скачать книгу бесплатно
He put his hand to his ear. “Is that elfin you’re speaking?”
Just then Bob, the technician from Dother Hall, emerged from the ‘Stags’ door. He was also wearing a Viking helmet. Over his ponytail. He saw me and said, “Nice one, Tallulah. Great to see you back. Monday I’ll be there at Dother Hall, the dude with the know-how, the equipment king, the ‘facilitator’ … but tonight I’m the real me. The muso. The rhythm master. Be prepared for total madness. The vibe is going to be like awesome.”
Like awesome?
He went off into the front bar.
I said, “Why is Bob here?”
Mr Barraclough chucked me under the chin.
“Why is Bob here? Why is Bob here? I’ll tell you why he’s here, young man. He’s our new drummer for The Iron Pies. We are going to be a sound sensation. Good to see you back, young Bilbo.”
He went off into the bar shouting, “Hit it, lads!”
And an awful din of drums and guitars started up. It really did sound like Bob was just hitting things.
Ruby and Matilda came tumbling down from upstairs. Matilda was leaping up at my legs and Ruby was dancing around me, yelling, “It’s Tallulah-lebulla, Matilda, let’s mek her dance, do the dance, Tallulah-lebulla, do the dance!!!”
I said with dignity, “I don’t want to, you know I’ve sort of grown out of the Irish dancing thing.”
The Iron Pies crashed into their version of a James Bond theme. Mr Barraclough started singing, “From Russia with PIES I came to yooooooo.”
And Ruby had to yell over the top of it. “Oh, come on, just a little bit. For me! I’ll sing the Irish song. Hiddly diddly diddly diddle.”
So I let myself go. I did my Irish dancing. Ruby joined in and we were leaping and hopping around in the hallway. It was fun actually. There was no one to see me and I needed to relax so I let my knees go wherever they pleased.
When I was mid-hiddly, I noticed Matilda had got caught in the umbrella stand. Umbrellas were crashing around her. She looked up blinking at us. Ruby said, “What? What? Why are you blinking at me?’”
Then Matilda looked at the door and back at Ruby.
Ruby said, “No, I’m not taking you out now, it’s quiet time.”
Matilda started making a snuffling noise which sounded a bit like crying. Ruby gave in and picked her up.
“Oh, bloody hell, all right, Matilda, you daft ninny. Come on, I’ll tek you out, even though it’s going to be a tornado out there. C’mon, Lullah.”
She rammed a hat and coat on and dragged me outside with her. For an eleven year-old she’s quite strong.
Big black clouds were tumbling in again from Grimbottom and in the distance we could see lightning crackling. There was a rumble as we set off up the back path.
We reached the old tree with its branch that we sit on. Ruby pulled her coat round her and shouted above the gathering wind. “It’ll start pouring down in abaht five minutes so ‘go fetch!’ Matilda.” And Ruby flung a stick for Matilda to chase.
Matilda lay down like a splayed chicken.
Ruby said, “Oh, you!!! That’s not ‘go fetch’, is it? That’s lying down and dying for England!!!”
Ruby went running off into the bracken to get the stick, shouting, “And then you can start telling me abaht snogging and stuff, Lullah!”
Matilda’s not interested in stick fetching. She knows a stick is not a biscuit so why would she want to fetch it?
Gosh, it was wild up there with the lowering sky and the trees bending in the wind and the moors stretching off.
I sat down on the branch and snuggled into my anorak and put my hood up. I was sitting on the branch that HE had sat on.
I could feel his warm presence even through my anorak.
Alex the Good.
I was sitting where Alex the Good sat.
In a way, I was sitting on his knee.
Alex, Alex the Good. Ruby’s gorgey older brother.
I’ve got a bit of a crush on him. Even though he thinks I’m just a schoolgirl, he’s always nice to me. Really specially nice to me.
He’s not like the Hinchcliff brothers, Seth, Ruben and the other brother. Whose name I will never mention again. But the one who waved a dead rabbit’s paw. That one.
Yes, Alex is always nice to me, encouraging me to fill my tights. Not like Dr Lightowler the drama tutor who says, “Seeing you onstage makes me feel physically sick.”
Mmmmmm, Alex.
It was sunny when I last saw him, he was up here looking out to the moors. Like Mr Darcy. Only not in pantaloons and a ruffled shirt. He saw me and said, “Hey, Lullah!” and hugged me.
In a proper huggy way. I felt myself melt. I don’t mean I actually melted, I just mean … anyway, it doesn’t matter whether I melted or not. It was just me and him in Brontë country. Where Em Brontë wrote Withering Tights. It was a perfect opportunity for him to kiss me.
But then ‘she’ came wafting out of a field like a, like a twit. A twit in a floaty dress. He introduced us: “Meet Candice, she’s at college with me.” Then he kissed her on the lips.
Do boys like twits in floaty dresses? I haven’t asked Cousin Georgia that. She’s told me some number one rules that they do like. Boys, I mean.
Like when you want them to like you, you have to have ‘sticky eyes’. Not eyes with glue on, just eyes that do ‘looking up, looking down and then just looking, full-on looking at them’.
Georgia said you mustn’t accidentally do sticky eyes when a boy says something so stupid you are staring at him in disbelief. Because they will get the wrong impression and think that you actually like them. In an ‘I fancy you’ way.
Another top tip Georgia says is that boys like you to say nice things to them and praise them for stuff. Even if they unexpectedly do a back flip or something.
You have to say, “Golly, that’s the best back flip I’ve ever seen.”
I said to Georgia, “No fool would believe that you really liked people doing back flips.”
Georgia said, “Boys will. If you say something nice to them and give them praise, they are like jelly boys and you can do anything with them.”
My brother Connor thinks he is the world’s top farter. Which he probably is, but I’m not going to give him praise for that. Otherwise he’d do it all day.
He does do it all day.
I’ve got a photo from Georgia to remind me of her. I’ve stuck it in my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary. It’s of her and her Ace Gang sitting in one of those big teacups that go round and round at fairgrounds. They’re supposed to be for tiny toddlers. In fact, there were some little children in the background crying.
On the back of the photo it says, Send us the latest on the D. B. C. of H. Yours sincerely, A Friend. And some other friends. In our cups.
Georgia wants the latest on the D. B. C. of H who is Cain. He’s so awful I call him the Dark Black Crow of Heckmondwhite. But there won’t be anything to tell Georgia because I won’t be having anything to do with him.
EVER again.
Whoever he is.
And if I do see him, I’m going to make it clear that what happened, you know, the accidental snogging incident on the moorland path, was …
You know.
Erm, an act of madness brought on by low blood sugar.
Ruby and Matilda came bounding back. Suddenly there was a loud growling in the gorse. Ruby said hoarsely, “Maybe it’s a wild otter from Skipton? Gone mad. Say something to it. Calm it down.”
What do you say to otters?
Do otters go mad?
I said, “Ruby, how can it be a wild otter gone mad? You’ve just made that up.”
Ruby said, “It’s still rustling about, going to rip our throats out though, isn’t it? Make friends with it.”
Make friends with an otter? I called out shakily, “We come in peace, we mean you no harm.”
Cain’s big black dog bounded out with its tongue lolling. Cain calls his big black dog ‘Dog’.
Matilda shuffled behind Ruby and me. Dog thought she was playing a hiding game. His favourite. He barked and then rushed to one side of us. Matilda quickly toddled round the other side. But then Dog unexpectedly changed direction and he came up behind and started sniffing her bottom.
Ruby shouted into the dark moors, “Cain! I know you’re out there, stop messing abaht and come and get yer bloody dog. It’s got its nose up Matilda’s bum!”
Oh Dear Mother of Baby Jesus.
The Dark Black Crow of Heckmondwhite.
He was here.
What should I do?
I must be very cool with him.
Which is not going to be easy with my anorak hood up.
But nothing happened. There was no noise except the wind whistling and Dog sniffing.
Ruby shouted again, “Come on Cain, stop messing about.”
But the moors were silent.
Then Dog cocked his ear as if he could hear something we couldn’t and bounded off.
It started to pelt down, and we ran and stumbled down the hill, almost blinded by the rain.
By the time we got back to The Blind Pig, the rain was thunderous, pounding on the roof like it would break through. We got dried and had our supper in the back room. The Iron Pies were still ‘rehearsing’. Well, shouting and banging.
We went up the two flights of stairs and snuggled into bed in Ruby’s room high up in the attic. Matilda was tucked up at the bottom of the bed and Ruby put a little nightcap on her head. She almost immediately nodded off. Oooooh, she is sweet.
She reminds me of the owlets. Not her big puggy face and snoring, just the general feeling of lovey-doveyness.
I said to Ruby, “Hey, I’m dying to see the owlets. Shall we pop down to the barn tomorrow? Cor, I bet little Rubes and little Lullah will be pleased as anything to see us.”
Ruby started plaiting her hair.
“They’re not there. Connie has chucked them out. They’ve flown the nest.”
I looked at her.
“Our little owlets have flown the nest? But …”
Ruby said, “Well, when I say ‘flown’ the nest, what I mean is they’re crashing abaht in the woods somewhere. Tha’s nivver seen such rubbish flying in your life. Little Rubes knocked herself out on the barn door the first time she tried to get out.”
Our little owlets. Gone?
But they hadn’t even said goodbye.
Not even, “Woo-hoo, see you later.”
Ruby said, “And guess what, Beverley Bottomley has gone on hunger strike, and she says she won’t stop until her mum stops stalking Cain with her shotgun.”
I said, “Isn’t Beverley glad about the stalking thing? She must hate Cain after what he’s done to her. He’s awful. He dumped her twice. And he made that song up about her called Put your coat on, girl, you’re leaving. And the second line was ‘You were all right in the dark but then I put the light on’. At The Jones gig. He sang it straight at her. Everyone could see.”
Ruby said, “I know. But she LUUUUUVES him. She thinks he’s a dog wi’ a bad name.”
“He IS a dog with a bad name – that’s because he’s a bad dog.”
Ruby said, “I know. But you let Cain the bad dog lick your nose.”
Oh no, the nose-licking incident rears its head again! What would Ruby say if she knew about the accidental snogging on the moors incident?
As we lay in the dark with the wind howling and the rain sluicing down, I quickly said, “I wouldn’t like to be out in this. I hope the owlets have got little owl umbrellas.”
Ruby went on snuggling down. I couldn’t settle though, I kept thinking about Cain.
“Do you think he saw us – Cain? Do you think he was out there with his dog, watching us?”
I shivered.
Ruby said, “Mebbe. You know those Hinchcliffs. They can be anywhere at any time. Like a reight bad smell.”
