I said, “Ouch.”
He said, “Whoaaa, that’s better. I can feel myself full of a strange energy. I normally only get it when the headmaster sees me win the six-mile run and he knows that I haven’t been in it.”
I suddenly felt a bit shy. I don’t know why. I mean, Charlie and I were friends, he’d made that clear, hadn’t he? So I should just be friendly.
But I’ve never had a boy who was a friend before. What is friendly? Oh, I know.
“Do you want to see some owl eggs?”
He looked at me.
“Do I want to see some owl eggs?? Do I want to see some owl eggs?”
I was looking at him.
He was going on. “Who wouldn’t want to see some owl eggs?”
I said, “Come on then, they are down here.”
He said, “Tallulah, the answer to who wouldn’t want to see some owl eggs is…me!!!!”
I said, “Really?”
And he looked at me.
“You’re serious, aren’t you, you are genuinely thrilled that you have found some owl eggs?”
I nodded. I felt really stupid now.
And he smiled.
“Come on then, you crazy-kneed girl.”
And we set off down the track to find the eggs.
When we went into the barn, the door creaked back. And in the gloom we could see a glow of whiteness. The eggs were lying there, all white and weird. They looked like they were a bit cracked. I hope Connie hadn’t sat on them too hard. I also hoped she wasn’t around anywhere. It is quite spooky in the barn and a whistling wind blew up from nowhere. Whining in the beams.
Charlie said, “Yes, they are definitely eggs.”
I could hardly see his face in the dark of the barn.
What a night I had had: Mummers play, corker rubbing, and now Charlie turning up and me bringing him to look at eggs.
I said, “It’s a bit odd, isn’t it? Me and the knees, and showing you the eggs. I’m sorry I’m so odd and…odd.”
Charlie said, “You’re not odd…you’re great, I think.”
And he sounded like he meant it.
I could hardly believe it.
I’ve never had anyone, well, a boy person, say that to me before.
I felt like singing my little song. But I know now to resist the call of ‘Hiddly diddly diddle’.
Charlie came nearer to me.
“Lullah, things can be quite, erm…complicated in life, can’t they? You know, it’s not just you.”
Was now the time for the Irish dancing?
Just then there was the most horrible screech, and something swooped low and brushed against my face. I was so shocked, I actually grabbed Charlie. Like in a really crap film.
Oh, it was so scary. In fact, it was Connie. Come to check on her eggs. I could hear her chuntering and screeching up in the eaves of the barn.
And suddenly I burst into tears.
Everything in my body seemed to just dissolve into tears.
Charlie said, “It’s alright, Lullah, it’s not going to hurt you. It’s just checking on the eggs. Come on.” And he got hold of my hand and took me outside.
He looked so kind and caring in the moonlight, and sort of handsome and brave.
Like Mr Darcy.
Maybe he would pick me up and carry me home. In his breeches.
And for a second, he just looked at me. Then he put his hand under my chin. And stroked my cheek with his other hand.
Cheek stroking! Did that come before snogging? Oh my God. Was this my second kiss???
But he didn’t kiss me, he said, “If I’d known that you were going to the cinema, I might have come. And that would have been stupid.”
What did that mean?
And then he looked at his watch and said, “Come on, otherwise I get the usual thrashing from the headmaster, if I’m late.”
As we walked along, I felt shaky and strange.
To fill in the gaps I said, “I don’t think you are allowed to beat school kids any more, it’s against the Geneva Convention and European Euro thing.”
He laughed and said, “Lullah, you’ve not seen our headmaster. I am taller than he is. And I’ve got more legs.”
More legs?
When we got to the Dobbins’ gate, he gave my arm a little squeeze and said, “See you soon.” And he went off into the night.
I was just going through the gate when he came back again.
“Lullah, I…”
I didn’t know what to say. I said, “Oh.”
He said, “Yep.”
I said, “OK, well, good.”
And we looked at each other, and then he said, “Night, night.”
What did that mean?
I woke up dreaming about Mrs Rochester cantering around my bedroom and then realised that the horsie legs were draped over the end of my squirrel bed.
I had my breakfast and sat on the wall, waiting for Ruby to come out of The Blind Pig. I am not keen to go in there after last night and the Mummers play. Already, one of the regular lads in the darts team has passed me by, neighing. Uh-oh, Mr Barraclough has seen me, he will have a field day. He did.
He said, “Ay up, I’ll just go get thee an apple, my beauty. Now don’t you poo on my front path.”
Oh, this is appalling.
Ruby came skipping out like a whirlwind with Matilda. When she saw me, she started jumping up and down.
“They’re here, they’re here! The owlets. Hooray! Hooray! Say ‘hooray’, Matilda. Say ‘hooray’, like I taught thee at obedience class.”
Matilda lay on her back and looked up at me with her lovely buggy eyes. She put her legs in the air.
I said, “Is that hooray?”
Ruby said, “Aye, she’s so excited, she’s had to have a bit of a lie down.”
I gave Matilda a big scratch on her tummy and she quivered like a jelly dog.
Ruby was chatting on. “I’ve called them Ruby and Lullah. Do you like the names? One of them is bigger than the other and it’s got reet long gangly legs, so I thought that one should be thee.”
I laughed at her, but I’m secretly loving it that she called the owlets after me and her.
We went down the back way to the barn and opened the door really carefully, shielding ourselves from Connie, if we needed to.
Ruby said, “We’ll just peep in and scarper. That was what I did this morning.”
I yelled, “Yarrooooo!” But nothing happened. So we went over to the corner where the eggs were, but they weren’t eggs any more, they were living, breathing owlets!!!!
Oh, I love them.
Ruby picked one of them up gently and said, “Do you see what I mean about Lullah’s legs?”
I said, “Yes.”
I felt a big surge of love for little Lullah. She was cheeping and blind and had gangly legs. I said to Ruby, “I am going to become like a big sister to them and always look out for them, and defend them against…”
Ruby said, “Right big mice?”
She was grinning through her gap teeth. Then she held little Ruby down for Matilda to sniff. Little Ruby cheeped and Matilda nearly fell over backwards, and raced for the door.
I started laughing, but then I said, “Maybe Matilda has used her dog hearing, and knows that Connie is coming back.”
Ruby started to say, “Dog hearing? I got in her dog basket once when she was snoozing and she didn’t even—” Then something creaked, and we shoved the owlets back in the nest and legged it for the door.
As we jogged away from the barn, Ruby said, “Any more lad stuff? Did the lasses track down the Woolfe lads?”
I said, “Yes, but something funny happened to me when I went home. I was—”
And I was just about to tell her about the Charlie incident when Ruben came strolling by with his pigs. Matilda ran away from Smoky and Streaky.
Ruben winked and said, “Ay up, Rube.”
And she said, “Ay up, Rube.”
And we both laughed.
It w
as water off a duck’s back to Ruben. He said, “Either of you fancy a snog, as I’m doing nowt?”
Ruby said, “Yeah, that would be great, wouldn’t it, Tallulah?”
Pardon?
Ruben said, “Really?”
And Ruby said, “Oh, look there’s a pink pig, can you see it, up there in the sky?”
As he sloped off, clicking his fingers, she said, “All of the Hinchcliffs have been like that since they were about two.”
At which point we noticed Cain, sitting on a gate sucking on a piece of grass.
Ruby said, “What’s he up to?”
I said quickly, “Why don’t we have a proper run for a bit?”
Too late. Cain saw us and shouted over, “Alright, girls? Going to play with tha dollies? Or have tha got something else to play with?”
I do officially hate him.
I turned my back on him and started walking on, but then Ruby said, “Oh my God, this time he’s done it.”
I looked round and he was snogging a girl. What was news about that?
I said to Ruby, “That Beverley girl wants her head testing.”
Ruby said, “It’s not Beverley.”
And it wasn’t.
Ruby said, “It’s Seth’s girlfriend.”
CHAPTER 16
Heathcliff, it’s me
Tap-tapping at your windooooow
When I got to Dother Hall, I felt like a month had gone by, so much had happened. It was really only a few days since I had seen the girls, but I had been through the wringer of life. I wouldn’t know where to start to tell them everything.
Was I going to tell them everything?
Did anyone else know about corker rubbing?
As I reached the gates, Vaisey came hurtling out to hug me. Her hair shaking and shimmying about. She said, “Lullah, guess what? Phil told me that Jack thinks I’m cute!!!! Cute!!!”
I said, “Gosh. And goodie. That’s goodie. And spiffing and everything.”
Vaisey said, “I know, I know. AND Jack is going to be coming here on Friday…because…The Jones have asked him to be their new drummer!”
Oh goodie, The Jones will be around on Friday.
I didn’t have any time to talk to the girls about my news because we had mime with Monty, first thing. He was so excited about it that he came and got us ten minutes early. Hustling us into the small studio, he loosened his bow tie and said, “Today we are going to learn how to express ourselves, but not through voice. Let’s begin. I will go first.”
He put on a sailor’s hat and started to sway from side to side.
Then he put a hand over his eye, like he was looking into the distance.
Then he looked sad.
Then he looked into the distance again.
And jumped up and down, looking pleased.
He fell to his knees, putting his hands in prayer position. Then leapt up again and did a war dance.
At the end, he said, “So, girls, what happened?”
Flossie said, “Were you a drunken sailor?”
Monty looked a bit annoyed.
We knew it was some sort of sailor because of the hat, but then Flossie said, “Well, were you on a cross-channel ferry in a storm?”
Monty got exasperated and told us that he was Columbus discovering America.
I don’t know how we were supposed to know that.
I said to Vaisey, “Wasn’t Columbus Spanish or something? He should have done a little flamenco dance instead of just the swaying.”
At that point Ms Fox came in and said, “Hello, carry on as if I am not here.”
Then she lay down on the floor.
Monty said, “Now ladies, it is your turn. Think yourself into whatever it is you are portraying. Be the thing or person inside.”
We had to get into groups of three and be at a party. The person who was ‘being’ whatever they were being, had to convey to the other two by their actions what they were ‘being’.
I felt strangely calm for once.
I went and crouched on a chair.
I was ‘being’ Connie.
Like Monty had told us, I thought about the ‘qualities’ of owliness. My wise nature. Where my home might be. What I had for supper. Mouse, I thought. I began to only really think in hoots. I thought about my bottom being comfortable on a tree. And what I would do if I wanted a pee. I looked around to see how far I could twist my head. And how long I could stare.
No one came near, although Flossie did offer me a mime cheesy wotsit (I think). Then she and Vaisey went back to pretend conversation and mime snack eating.
Eventually I started waving my pretend wing.
Flossie came up, dabbing at the floor, like I had spilt my pretend drink.
This was hopeless.
I caught Vaisey’s eye and raised my lower eyelids slowly. Surely, that would do it.
It didn’t.
So then I laid an egg.
People can be very thick even when offered the best of mimes. Flossie said, “ Are you having a poo?”
Monty said, “I think we will leave it there.”
Then everyone had to guess what had gone on.
How on earth could anyone have thought that I was sitting on a spacehopper at a party?
What fool would do that?
Monty said, “So what was the mime all about? You seemed, somehow disturbed and angry. Was there some inner conflict expressed in your performance?”
I said, “Yes, there was, Sir, I was an owl laying an egg and…”
As we went out Blaise Fox said, “Come with me to the roof, Tallulah.”
Was I so bad that she was going to push me off?
We went up the windy stairs to the dorm, and then up some tiny narrow stone steps that led to the roof
I had never been up to Mrs Rochester land. You could walk along on the flat bits between the towering chimneys, and there was a parapet that went all the way round. And huge gargoyles on every corner of the roof. Blaise led the way and we went to lean on the stone balcony.
You could see for miles over the woods and moors, all the way to Grimbottom. There was a building to the left, beyond the woods, that looked a bit like Dother Hall…Ooh, that must be where Phil and Charlie and Jack were. The mysterious Woolfe Academy.
Ms Fox said, “Do you want to stay here, Tallulah Casey?”
I thought at first she meant ‘did I want to stay on the roof’, but then I realised she meant at Dother Hall.
So I said, “Oh, yes. I really do. But…you know, you’ve seen me, the bicycle thing and…It’s not enough to just think you want to do something, is it? You have to be able to do it.”
She said, “And do you know what I think you can do?”
I said, “Be an idiot?”
She smiled at me, “Yeah, you are quite good at that. But I believe you have a special quality.”
Blimey.
She went on. “It’s a mix of energy and, I think…a talent for comedy.”
Yippee. Maybe.
Blaise looked at me and said, “I’ve been thinking about our end of summer school Wuthering Heights. It’s going to be a musical. And I want you to be the lead.”
Crumbs.
Me?
Cathy?
I had the hair for it – I could swish it about. And I could sing my song:
I’m out on the moors, the windy moors,
Let’s roll about in mud pools,
Or sheep poo, I hate you, I love you tooooo.
Heathcliff, it’s me, tap-tapping on your windooooow.
Then I came out of my made-up world.
Wuthering Heights, the musical.
I said, “Um, the only thing is, I can’t sing.”
And she said, “I know, it’s a comedy version. And I want you to be Heathcliff.”
When I got back to Heckmondwhite, the whole village was in a state of high excitement as the skipping rope is finished. There is going to be a mass skipathon at nine o’clock with tuba playing. And the village shop is s
taying open half an hour later, just in case someone needs a bag of humbugs.
I had walked home from Dother Hall in a dream. I was so shocked that I didn’t tell the girls what had happened in Mrs Rochester land, I told them I was rushing off to see the owlets. They wanted to come and see them too, but they all had singing lessons.
As I tramped along the woodland path, I was confused.
What does Ms Fox mean, she wants me to play Heathcliff?
He’s a boy.
Does she mean I am like a boy?
I tried to ask her, but she said I have to figure it out for myself and to come back to her with my ideas, about how to ‘be’ Heathcliff
And to not feel sorry for myself because it is unattractive in a girl with my knees.
The Dobbins were leaving the house as I got there, taking sandwiches for the skipping participants. Dibdobs gave me a big hug as she left.
She said, “Oooooohhhhhhhhhh.”
And the twins hugged my knees and went, “Ooooohhh, sjuuuge.”
They are wearing beanie hats. Which I think is a bit cruel of Dibdobs.
Beanie hats on pudding-headed boys.
I went up to my room to think about the Wuthering Heights thing.
And to make notes in my performance art notebook.
I spent about an hour on it.
It says: Breeches and a moustache.
I thought I would pop along to see the owlets again. It would take my mind off the Heathcliff thing. I was going to make damn sure Connie wasn’t anywhere around, though. And by the way, where was the owl dad, when he was needed?
Probably off abroad, like my dad. Messing about with his mates saying, “Ooooooh, look there’s a bog-eyed mouse, you can’t get those in Yorkshire.”
When I carefully went into the dark barn the owlets must have sensed I was there because they started cheeping and peeping. I went over to the nest. Oooooohhh, they are cute and fluffy. Still blindy, though. They were opening and closing their beaks, but I didn’t have any owl snacks for them. Ruby might know what they like.
I said softly, really close to their ears…Do they have ears?