, gave the men a quick wave as he struggled along the pavement with Wilberforce, who he kept on a taut leash. The white bulldog took every opportunity to pounce on anything that took its fancy. Through the rusty iron fence at number thirty-one, Wilberforce push his pudgy nose through the bars, and its mouth chomped down on Mrs Turner’s prized rhododendrons, but Harold managed to pull him back onto the pavement.
Pete rubbed his hands down his filthy jacket and shook Mr Mallings’ hand. Paul floored his van, not wanting to miss Pete’s departure.
A black blur suddenly darted out of Mr Mallings’ property.
‘DAD, LOOK OUT!’ Rachel bellowed.
Paul slammed on the brakes. The van lurched then shuddered. ‘The brakes aren’t working!’ he cried out in alarm, and the van sped onwards.
At that moment, a loose box of chocolate flakes gained momentum and crashed into the dashboard. Smashed to smithereens, the flakes split open, and chunks of chocolate tumbled into the steering wheel’s column.
‘Now the steering wheel’s stuck,’ Paul shrieked, and they hit the high kerb with an unnerving crunching sound and landed on the pavement.
With wild eyes, Paul applied the brakes again – but to no avail.
With another juddering jolt, the van’s twin loudspeakers switched on.
Like a deer in headlights, Harold stood frozen to the spot as the van sped towards him – blasting out Greensleeves as it went hell for leather.
Rachel had to act fast, so with her hands tightly wrapped around the handbrake, she pulled it back with all her might.
Harold screamed and threw himself over Mrs Turner’s iron fence, flattening her prized rhododendrons, which left Wilberforce to face the music, which, by accident, had skipped to Waltzing Matilda.
The van wobbled like a jelly pudding and then teetered on two wheels.
Wilberforce just stared at the wayward van, seemingly unaware of the danger it was in, so Rachel pulled even harder on the handbrake, and as the van skidded, it suddenly spun off the pavement and into a speed bump – missing Wilberforce by a gnat’s whisker.
The van came to a crunching stop, but its airbags failed to deploy; however, the Cooks’ rubbish bag had a life of its own and took flight, finally smacking into the back of Paul’s head, which launched him over the steering wheel and into the nodding dog on the dashboard.
Noxious fumes of perfumery filled the interior.
‘I CAN’T BREATHE,’ Paul spluttered and threw the door open, pulling Rachel out with him, but he misjudged the step and toppled into the road.
‘Dad – are you all right?’ she screamed, leaning against the van, sucking in the invigorating sea air like no tomorrow.
‘Yuck – it’s all over me,’ he replied nauseatingly.
Rachel glanced down at her father and the rubbish bag that had broken his fall, but it had split open under his portly weight. Paul got up on all fours, glaring down at the sticky substances that clung to his shirt.
The sea breeze changed direction, and she smelt the awful aroma.
‘Ugh – I’m covered in some kind of ketchup – and what’s this yellow goo?’ Paul blustered and got onto his knees, grabbed a crumpled serviette and wiped the slimy globules off his face and neck.
However, at that precise moment, a rotund white head rounded the van. Wilberforce’s tongue slobbered out of its mouth as it spotted Paul.
The dog wasted no time and charged at him.
Rachel took to her heels and flung herself after its trailing leash.