Mennyms Under Siege Page 10

  Joshua, in his chair by the door, was hoping that it would all be over soon, whatever it was. He kept his counsel, but he secretly believed that his father was too apt to create irritating mountains out of molehills. Vinetta and Hortensia, seated side by side, both felt uneasy, knowing that they shared a secret. Pilbeam and Appleby were also uncomfortably aware of something untold. Soobie, innocent but acutely conscious of all the undercurrents, waited for the storm to break.

  When Magnus finally spoke it was in a surprisingly quiet voice, but chill as iced water.

  “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” he began. “It is sure to fall. There are serpents in our midst. We are in the gravest of dangers and someone in this room knows how it has come about. Someone in this room has betrayed us to the enemy.”

  Miss Quigley looked terrified, Vinetta anxious. Pilbeam glanced guiltily at Appleby, who shrugged one shoulder and raised a defiant eyebrow.

  Wimpey, puzzled by it all, was about to speak when Poopie gripped her arm in warning. They were twins after all. They might squabble and bicker day in, day out, but he was not going to allow her to step into the lion’s mouth.

  Just as well.

  Her grandfather’s next words came out in an angry roar.

  “I want the truth,” he said, “and I want it now. Which of you has had truck with the world out there? Which of you has caused this house to come under scrutiny? Speak up. Let me know the whole of the damage. I am the one who will have to repair it.”

  He collapsed back on his pillows.

  Tulip, quiet, firm, businesslike, told them about the telephone call from the Education Department, and then, looking at Vinetta, said, “I think we should start with you. There is a story behind the whooping cough. It needs telling, whatever it is you are hiding.”

  Vinetta was about to speak when Miss Quigley gallantly interrupted.

  “There is a story,” she said, “but it is my responsibility. So I am the one who must tell it.”

  Bravely and with no fluttering at all, Hortensia told what had happened as she returned from the park.

  Vinetta gave her a look of deep approval.

  Tulip said scornfully, “So much for your vaunted ability to deflect attention. Magnus was right. He has been right all along. To take a big, old-fashioned perambulator out into the street was inviting trouble. It is only surprising that it did not happen sooner.”

  Pilbeam, seeing Miss Quigley look upset, and feeling respect for her courage, decided to take some of the fire.

  “I think we should tell them all about our visit to Sounds Easy,” she said, looking at Appleby. “We were spotted there, remember. Miss Quigley is not the only one to blame, if blame is the right word.”

  Appleby looked frantic. For a split second she thought that Pilbeam intended telling them about Tony and the letters and her visit to the disco. Pilbeam, realising what was going through her sister’s mind, quickly told the simplified version. Never would she betray the confidence Appleby had placed in her. Their friendship was too precious.

  After Pilbeam finished speaking, Magnus made his considered pronouncement.

  “We must go back to square one,” he said with his usual flair for finding the mot juste. “And this time not even Miss Quigley can go out. Till we are satisfied that it is safe to do so, no one must leave the house.”

  Joshua had sat silent, but now was his time to speak. In a voice that brooked no contradiction, he said, “That won’t do. No matter what you say, Father, I shall be going to work as usual tomorrow night.”

  Soobie approached the problem less stiffly, but with the same end in view.

  “I never go out before dark,” he said, “even if it means waiting till nearly midnight. No one sees me. We cannot break all contact with the outside world, Grandfather, however much you might want us to. Letters need to be posted, bills have to be paid . . .”

  “I do that,” said Appleby sharply.

  “Not any more,” said her grandfather. “You are one who must stay indoors. But Soobie has a point. And letters can be posted at any time of night or day. Soobie can post them.”

  Appleby was furious.

  “What about stamps?” she said. “What about envelopes? Soobie can’t go to the shops.”

  Magnus gave her a triumphant look.

  “Why do you think I have been buying so many these past weeks? A very elementary precaution. I have a supply of stamps and stationery which could last us six months, maybe even a year.”

  “You can’t put parcels in a letter-box,” said Appleby, looking at Tulip.

  “No parcels,” Granpa conceded. “Harrods will have to wait for their next consignment. Your grandmother will have to write and tell them she is unable to take any more orders just now. That’s all she need say.”

  “Matches,” said Appleby. “What about matches?”

  “We have laid in enough of them to build St Paul’s,” said Magnus with relish, “and Westminster Abbey too, if need be.”

  That sounded odd, thought Poopie, but very interesting. He looked at the grown-up faces and tried to follow the grown-up arguments. It suddenly occurred to him that his own life might somehow be affected. The garden, for instance. What about the garden? That was outside.

  “But we’ll still be able to do the garden,” he said. “Won’t we?”

  “The back garden, maybe,” said his grandfather, “but not the front.”

  “It’ll grow wild,” said Poopie. “Everything will just shoot up if it’s not looked after.”

  Wimpey had a vision of plants climbing high to the sky and hedges meeting across the front path.

  “It’ll be like in the fairytale,” she said. “We could be trapped for a hundred years. And Albert Pond might have to come and chop it all down.”

  Sir Magnus frowned at the mention of Albert’s name, but as he looked at his little granddaughter he softened.

  “It won’t be a hundred years,” he said gently. “A few months should be enough.”

  20

  Some Birthday!

  A BIRTHDAY’S NOT a birthday without any presents . . .

  On the eve of the fourth of July, the day on which Appleby always celebrated her fifteenth birthday, Vinetta had gently explained that there would be no gifts to unwrap this year. No one had been to the shops.

  “You could have bought things mail order,” said Appleby. “It was the one thing I was looking forward to. If you’d wanted anything for yourself you’d have got it mail order. Why don’t you just tell the truth? You all forgot. You were so busy worrying about what the neighbours would think or say or do, you forgot all about my birthday.”

  A six-year-old Appleby was inside her somewhere, desperately disappointed that there weren’t going to be any birthday presents.

  “We can still have a party, with the table set as usual,” Vinetta said, trying to improve things but not succeeding.

  “You must be joking,” said Appleby. “If you lot want to have a party, you can have one without me!”

  “Well, later then, when the siege is over . . .”

  “Forget it!” said Appleby. “Just forget it. That’s something you shouldn’t find hard.”

  The expression on her face was ugly, the tone of her voice distressingly rude.

  But Vinetta appreciated how disappointed her volatile daughter was feeling and she merely said, “Very well. We’ll talk about it some other time.”

  The past few weeks had been very fraught. To go no further than the back garden, to have someone constantly on watch at the front window, was wearing on the nerves. There was a rota for guard-watch. Soobie’s seat by the window made him the obvious choice for the job, but he wanted time to read, or even to go to his room and listen to the radio. Looking out of the window voluntarily was one thing, deliberately and carefully watching every minute of the day was quite another. So they took it in turns.

  In those weeks they saw people coming and going at all of the houses in the street, but infrequently. There w
ere long spells when the street was completely empty. On one occasion there was a flutter of panic when Anthea stopped to speak to old Mrs Jarman just outside the front gate of Number 5. Wimpey, whose turn it was to watch, tugged at Soobie’s sleeve to make him look up from his book.

  “Look, Soobie, look. She’s there. That woman.”

  Anthea at that very moment was looking towards the house. They both saw her. She had her head turned in their direction almost as if she were pointing.

  “She’s looking this way.”

  But the panic was soon over. Mrs Jarman had shrugged her shoulders and walked on and into her own drive. The two Mennyms saw Anthea staring after her, looking somehow put out.

  “Well, whatever she said,” said Soobie, “our next-door-neighbour gave her a very cool reception.”

  Wimpey had told all the others about it. Even she knew that it was not much of an incident, but it was a bit more exciting than watching the grass grow. Which it did! Whenever it was Poopie’s turn to be on watch the sight of the overgrown lawn with its invasive dandelions grieved his gardener’s heart. “Maybe it was our garden she was talking about,” he said. “It must be the worst-kept garden in the street.”

  When Appleby went to bed on the eve of her birthday she was still fuming and beginning to direct her thoughts towards revenge. And the best revenge she could think of was a bid for freedom.

  An hour after midnight, she crept out of her room, wearing her outdoor clothes, her tartan jeans and her old yellow anorak. She was in her stockinged feet, carrying her strongest shoes. In her shoulder bag she had all the money she had accumulated over the past unspending weeks. The younger members of the family had all been given pocket-money as usual with the idea that they might appreciate how money could grow if one was not constantly spending it. Vinetta, every bit as naive as Wimpey in some respects, had been responsible for this arrangement.

  “After all,” she had said, “the siege will end some time. They will enjoy having some extra spending money when it does.”

  Appleby knew just what to do with her extra money. It was an essential part of the escape plan. There was one important commodity she would definitely need to buy.

  She walked swiftly past Granpa’s room. There was a low light on each landing and in the hall downstairs. The house was never in total darkness. Appleby watched carefully for any movement as she tiptoed down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor. She held her breath when she saw a thin strip of light under the breakfast-room door. Granny Tulip must be working late. Why couldn’t she sleep at night like everybody else! Appleby took extra care as she turned the brass knob on the door to the kitchen. It opened silently on well-oiled hinges.

  Once in the kitchen, she had one more task before she could leave the house. She reached up to the shelf where the old tea jar was kept and removed the key to the shed. Then she put on her shoes and went outside. She had a torch in her pocket but she dared not use it yet. She stumbled across the dark garden to the wooden shed that stood near the back fence. Fumbling guiltily, she opened the padlock. Inside, the shed was quite spacious, as garden sheds go. To the left of the door were neatly stored and stacked garden tools and do-it-yourself equipment. To the right, under the window, was a long plank workbench beyond which, straddling the side wall, was some sort of monster covered with tarpaulin. This was the object of Appleby’s quest. Taking the torch from her anorak pocket, and pointing the beam well away from the window, she made her way past the workbench. The tarpaulin was pulled back to reveal . . .

  Albert Pond’s scooter!

  It had been in the shed ever since Appleby had lodged it there following her flight from Comus House. This was the country home Albert Pond had provided for the Mennyms when it seemed that the authorities were bent upon demolishing Brocklehurst Grove. The family had not been able to settle there. It was too isolated. Appleby had rebelled and had made her escape on the old scooter that had belonged to Albert’s father. Having used it once, she could use it again.

  Everybody knew, of course, that the scooter was in the shed, but over the months it had been forgotten. Joshua had placed the tarpaulin over it after one of those what-shall-we-do-about-it sessions that had ended in deadlock.

  “If Albert wants it,” said Joshua, “he knows where it is.”

  They all knew instinctively that Albert never would come and claim his property. At first, it had saddened Soobie to think of it. Poopie was tempted to sneak a look under the tarpaulin. But in a surprisingly short time the scooter was forgotten. Except by Appleby. Appleby never forgot anything that she might be able to turn to good use some day.

  She folded the cover away and carefully wheeled the bike out into the open. It was not easy. The machine was heavy, much easier to ride than to push, but she would have to be well clear of the house before she would dare to start up its engine. The helmet, with the gloves inside, was still hooked onto the handlebars where she had left it.

  What made her task even more difficult was that she dared not risk using her torch. She had to manoeuvre the vehicle very gingerly over the dark grass. She pushed it across to the flowerbeds at the side of the house, trying to get out of sight of the back windows as quickly as she could. Then after struggling through a patch of uneven soil, she got the heavy, cumbersome beast onto the welcome smoothness of the front drive. The worst part was over.

  Wheeling the bike cautiously towards the gate, glancing back over her shoulder to make sure that the front of the house was in darkness, Appleby felt a sudden tingle of joy. The excitement was beginning and the torture of being confined to the house was nearly over.

  Then suddenly, ahead of her, the front gate swung open.

  “Where on earth do you think you’re going?”

  It was Soobie. A fine summer night. A long late run. He had jogged up the High Street and then down to the river. He had crossed the elegant Dean Bridge and returned by way of the sturdy Victoria whose strong pillars carried a road and a railway. Then up past the Market and back onto the High Street again. He felt tired but content, and almost unblue. The last thing he expected was to walk headlong into a crisis.

  21

  Questions and Answers

  THE SCOOTER FELL noisily onto the drive. Appleby glared at Soobie.

  “You gave me the fright of my life there,” she said angrily whilst her imagination ranged over the possible explanations she might be able to offer for being in that place at that time with that scooter! A quick look up at the house made her aware of a light going on at a first floor window. Poopie’s room. It was going to get harder, not easier!

  Soobie righted the bike and looked grimly at his sister, still waiting for the answer to his question.

  “Well?” he said.

  Appleby tossed her head.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, Soobie Mennym,” she said, “but I decided that this bike was too much of a temptation. I was taking it out to dump it. Any one of us might have decided to go off with it somewhere. Even you.”

  “I need to know more than that,” said Soobie, “a lot more than that. Dump it? Where? How?”

  Appleby’s thoughts flicked through all the dumping possibilities and drew out, like a card from a file, what she hoped would be a credible answer.

  “I was going to wheel it down to the river and tip it over the quayside.”

  Soobie went shades bluer in the light that shone in on them from the street lamp.

  “You vandal!” he said. “How could you even think of . . .”

  He stopped himself in mid-sentence as he realised that he was being unutterably gullible.

  “Come on, Appleby. The truth’s what I want,” he said, “and that isn’t it!”

  Appleby looked sulky. From the back of the house at that moment, dressed in her long velvet dressing gown and carrying a cricket bat, came Pilbeam.

  “What’s going on here?” she said. “I saw movement in the back garden. When I opened the window I heard scuffling. I thought we had burglars.
”

  “It’s just Appleby,” said Soobie. “You won’t need your truncheon! She was sneaking off somewhere with the bike. If I hadn’t caught her, goodness knows where she’d have been heading by now.”

  Pilbeam looked at her brother and sister and the scooter propped up between them. They both seemed ready to stand there and argue all night.

  “It’s no use talking out here,” said Pilbeam. “Let’s put the bike back in the shed and go into the kitchen.”

  Before anything could be done, the front door opened just far enough to let a small boy squeeze through and draw it shut behind him. Down the drive came Poopie, dressed in his striped pyjamas and with his hair unkempt from sleep. When he saw the scooter, he whistled.

  “Who brought that out here?” he said.

  “Me,” said Appleby. “Do you want to make something of it?”

  By now Appleby was thoroughly angry, as if everyone else were in the wrong, but she dared not vent her anger on Pilbeam or Soobie. Poopie was a softer target. His rages were juvenile and did not impress her at all. But he glared at her all the same and came back with an answer.

  “Granpa will kill you when he finds out,” he said. “I’d hate to be you when Granpa finds out.”

  “Hush!” said Pilbeam. “No one is going to find out. We will keep it a secret. Now let’s get the bike put away and we’ll go indoors to talk about it.”

  Soobie wheeled the scooter back to the shed. They covered it with the tarpaulin again and locked up.

  “I’ll take the key,” said Poopie, with the proprietary rights of a gardener. “I’ll put it away.”

  He ran ahead of them into the kitchen, climbed on a chair and put the key back in its jar. Then they all sat round the kitchen table and looked expectantly at Appleby.

  “Now,” said Pilbeam, “what were you hoping to do? Where were you meaning to go?”

  Appleby’s mind was rapidly searching for a plausible story but, as she looked at Pilbeam she realised, not for the first time, that her sister was not in the market for lies. Since the disco business she had been more suspicious than ever. No matter how expert a lie might be, Pilbeam wouldn’t buy it. The next best thing was to come at the truth sideways.