Читать книгу The Snow Spider Trilogy - Jenny Nimmo - Страница 12

Alun did tell. He did not mean to hurt or ridicule Gwyn, and he only told one person. But that was enough.

The one person Alun told was Gary Pritchard. Gary Pritchard told his gang: Merfyn Jones, Dewi Davis and Brian Roberts. Dewi Davis was the biggest tease in the school and within two days everyone in Pendewi Primary had heard about Gwyn Griffiths and his spaceship.

Little whispering groups were formed in the playground. There were murmurings in the canteen and children watched while Gwyn ate in silence, staring steadily at his plate of chips so that he should not meet their eyes. Girls giggled in the cloakroom and even five-year-olds nudged each other when he passed.

And Gwyn made it easy for them all. He never denied that he had seen a silver ship, nor did he try to explain or defend his story. He withdrew. He went to school, did his work, sat alone in the playground and spoke to no one. He came home, fed the hens and ate his tea. He tried to respond to his mother’s probing chatter without giving too much away for he felt he had to protect her. He did not want her to know that his friends thought him mad. Mrs Griffiths sensed that something was wrong and was hurt and offended that her son could not confide in her; he had never shut her out before.

And then, one evening, Alun called. He had tried, in vain, to talk to Gwyn during their walks home from the bus, but since the gossiping began Gwyn had taken pains to avoid his old friend. He had run all the way home, passing the Lloyds on the lane, so that he should not hear them if they laughed.

Mrs Griffiths was pleased to see Alun. Perhaps he knew something. She drew him into the kitchen saying, ‘Look who’s here! We haven’t seen you for a bit, Alun. Take your coat off!’

‘No!’ Gwyn leapt up and pushed Alun back into the passage, slamming the kitchen door behind him. ‘What d’you want?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘Just a chat,’ said Alun nervously.

‘What’s there to chat about?’

‘About the things you said: about the spaceship, an’ that,’ Alun replied, fingering the buttons on his anorak.

‘You don’t believe, and you told,’ Gwyn said coldly.

‘I know, I know and I’m sorry. I just wanted to talk about it.’ Alun sounded desperate.

‘You want to spread more funny stories, I s’pose?’

‘No . . . no,’ Alun said. ‘I just wanted to . . .’

‘You can shove off,’ said Gwyn: he opened the front door and pushed Alun out on to the porch. He caught a glimpse of Alun’s white face under the porch lantern, and shut the door. ‘I’m busy,’ he called through the door, ‘so don’t bother me again.’

And he was busy, he and Arianwen. Every night she spun a web in the corner of Gwyn’s attic bedroom, between the end of the sloping ceiling and the cupboard, and there would always be something there, in the web. A tiny, faraway landscape, white and shining, strange trees with icy leaves, a lake – or was it a sea? – with ice-floes bobbing on the water and a silver ship with sails like cobwebs, gliding over the surface.

And when he ran his fingers over the silver pipe he could hear waves breaking on the shore; he could hear icicles singing when the wind blew through the trees, and children’s voices calling over the snow. And he knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he was hearing sounds from another world.

Once Arianwen spun a larger cobweb again, covering an entire wall. The white tower appeared and the same houses. Children came out to play in the square beneath the tower. Pale children with wonderfully serene faces, not shouting as earth-bound children would have done, but calling in soft, musical voices. It began to snow and suddenly they all stood still and turned to look in the same direction. They looked right into the web. They looked at Gwyn and they smiled, and then they waved. It was as though someone had said, ‘Look, children! He’s watching you! Wave to him!’ And their bright eyes were so inviting Gwyn felt a longing to be with them, to be touched and soothed by them.

But who had told the children to turn? Gwyn realised he had never seen an adult in the webs, never heard an adult voice. Who was looking after the faraway children? Perhaps they had just seen the thing that was sending the pictures down to Arianwen’s web. A satellite perhaps, or a ship, another star, or another spider, whirling round in space, and they had turned to wave to it.

* * *

A few weeks before the end of term three new children appeared at Pendewi Primary. They were children from the city, two boys from poor families who had no room for them, and a girl, an orphan it was said. They had all been put into the care of Mr and Mrs Herbert, a warm-hearted couple with four girls, a large farmhouse and an eagerness to foster children less fortunate than their own.

John, Eirlys and Dafydd were officially entering the school the following term, but had been allowed three weeks of settling in before the Christmas holidays. Miss Pugh, the headmistress, was a little put out. She had expected only two children, eight-year-old boys, to put in a class where there was still space for at least five more. There were thirty children in Gwyn’s class, where Eirlys would have to go. Mr James, their teacher, a rather fastidious man, was already complaining that he could feel the children breathing on him. He gave Eirlys a tiny table right at the back of the class, where no one seemed to notice her.

In the excitement of Christmas preparations some of the children forgot about Gwyn and his stories. But for Gary Pritchard and his gang, baiting Gwyn Griffiths was still more entertaining than anything else they could think of, especially when they saw a flicker of anger beginning to appear in their victim’s dark eyes.

And then, one Monday, Dewi Davis went too far. It was a bright, cold day. Snow had fallen in the night, clean white snow that was kicked and muddied by children running into school. But the snow fell again during the first lesson and, as luck would have it, stopped just before the first break, and the children were presented with a beautiful white playground in which to slide and snowball.

Dewi Davis never could resist a snowball, just as he could never resist shoving girls with white socks into puddles, or putting worms down the backs of the squeamish. He took a lot of trouble with Gwyn’s snowball; patting and shaping it until it was rock-hard and as big as his own head, then he followed Gwyn round the playground, while the latter, deep in thought, made patterns in the snow with his feet.

Soon Dewi had an audience. Children drew back and watched expectantly while Gwyn trudged, unaware, through the snow. Dewi stopped about three metres behind Gwyn, and called, in his slow lisping voice, ‘’Ullo, Mr Magic. Seen any spaceships lately?’

Gwyn began to turn, but before he could see Dewi, the huge snowball hit him on the side of the face and a pain seared through his ear into his head.

Girls gasped and some giggled. Boys shouted and laughed, and someone said, ‘Go on, get him!’

Gwyn turned a full half-circle and stared at Dewi Davis, stared at his fat silly face, and the grin on his thick pink lips, and he wanted to hurt him. He brought up his clenched right fist and thrust it out towards Dewi, opening his fingers wide as he did so, and a low hiss came from within him, hardly belonging to him, and not his voice at all, but more like a wild animal.

There was nothing in Gwyn’s hand, no stone, no snow, but something came out of his hand and hit Dewi in the middle of his face. He saw Dewi’s nose grow and darken to purple, and saw anguish and amazement on Dewi’s fat face. Only he and Dewi knew that there had been nothing in his hand.

Then, suddenly, the rest of the gang were upon Gwyn. Someone hit him in the face, someone punched his stomach, his hair was tugged, his arms jerked backwards until he screamed, and then his legs were pulled from under him and he crashed on to the ground.

Everyone stopped shouting: they stared at Gwyn, motionless in the mud and snow. And then the bell went and, almost simultaneously, Dewi Davis began to scream for attention. The children drifted away while Mr James ran to Dewi and helped him from the playground, he never noticed Gwyn lying in a corner.

The whole of Gwyn’s body ached, but his head hurt most of all. He could not get up and did not want to. There was blood on the snow beside him and his lip felt swollen and sticky. The playground was empty, and he wondered if he would have to lie there all day. Perhaps the snow would fall again and no one would see him until it was time to go home. He managed to pull himself up until he was kneeling on all fours, but it was an effort and he could not get any further because something in his back hurt whenever he moved.

And then he saw that he was not alone. Someone was standing on the other side of the playground. Someone in grey with long, fair hair and a blue hat. It was Eirlys. The girl began to walk towards Gwyn; she walked slowly, as though she was approaching a creature she did not wish to alarm. When she reached Gwyn she bent down and put her arms beneath his and round his body. Then, without a word, she began to lift him to his feet. She was very frail and Gwyn could not understand where her strength came from. Her hair, beneath his hands, was so soft it was like touching water, and her face, now close to his, was almost as pale as the snow. He had never really looked at her before and realised, with a shock, that he knew her. He had seen her somewhere but could not remember where.

They walked across the playground together, still without speaking, his arm resting on her shoulders, her arm round his waist, and although his legs ached he tried not to stumble or lean too heavily on the girl. When they reached the school door, Eirlys withdrew her arm and then took his hand from her shoulder. Her fingers were ice-cold and Gwyn gasped when she touched his hand.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘You’re so cold,’ Gwyn replied.

Eirlys smiled. Her eyes were greeny-blue, like arctic water; it was as though they had once been another colour, but that other colour had been washed away.

When they got to the classroom Gwyn told Mr James that he had slipped in the snow. Eirlys said nothing. Mr James nodded. ‘Get on with your work now,’ he said.

Eirlys and Gwyn went to their desks. Everyone stared. Dewi Davis was still holding his nose, and Gwyn remembered what he had done. All through the next lesson, through the pain in his head, he kept thinking of what he had done to Dewi Davis. He had hit him with magic. Something had come out of his hand and flown into Dewi’s face, something that had come to him from Gwydion, the magician, and from Gwydion’s son, who had once ruled Gwynedd. And it was the same thing that had turned the seaweed into a ship, the brooch into a spider and the whistle into a silver pipe. These last three, he realised, had merely been waiting for him to release them; they had been there all the time, just waiting for his call. But when he had hit Dewi Davis, he had done it by himself. He had wanted to hurt Dewi, wanted to smash his silly, cruel face, and he had done it, not with a stone nor with his fist but with his will and the power that had come from Gwydion. If he could do that, what could he not do?

While Gwyn dreamt over his desk he was unaware that Eirlys was watching him. But Alun Lloyd noticed and he wondered why the girl gazed at Gwyn with her aquamarine eyes. He was uneasy about the things that were happening.

During the day Gwyn’s aches and pains receded and he was able to hobble to the school bus unaided. When he got off the bus, however, he could not run up the lane as he had been doing, and he felt trapped for Alun was lingering behind the rest of his family, watching him.

‘You OK?’ Alun asked Gwyn.

‘Yes, I’m OK.’

‘D’you want me to walk up with you?’

‘No,’ Gwyn replied. ‘I said I was all right, didn’t I?’

‘Are you sure?’ Alun persisted. He turned to face Gwyn and began to walk up the hill backwards.

‘They didn’t hurt me that bad,’ Gwyn said angrily. ‘I just can’t walk that fast.’

‘I s’pose she’s going to help you?’ Alun said. He was still walking backwards and looking at someone behind Gwyn.

‘Who?’

‘Her!’ Alun nodded in the direction of the main road and then turned and ran up the lane.

Gwyn glanced over his shoulder to see what Alun had meant. Eirlys was walking up towards him.

‘What are you doing?’ Gwyn shouted. ‘You don’t get off here?’

The girl just smiled and kept coming.

‘You’ll be in trouble! How’re you going to get home?’

‘I’ll walk,’ said Eirlys.

‘Oh heck!’ cried Gwyn.

‘Don’t worry!’ The girl continued her approach and Gwyn waited, unable to turn his back on her.

‘It’ll be all right,’ the girl said when she was beside him. ‘I’ll just come home with you. You might need someone, all those bruises.’ She tapped his arm and began to precede him up the hill.

When they turned a bend and Nain’s cottage suddenly came into view, Eirlys stopped and stared at the building.

‘My grandmother lives there,’ Gwyn said.

‘Does she?’ Eirlys spoke the words not as a question, but as a response that was expected of her.

She passed the cottage slowly, trailing her fingers along the top of the stone wall, so that sprays of snow flew out on to her sleeve, but she never took her eyes off the light in Nain’s downstairs window.

Gwyn was tempted to take the girl in to see his grandmother, but it was getting dark and they still had to pass the furrows of snow that had drifted into the narrow track further on. He wondered how on earth Eirlys was going to get home. ‘What will Mrs . . . Whatsername say, when you’re not on the bus?’ he asked.

‘Mrs Herbert? She’s kind. She’ll understand,’ Eirlys replied.

They held hands when they reached the snowdrifts, Gwyn leading the girl to higher ground at the edge of the track, and once again he gasped at the icy touch of her fingers, and when Eirlys laughed the sound was familiar to him.

She was reluctant to come into the farmhouse, and when Gwyn insisted, she approached it cautiously with a puzzled frown on her face, and every now and then she would look away from the house and up to where the mountain should have been, but where, now, only a moving white mist could be seen.

‘Come on,’ said Gwyn. ‘Mam’ll give you a cup of tea.’

He opened the front door and called into the kitchen, ‘I’m back, Mam. Sorry I’m late; had a bit of trouble with the snow.’

‘I thought you would,’ came the reply.

His mother was stirring something on the stove when he went into the kitchen. She turned to speak to him but instead cried out, ‘Your face! What’s happened?’

‘I had a bit of a fight, it’s not anything, really!’ Gwyn said.

His father got up from the chair by the kitchen table, where he had been mending some electrical equipment; he was about to be angry, but then he saw Eirlys standing in the doorway. ‘Who’s this?’ he asked.

‘Eirlys!’ said Gwyn. ‘She helped me. She walked up from the bus with me, to see I was all right.’

‘That was kind of you, Eirlys,’ said Mrs Griffiths. ‘Take your coat off and have a bit of a warm. I’ll make a pot of tea.’

She began to help Gwyn with his anorak, exclaiming all the time at the state of his muddy clothes and the bruises on his face.

Eirlys came into the room and took off her hat and coat. She drew a chair up to the table and sat down opposite Mr Griffiths. He just stood there, staring at her, while his big hands groped for the tiny brass screws that had escaped him and now spun out across the table.

The girl caught one of the screws and stretched across to put it safe into his hand. Gwyn heard the sharp intake of breath as his father felt the girl’s icy fingers, and he laughed. ‘She’s cold-blooded, isn’t she, Dad?’ he said.

Mr Griffiths did not reply. He sat down and began his work again. Mrs Griffiths poured the tea and brought a fruit cake out of the larder. They discussed the snow and the school and the fight. Mrs Griffiths asked how and why the fight had begun and, although Gwyn could not give a satisfactory explanation, Mr Griffiths did not say a word, he did not even seem to be listening to them, but every now and then he would look up and stare at Eirlys.

When it was dark Mrs Griffiths expressed concern for the girl. ‘You’d better ring your mam, she’ll be worrying,’ she said.

‘She hasn’t got a mam,’ Gwyn answered for the girl. ‘She’s living with the Herberts.’

‘Oh, you poor love,’ Mrs Griffiths shook her head sympathetically.

‘They’re lovely,’ said Eirlys brightly, ‘so kind. They won’t mind. They’ll fetch me; they said they always would if I wanted, and it’s not far.’

‘No need for that.’ Mr Griffiths suddenly stood up. ‘I’ll take you in the Land Rover.’

Gwyn was amazed. His father never usually offered lifts. ‘You’re honoured,’ he whispered to Eirlys as Mr Griffiths strode out of the back door.

By the time Eirlys had gathered up her hat and coat and her school bag, the deep throbbing of the Land Rover’s engine could be heard out in the lane.

‘Good-bye,’ said Eirlys. She walked up to Mrs Griffiths and kissed her. Mrs Griffiths was startled; she looked as though she had seen a ghost.

She remained in the kitchen while Gwyn and the girl walked down to the gate. The door of the Land Rover was open and Mr Griffiths was standing beside it. ‘You’ll have to get in this side and climb over,’ he told Eirlys, ‘the snow’s deep the other side.’

Gwyn had never known his father to be so considerate to a child.

Eirlys stepped out into the lane but before she could climb into the Land Rover, Mr Griffiths’ arms were round her, helping her up. For a second the two shadowy figures became one and, for some reason, Gwyn felt that he did not belong to the scene. He looked away to where the frozen hedgerows glittered in the glare of the headlights.

Inside the house the telephone began to ring. Then the Land Rover’s wheels spun into movement and Gwyn had to back away from the sprays of wet snow. It was too late to shout good-bye.

He turned to go back into the house and saw his mother standing in the porch. ‘Mrs Davis, T Coch, was on the phone,’ she said gravely. ‘She wants to talk to us tomorrow. It’s about Dewi’s nose!’