2

mr roy, the holiday master, worked the children hard, because that was hisjob. he coached them the whole of the morning, going over and overeverything patiently, making sure it was understood, demanding, andusually getting, close attention.

at least he got it from everyone except jack. jack gave close attention tonothing unless it had feathers.

‘if you studied your geometry as closely as you study that book on birds,you’d be top of any class,’ complained mr roy. ‘you exasperate me, jacktrent. you exasperate me more than i can say.’

‘use your handkerchief,’ said the parrot impertinently.

mr roy made a clicking noise of annoyance with his tongue. ‘i shallwring that bird’s neck one day. what with you saying you can’t work unlesskiki is on your shoulder, and philip harbouring all kinds of unpleasantcreatures about his person, this holiday class is rapidly getting unbearable.

the only one that appears to do any work at all is lucy-ann, and she hasn’tcome here to work.’

lucy-ann liked work. she enjoyed sitting beside jack, trying to do thesame work as he had been set. jack mooned over it, thinking of gannets andcormorants which he had just been reading about, whilst lucy-ann triedher hand at solving the problems set out in his book. she liked, too,watching philip, because she never knew what animal or creature wouldwalk out of his sleeve or collar or pocket. the day before, a very large andpeculiarly coloured caterpillar had crawled from his sleeve, to mr roy’sintense annoyance. and that morning a young rat had left philip’s sleeve ona journey of exploration and had gone up mr roy’s trouser-leg in a mostdetermined manner.

this had upset the whole class for ten minutes whilst mr roy had tried todislodge the rat. it was no wonder he was in a bad temper. he was usually apatient and amiable man, but two boys like jack and philip were disturbingto any class.

the mornings were always passed in hard work. the afternoons weregiven to preparation for the next day, and to the writing-out of answers onthe morning’s work. the evenings were completely free. as there were onlyfour boys to coach, mr roy could give them each individual attention, andtry to fill in the gaps in their knowledge. usually he was a most successfulcoach, but these holidays were not showing as much good work as he hadhoped.

sam, the big boy, was stupid and slow. oliver was peevish, sorry forhimself, and resented having to work at all. jack was impossible, soinattentive at times that it seemed a waste of time to try and teach him. heseemed to think of nothing but birds. ‘if i grew feathers, he would probablydo everything i told him,’ thought mr roy. ‘i never knew anyone so mad onbirds before. i believe he knows the eggs of every bird in the world. he’sgot good brains, but he won’t use them for anything that he’s not reallyinterested in.’

philip was the only boy who showed much improvement, though he wasa trial too, with his different and peculiar pets. that rat! mr roy shudderedwhen he thought of how it had felt, climbing up his leg. really, lucy-annwas the only one who worked properly, and she didn’t need to. she hadonly come because she would not be separated from her brother, jack.

jack, philip and lucy-ann soon became firm friends. the love for allliving things that both jack and philip had drew them together. jack hadnever had a real friend before, and he enjoyed philip’s jokes and teasing.

lucy-ann liked philip too, though she was sometimes jealous when jackshowed his liking for him. kiki loved philip, and made funny crooningnoises when the boy scratched her head.

kiki had been a great annoyance to mr roy at first. she had interruptedthe mornings constantly with her remarks. it was unfortunate that themaster had a sniff, because kiki spoke about it whenever he sniffed.

‘don’t sniff!’ the parrot would say in a reproving tone, and the fivechildren would begin to giggle. so mr roy forbade kiki to be brought intothe classroom.

but matters only became worse, because kiki, furious at being shut awayoutside in the garden, unable to sit on her beloved master’s shoulder, sat ina bush outside the half-open window, and made loud and piercing remarksthat seemed to be directed at poor mr roy.

‘don’t talk nonsense,’ said the parrot, when mr roy was in the middle ofexplaining some fact of history.

mr roy sniffed in exasperation. ‘where’s your handkerchief?’ asked kikiat once. mr roy went to the window and shouted and waved at kiki tofrighten her away.

‘naughty boy,’ said kiki, not budging an inch. ‘i’ll send you to bed.

you’re a naughty boy.’

you couldn’t do anything with a bird like that. so mr roy gave it up andallowed the parrot to sit on jack’s shoulder once more. jack worked betterwith the bird near him, and kiki was not so disturbing indoors as out-of?doors. all the same, mr roy felt he would be very glad when the littleholiday school came to an end, and the four boys and one girl went home,together with the parrot and the various creatures owned by philip.

philip, jack and lucy-ann left the big slow-witted sam and the peevishlittle oliver to be company for one another each day after tea, and went offon their own together. the boys talked of all the birds and animals they hadknown, and lucy-ann listened, stumbling to keep up with them as theywalked. no matter how far they walked, or what steep hills they climbed,the little girl followed. she did not mean to let her beloved brother out ofsight.

philip felt impatient with lucy-ann sometimes. ‘golly, i’m glad dinahdoesn’t tag after me like lucy-ann tags after jack,’ he thought. ‘i wonderjack puts up with it.’

but jack did. although he often did not appear to notice lucy-ann anddid not even speak to her for some time, he was never impatient with her,never irritable or cross. next to his birds, he cared for lucy-ann, thoughtphilip. well, it was a good thing somebody cared for her. she didn’t seem tohave much of a life.

the three children had exchanged news about themselves. ‘our motherand father are both dead,’ jack said, ‘we don’t remember them. they werekilled in an aeroplane crash. we were sent to live with our only relation,uncle geoffrey. he’s old and cross, always nagging at us. his housekeeper,mrs miggles, hates us to go home for the holidays – and you can tell whatour life is like by listening to old kiki. wipe your feet! don’t sniff! changeyour shoes at once! where’s your handkerchief? how many times have itold you not to whistle? can’t you shut the door, idiot?’

philip laughed. ‘well, if kiki echoes what she hears in your home, youmust have a pretty mouldy time,’ he said. ‘we don’t have too grand a timeeither – but it’s better than you and lucy-ann have.’

‘are your father and mother dead too?’ asked lucy-ann, her green eyesstaring at philip as unblinkingly as a cat’s.

‘our father’s dead – and he left no money,’ said philip. ‘but we’ve got amother. she doesn’t live with us, though.’

‘why not?’ asked lucy-ann in surprise.

‘well, she has a job,’ said philip. ‘she makes enough money at her jobfor our schooling and our keep in the hols. she runs an art agency – youknow, takes orders for posters and pictures and things, gets artists to dothem for her, and then takes a commission on the sales. she’s a very goodbusiness woman – but we don’t see much of her.’

‘is she nice?’ asked jack. never having had a mother that he couldremember, he was always interested in other people’s. philip nodded.

‘she’s fine,’ he said, thinking of his keen-eyed, pretty mother, feelingproud of her cleverness, but secretly sad when he remembered how tiredshe had seemed sometimes when she had paid them a flying visit. one day,thought philip, one day he would be the clever one – earn the money, keepthings going, and make things easy for his hard-working mother.

‘and you live with an uncle, like we do?’ said lucy-ann, stroking a tinygrey squirrel that had suddenly popped its head out of one of philip’spockets.

‘yes. dinah and i spend all our hols with uncle jocelyn and aunt polly,’

said philip. ‘uncle jocelyn is quite impossible. he’s always buying oldpapers and books and documents, studying them and filing them. he’smaking it his life-work to work out the history of the part of the coast wherewe live – there were battles there in the old days, and burnings and killings– all most exciting. he’s writing a whole history – but as it seems to takehim a year to make certain of a fact or two, he’ll have to live to be four orfive hundred years old before he gets a quarter of the book done, it seems tome.’

the others laughed. they pictured a cross and learned old man poringover yellow, musty papers. what a waste of time, thought lucy-ann. shewondered what aunt polly was like.

‘what’s your aunt like?’ she said. philip screwed up his nose.

‘a bit sour,’ he said. ‘not too bad, really. too hard-worked, no money, nohelp in the old house except for old joe, the sort of handyman helper we’vegot. she makes poor dinah slave – i won’t, so she’s given me up, butdinah’s afraid of her and does what she is told more than i do.’

‘what’s your home like?’ asked lucy-ann.

‘a funny old place, hundreds of years old, half in ruins, awfully big anddraughty, set half-way up a steep cliff, and almost drowned in spray in astorm,’ said philip. ‘but i love it. it’s wild and lonely and strange, andthere’s the cry of the sea-birds always round it. you’d love it, freckles.’

jack thought he would. it sounded exciting to him. his home wasordinary, a house in a row in a small-sized town. but philip’s housesounded really exciting. the wind and the waves and the sea-birds – he feltas if he could almost hear them clamouring together, when he shut his eyes.

‘wake up, wake up, sleepy-head,’ said kiki, pecking gently at jack’s ear.

he opened his eyes and laughed. the parrot had an extraordinary way ofsaying the right thing sometimes.

‘i wish i could see that home of yours – craggy-tops,’ he said to philip.

‘it sounds as if things could happen there – real, live, exciting things,thrilling adventures. nothing ever happens in lippinton, where we live.’

‘well, nothing much happens at craggy-tops either,’ said philip, puttingthe little squirrel back into his pocket, and taking a hedgehog out of anotherpocket. it was a baby one, whose prickles were not yet hardened and set. itseemed quite happy to live in philip’s pocket, along with a very large snail,who was careful to keep inside his shell.

‘i wish we were all going home together,’ said jack. ‘i’d like to see yoursister dinah, though she does sound a bit of a wild-cat to me. and i’d loveto see all those rare birds on the coast. i’d like to see your old half-ruinedhouse too. fancy living in a house so old that it’s almost a ruin. you don’tknow how lucky you are.’

‘not so lucky when you have to carry hot water for miles to the only bathin the house,’ said philip, getting up from the grass where he had beensitting with the others. ‘come on – it’s time to get back. you’re never likelyto see craggy-tops, and you wouldn’t like it if you did – so what’s the goodof talking about it?’