‘Did you still speak with an American accent then?’
‘Yes.’
‘All I have to do is open my mouth at my school, and anything I say has to be dumb.’
‘I have that at my school now, but it was nice at the crammer. There were only thirty of us in the whole school, and they really made us feel like a big family. There was another boy who’d been evacuated too. He’d been sent to Australia, so at least I had someone to talk with. It’s horrid at this school. I don’t seem to fit in at all. I can’t be a wet bob and I’m useless as a dry bob.’
‘A what?’
‘If you’re a wet bob, then you get to row. I can’t be a wet bob because I can’t swim. That means I have to be a dry bob. A dry bob means you play cricket. I’ve never played cricket, which at my school is almost as blasphemous as saying you don’t believe in God.’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘If I could just get into the reserves for one of the rugger teams, then I’d have a chance of making friends. I’ve played American football, and I was on the school team in Vermont. It looks similar to rugger.’ He gave a sigh.
Rusty stood up. ‘Wanna explore some? I’ve set another trail on the other side.’
‘Sure.’
They scuffed their way through the leaves. Rusty felt lighter than she’d felt for weeks. She breathed in deeply. ‘By the way,’ she said, pushing a branch aside, ‘my name’s Rusty. What’s yours.’
‘Lance,’ he said awkwardly.
‘Lance? Is that short for something else?’
‘Lancelot.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘I’m not. If I’d been a girl, my parents would have called me Guinevere.’
‘Oh boy, Guinevere!’
She swung the torch down on to the ground. Two stones were placed on a large one. She stopped.
‘That’s a warning sign. I remember that one. I couldn’t get through.’ She waved her torch on ahead and turned to her left. ‘Ah,’ she cried. ‘This is the way.’
‘How can you tell?’
She pointed to a freshly broken twig. ‘I broke that.’
They went on past a tall clump of bracken.
‘But,’ continued Rusty, ‘don’t they tease you about being called Lancelot?’
‘No. They don’t call us by our Christian names. Only our surnames. I’m called Brownlow.’
‘With me it’s “Virginia Dickinson, walk, don’t run in the corridor. Virginia Dickinson, if you wish to speak, kindly lower your voice. Virginia Dickinson, do you have to move your hands when you talk? Virginia Dickinson, stop speaking in that affected manner. Virginia Dickinson, don’t you know there’s been a war on?”!’
At this, Lance burst out laughing. ‘I thought you said your name was Rusty.’
‘It has been for five years. Boy, it’s so weird being called by another name.’
‘It’s the same for me. Back in Vermont I was taught it was rude to call someone by his surname. You always had to put Mister in front of it, and you never said you were going to talk to someone. That was rude, too. It was always with. Here it’s different. “Brownlow,”’ he said sternly, ‘ “I’m talking to you!” and having a “talking-to” usually means a beating.’ He paused. ‘Rusty, what am I supposed to be looking for?’
‘A large arrow made with three branches. Ah,’ she said, pointing, ‘there it is.’
They made their way towards it.
‘I did try another route, but this way looked more interesting.’ She looked sideways at him in the half-light. He had such an earnest, sober sort of face.
‘Do they really beat you?’
He nodded. ‘It’s mostly the prefects who do it. Especially to the new boys. We all have to fag for one of them, too.’
‘Fag?’
‘It’s like be a servant to them. Clean their shoes, run errands for them, light the fires in their studies. And if you don’t do it well, they’re not only allowed to beat you, but they can stop you going into the town.’
They came to a clearing. A broken fence separated them from a field. They stopped.
‘Doesn’t anyone complain about it?’
‘You’d end up getting even more of a beating then, and you’d probably be sent to Coventry.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It means no one speaks to you.’
‘I guess that’s what everyone’s been doing to me.’
He looked surprised. ‘Why?’
‘For talking to you-.’
‘Gosh.’
‘Didn’t you get punished for talking to me?’
‘Not like that. They just jeered at me. A boy who likes girls is rather looked down on. Everyone hates their sisters and is embarrassed by their mothers. I’m odd because I don’t hate mine.’
‘Do you have any brothers?’
‘No, just one sister. She’s eight. She’s at a girls’ boarding school. I don’t know her, really. She was too young to come to the States with me.’
‘Eight years old? And at boarding school?’
He nodded.
They left the fence and made their way back to the copse.
‘Do you think the English hate children and that’s why they send them away?’ Rusty wondered.
‘I don’t know,’ he said miserably. ‘Sometimes I think maybe they just don’t like me.’ He attempted to force a smile, but Rusty could see how unhappy he was. She slipped her arm through his and gave him a squeeze.
‘That’s nuts!’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe, but then, why haven’t I any friends?’
‘Say, don’t I count?’
He grinned.
Suddenly Rusty broke away. ‘Let’s run,’ she exclaimed. ‘Like as if we’re being chased.’
‘O.K.,’ he said eagerly.
‘When I say Chickie-the-Cop we –’
‘Cut and run for it,’ finished Lance.
They sank down behind some bushes and pretended to be on the lookout. Rusty gave a sudden gasp. ‘Chickie-the-Cop,’ she whispered urgently, and with that they tore through the woods, colliding into branches, leaping over clumps of bracken and bumping into each other. As soon as they reached the edge of the wood, they ran towards the school wall and sank down on to the ground, puffing and giggling.
‘Oh boy,’ said Rusty, gasping. ‘I haven’t had so much fun in ages.’
‘Me neither.’
They leaned back and gazed up at the stars.
‘I suppose,’ said Lance, ‘we’d better get back before someone misses us.’
‘I guess so,’ said Rusty. They stood up. ‘You’ve got a good ways to go.’
‘It only takes fifteen minutes. I know a short cut.’
‘How did you get out?’
‘Some of the doors are unlocked. How did you get out?’
She stepped back and pointed to the school building. ‘See the scaffolding? That’s how.’
Lance stared aghast at it. ‘Is that the truth?’
‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’
He gazed at her with admiration. ‘You’re awfully plucky.’
‘Desperate, more like.’
‘Do you think,’ he said hesitantly, ‘we could see each other again?’
‘You bet. How about Monday?’
He grinned. ‘O.K. Monday it is.’
Rusty hauled herself up the wall. As she reached the top, she glanced quickly down at him.
‘So long!’ she whispered.
‘Be seeing you,’ he whispered back.
On Monday it rained so heavily that it turned into hailstones. Rusty found herself thinking of Lance’s remark, about how perhaps he had been sent away because his parents didn’t like him. Maybe, way back when she was small, she had done something really terrible and this was her punishment. She could hardly breathe for the weight on her chest. Her only source of relief was to return to daydreaming. She would stow away on a liner to New York and then bus up to Connecticut, and Aunt Hannah and Uncle Bruno would be standing on the lawn, and they’d bo
th run up to her and hug her, and she’d go up to her room and it would be just like she’d left it. White walls with stencil designs on them in russets and green, a canary-yellow windowsill and frame, with yellow-and-white-check curtains, and a canary-yellow wicker chair. And over the bed there’d be the big log-cabin patchwork quilt that Grandma Fitz made for her eleventh birthday, and on the floor the rag rug that Rusty had made one winter.
Back in America people used to laugh at her stamina. ‘Doesn’t this kid ever get tired?’ Uncle Bruno would say when she and Skeet came hurtling back into the house from ice-skating, and Skeet would turn on the radio and flop into a chair, while Rusty would be badgering Uncle Bruno to let her use his carpentry tools.
They’d never believe she was the same person now. Her fatigue was sometimes so acute that she could hardly move at all. With the fatigue came the intense cold feeling, and as she grew colder so her tiredness grew. The only times she had any energy was when she was climbing down the scaffolding.
Tuesday night was clear and, as she had hoped, Lance was waiting by the wall at midnight. They dived straight into the woods. As soon as they reached the sheltered copse, Rusty sat at the foot of the large tree.
‘Kinda homey, isn’t it?’ she murmured, taking in the sheltered circle. She looked up at him. ‘Why don’t you sit down and make yourself comfy?’
‘Because if I sat down, I wouldn’t be.’
‘Did they beat you again?’
‘The prefect I fag for did. I couldn’t get his fire to draw. I’m not very good at fires.’
‘Didn’t you ever have cookouts in Vermont?’
‘Sure, but the servants always used to make them up.’
‘Servants!’ She gave a whistle. ‘Does it hurt real bad?’
He nodded. ‘We have rugger practice tomorrow afternoon, too. If someone tackles me, it’s going to be agony.’
‘But that’s just plain darned bullying,’ said Rusty.
‘They can’t get away with that. Can’t you tell your parents?’
‘My father went to the same school. He said he hated it, but he thought that it did him good.’
‘Jeepers! But if everyone hates it, why don’t they stop it?’
‘Everyone doesn’t hate it,’ said Lance, squatting on the ground, being careful not to touch it with his bottom. ‘The prefects love it. I think they’re pleased to get their own back on the young ones.’
‘But that’s dumb. I mean, the ones they oughta get their own back on are the older ones.’
Lance shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Anyway,’ he added with resignation, ‘it’s tradition.’
‘Oh, tradition? exclaimed Rusty sarcastically. ‘Then it’s gotta be O.K.’ She shook her head. ‘Boy, do I hate that word. Tradition this. Tradition that. Any suggestion you make for doing something in a different way has to be lousy or everyone looks at you like you’re being a traitor to the school or the darned King.’ She paused. ‘I tell you, as soon as I get hold of some money, I’m going to leave this place and go back to America.’
He looked at her intently. ‘You really mean that, don’t you?’
‘Sure I mean it.’
‘But isn’t your family here?’
‘Uh-huh, but I miss my American family. Don’t you?’
‘Not really. I didn’t see much of them. It was all a bit formal where I lived. I stayed with an old couple on a hill in a huge white house with pillars all the way up the front. I even had my own private suite and a butler. They were awfully kind to me but, well, it was a bit lonely. It’s my buddies I miss most, and the forests and lakes and…’
He turned away. Then he stood up, pulled a handful of leaves from a nearby branch, and threw them to the ground.
‘I just have to get into the rugger team, even if it’s only in the reserves.’ He looked soberly at her. ‘You see, I don’t have a home anywhere. One of my parents’ houses was bombed, the other’s been requisitioned. My mother’s renting a tiny flat in London at the moment, and my father’s in Scotland. I’ve been staying with aunts most of the time. I have to make school my home now.’
Rusty sprang to her feet. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘my American parents would love to have you stay. You could come with me.’
He gave a shrug. ‘Maybe.’
They walked on through the woods, laying down fresh trails. Lance told Rusty about the compulsory cold baths the boys had to have first thing in the morning, and that in the winter they would have to break the ice before getting in. In spite of the baths, he said, the cloakrooms reeked of mildew and dirty socks.
As they broached the subject of teachers, Rusty found herself telling Lance about some of her most painful incidents, in such a way that she had Lance choking with laughter. Acting the clown seemed to be a good cure for her miseries.
It was on Thursday that they discovered what Rusty nicknamed the Cabin in the Woods.
They met as usual by the back wall and headed into the woods. Lance seemed more downcast then ever. He was still smarting from an afternoon of rugger.
‘It’s so damned annoying,’ he said angrily at one point. ‘I get the ball. I’m running like the wind. No one can touch me. Then someone yells out, “Hey, Yank!” and I just collapse in the middle, and the next thing I know everyone’s piled on top of me. Today someone said, “What’s the matter, Yank, don’t they teach games in America?” If they’re prefects I can’t tell them to shut up, otherwise I have another beating. I’m still sore from the last one.’
Instead of stopping at the copse, they continued through to the trees on the other side.
‘Sometimes when they speak, it’s so quick that I just can’t understand them. And they say, “What’s the matter, Yank, can’t you understand the King’s English?”‘
‘Yeah,’ said Rusty sympathetically. ‘They talk like they got a bunch of marbles in their mouths, and they sort of half smile and speak like they’re working a ventriloquist’s dummy.’ She stopped to give him a demonstration. ‘I seh, Belindah, hah frahtfli decent.’
‘That’s it!’ yelled Lance. ‘That’s it exactly!’
‘And that’s not all. They sound the opposite of what they’re saying, too, like this: How awfully, terribly exciting,’ she said in a dull monotone.
‘It’s perfect!’ spluttered Lance, doubled over with laughter.
Rusty smiled. She’d never seen anyone change so much when he laughed.
‘Say, you’d better keep the noise down. You’ll wake the racoons.’
‘They don’t have racoons in England.’
‘Well, chipmunks.’
‘They don’t have chipmunks.’
‘That figures. They don’t have anything interesting here.’
‘Now who’s being a snob?’ commented Lance.
‘O.K., O.K.’
They came to a sign indicating that they should turn left.
‘Let’s go take a right, Yank,’ suggested Rusty.
Lance whirled round angrily. ‘That was a nasty thing to do!’
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m going to call you Yank when you’re least expecting it, so’s you can get used to someone else calling you it. At least you know I like you. Then maybe it won’t hurt so much.’
Lance turned his back on her and began walking away.
‘Say, Lance,’ she said running after him. ‘Come on.’
He spun around, his eyes full of tears. ‘I’m just so sick of it all,’ he said. ‘Day in, day out.’
‘Look, it’s only a name. I’d be proud to be called Yank. I’d be pleased to have any nickname.’ She paused. ‘Come to think of it, I have one and I’m not so pleased.’
‘Oh,’ said Lance. ‘What is it?’
Rusty turned away.
‘It’s only a name, surely,’ said Lance, getting his own back.
She looked at him over her shoulder. ‘O.K. I’ll tell you if you don’t go away.’
‘If you call me by my nickname,’ he said, ‘you have to let me call you by yours.’
‘Say, that’s not fair.’ Lance turned to go. ‘O.K., O.K., it’s fair. Yank,’ she added, with extra emphasis. ‘It’s the Creeper, or Creepie for short.’
‘What! How did you get that one?’
They started walking again.
‘When I first came, no one would talk with me, so I used to go up to people and try and join in a conversation, but they didn’t like it. One day some girl says to me, “Go away, Virginia Creeper.” After that, every time I tried to be friendly, one of them would say, “Look who’s just crept up on us. It’s the Virginia Creeper.”‘
As Rusty drew aside an enormous overhanging branch, she caught sight of a small wooden gate almost hidden by tall trees.
They passed the trees and slid down a small slope towards it.
‘Oh!’ whispered Rusty. ‘Will you just look at that!’
On the other side of the gate, through a large garden of overgrown grass, stood the remains of a bombed house amid the debris of bricks, plaster and timber. Exposed to the sky were a small hall, a stairway, and a ceilingless room on top of the only whole one that remained.
Rusty pushed aside the gate, and together she and Lance ran through the grass. Rusty turned on her torch and swooped it around the building.
‘Come on, let’s take a look-see,’ she whispered.
The roofless hallway was covered with dust and small gritty pieces of plaster. Rusty grabbed hold of two pieces of timber that lay near the doorway to the remaining room. The door opened easily. They stepped inside.
The room had been stripped of furniture. The wooden floor was bare. A wide fireplace with a grey raised stone platform in front of it stood between two alcoves. Hanging beside the two front windows that looked out on to the garden were long dark curtains.
Rusty looked up the chimney. ‘Darn it! I can’t see whether it’s blocked up or not.’ She turned. ‘Tell you what – I’ll go upstairs and you shine my flashlight up the chimney. If the light shows, that means it’s O.K.’
‘It’s torch, not flashlight.’
‘Don’t you start on me, Yank,’ she said warningly.
‘O.K., Creeper.’
Rusty shook her fist at him and went outside into the hall and up the staircase. The tiniest speck of light was showing. It was so tiny that Rusty didn’t know if she was imagining it or not. By the time she had hopped down the stairs and walked back into the room, she had made up her mind that she had seen it.