Читать книгу The Third-Class Genie - Robert Leeson - Страница 7

KNEE-DEEP IN the canal, Alec grabbed wildly for the weeds and grass that grew on the bank. He lost hold of his school bag. His first clutch was on a bunch of nettles. He yelled, dropped back and grabbed again. This time, he dragged himself on to the bank with a great heave and sat down to work out how much damage had been done. It was a disaster all right. His trouser leg was coated in thick greasy slime up to the knee and so were his sock and trainer. He had to admit that he smelt terrible. He suddenly saw his bag slowly sinking out of sight into the ghastly depths of the canal. Lying flat on the towpath, he stretched out his arm and just managed to reach the handle and pull the bag out. The canal, reluctant to let go, made a rude, sucking noise.

Alec stood up and did his best to clean the satchel, which was fairly easy, and then his clothes, which was more difficult. A handful of grass took off the worst, but five minutes of frantic rubbing still left his trousers looking grotty and smelling worse. “Bowden,” he muttered, “you’ve put your foot in it.”

There was nothing to do but go home. His arrival would be at the most disastrous time, with Dad (saying nothing, but looking grim), Mum (looking grim and saying a lot) and his sister Kim, home from the biscuit works (laughing her head off). But there was no getting out of it. Forward, Bowden!

He crossed the waste ground to the fence. Here again, he carefully counted the boards to find the loose one only he knew about, pushed it forward. With a grunt and wriggle he was out at the foot of the slope below the council houses. No one was about, though it was a fine evening. From the windows came the white glow of televisions switched on, the clatter of cups and plates, and other pleasant sounds of people enjoying their tea without a care in the world.

Was there a chance, Alec wondered as he reached the bottom of his street, of getting in through the front door and sneaking straight upstairs to his bedroom, so avoiding the kitchen and the reception committee? It was a wild hope, he knew. Front doors on the estate were opened twice in a lifetime, for weddings and funerals, and to go in that way would be impossible without knocking. So it was round the corner of the house to the kitchen door. Alec braced himself to go in.

“Psst, Alec lad.”

The voice came from the green and white caravan parked in the back yard. One side rested on a wheel, the other side rested on a pile of bricks built up under the axle. Dad was always threatening to mend it, but never did. The small side window of the caravan opened and a round, red face with wild, white hair peered out.

“Alec lad. What have you done?”

Alec relaxed.

“Oh, Granddad, you made me jump.”

“I don’t wonder. You were trying to sneak in, weren’t you?

Alec nodded.

Granddad’s face disappeared from the window and the caravan door opened. An arm stretched out, beckoning, and Alec, with one eye on the kitchen door, slunk in, while Granddad closed the caravan door after him.

Inside the heat was terrific and the air was blue with pipe smoke and foul with the fumes of an old oil heater. More heat came from a small soldering iron which was slowly growing red at the side of the fire. Through the fog Alec could see Granddad perched on one of the bunks. His thin old body was dressed in the remains of a braided dressing-gown and a pair of striped pyjamas. Displaying a row of broken teeth he grinned at Alec. On the folding table next to the bed were a plate, a loaf of bread, a half-opened tin of pilchards and a jug of beer.

“Hallo, Granddad, what are you soldering?” asked Alec, forgetting his troubles for a moment.

“I’m not soldering, you daft ha’porth, I’m mulling,” replied Granddad, and with that he seized the hot soldering iron and plunged it hissing into the beer jug. A cloud of steam and a strange smell rose to join the general fug inside the little room. Granddad held up the jug. “Want a taste?” he asked, but Alec shook his head hastily.

Granddad poured himself a glass, drank deeply and then wiped his mouth primly on a paper handkerchief he took from his dressing-gown sleeve.

“Now, lad, if you’ll give me your breeches, I’ll clean ’em up for you. I can see you’ve been in the canal. Don’t argue. Take your trainers off and put them by the fire here, while I use the meths on your other clothes.”

“But Granddad,” Alec protested.

“By the time we’ve done that, you can sneak in through the kitchen because they’ll all be in the front room.”

“How do you know, Granddad?”

“Because there’s trouble, that’s why. Your brother Tom, his wife and the baby are going to move back in with us. They’ve lost their place and that means rearrangements and people shifting round.”

Alec’s heart sank. This was truly the most disastrous day he had ever suffered. For the news meant one thing to him. Tom and his family would be given the second bedroom, Kim would have to move into Alec’s little bedroom at the back, and that meant Alec would be moved up to the boxroom. For anyone who thinks a boxroom is a place where you keep boxes, it’s not. A boxroom is a room like a box; it’s a space at the top of the stairs, with a door to stop the bed from falling downstairs. It’s a place where they train men for working in midget submarines. Alec had slept in the boxroom for years until brother Tom moved out. Now, disaster of disasters, he would have to lose his own bedroom and go back there.

Granddad stretched out a thin hand and ruffled his hair. “Come on, lad. Cheer up. There’s plenty worse off. Give us your trousers.” Alec handed them over and sat up on the other bunk while Granddad got out a bottle of methylated spirits and set to work rubbing the stains on Alec’s trousers. As he worked, the old man began to sing, half under his breath.

“Oh, the elephant is a dainty bird,

It flits from bough to bough,

It builds its nest in a rhubarb tree,

And whistles like a cow.”

As Granddad sang, thoughts of disaster began to fade from Alec’s mind…

“Ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, hee…

Elephant’s nest up a roobub tree,

Ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, hee…”

Suddenly Granddad sniffed.

“There’s a funny smell in here, lad.”

Alec stared.

“You must be joking, Granddad. There’re fifty funny smells in here.”

“Nay, lad, an extra funny smell. Oh, Lord, your trainers!”

Granddad dropped the rag he was using to clean Alec’s trousers and turned to the oil stove from which a thick brown haze was rising.

“Oh no!” cried Alec.

Oh no, indeed. Half the side of one of his trainers was burned through and the other one was singed. Granddad saved Alec’s sock with a quick snatch but the damage was done. Life, thought Alec, had become a disaster area.

“Don’t fret, lad. I’ll tell your Mum what happened and buy you another pair,” said Granddad.

“No, you won’t,” protested Alec. He wouldn’t let Granddad spend his pension on new trainers. “I’ll have to tell Mum myself. Perhaps I’ll get our Kim to lend me some cash and buy myself a pair.”

“Anyway, lad, your trousers are all right now. But don’t stand too close to the stove when you put them on or you’ll go up in smoke.”

Alec dressed quickly, said cheerio, and walked into the kitchen with a shuffle that more or less hid the burnt side of his trainer. The kitchen was empty, as Granddad had predicted, but from the front room came the low sound of voices. Alec crept quietly towards the passage. If he could reach the stairs without…

“Alec,” came his mother’s voice. “Is that you, Alec?”

“Yes,” muttered Alec.

“Listen, love. We’re busy in here. There’s a bit of meat pie and tomato on top of the fridge. You can have that for your tea.”

“Can I take it up to my room?” asked Alec, unable to believe his luck.

“All right, but don’t make a mess.”

Alec crept up the stairs with a plate in one hand and his satchel in the other and did not breathe again until he was safely inside his bedroom. It was small, but a palace compared with the boxroom. It had his own bed, a battered old desk Dad had picked up at a jumble sale, a chair and a cupboard full of all his most precious odds and ends. They’d have to go down into the shed if he moved into the boxroom, thought Alec gloomily, as he sat down on the bed and began to eat his meat pie.

As he ate, he started to make up his final triumph-disaster scoreboard for the day. He didn’t write it down, because things like that are highly confidential, but he made it up in his mind like this:

1. Ginger Wallace is out to thump me.

2. Ginger Wallace is trying to stop me going home down Boner’s Street.

3. Ginger Wallace might find out about the Tank.

4. I’ve ruined my trainers.

5. No pocket money for a month.

6. I have to move back into the boxroom.

7. I’m in the doghouse with Monty Cartwright.

He thought over the list carefully. Had he missed anything out? There’s nothing worse than a disaster that sneaks up on you. No, they were all there. The next question was had he made the list too long? Was Ginger Wallace really three disasters?

Alec didn’t hesitate; Ginger Wallace was at least three disasters.

Strictly speaking, numbers four and five were just one disaster. That is, five couldn’t be a disaster but for four. Life without trainers is hard. Life without pocket money is disastrous.

Number six was a disaster all right. It hadn’t happened yet, but neither had one, two, or three, and that didn’t make him feel any better. Number seven he decided to cross off the list. After the telling-off in line-up that day he’d heard no more and Mr Cartwright did not usually brood over past crimes. So that made the score six so far, or five if you counted numbers four and five as one. Five for disasters so far, while the other side hadn’t even crossed the half-way fine.

It was the highest score for disasters since that black day when he’d got all his home works mixed up and collected five detentions in a row. As he thought of this, his eye fell on his school bag. He should really take a last look at his history project on the Crusades before he handed it in tomorrow. He tipped out his books on to the bed and for the thirty-fourth time that day, his heart stopped.

Across the cover of his history project was a green stain. He opened the cover. Almost every page was a sodden green wreck with drawings, cut-outs, and writing all awash with Bugletown Canal gunge. This must have seeped through the side of his bag where the stitching had given way.

It would take ages to look up all that stuff again, let alone write it. That made disasters leading six nil. Almost a rugby score. Was there nothing today remotely like a triumph? He thought for a while. There was that funny, sealed but empty, beer can he had found in Boner’s Street. He could investigate that.

Bowden, he said to himself, you’re entitled to a treat. Give yourself the evening off. Tomorrow’s a disaster from the word go. Let’s save what we can of today. With that he jumped from the bed, took off his school clothes, put on his old jumper and jeans and quietly opened the bedroom door. As he crept down the stairs he heard them still at it in the front room. No trouble at all to sneak out.

“Alec, is that you?” called his mother.

“Yes, Mum. I’m just going out for a bit.”

“What about your homework?”

“I’ve just got some work left to do on my history project, and I’ll do that when I get back.” Alec always had trouble telling complete porkies.

“No telly then, mind you.”

“Shan’t want any.”

“What’s the matter with Mastermind?” That was Kim’s mocking voice.

Alec thought of a crushing retort, then remembered that he’d have to ask Kim for a loan. So with a “won’t be long”, he shot through the back door and was out in the street before you could say antidisestablishmentarianism!

Holding firmly on to his jeans pocket, where the can was wedged rather awkwardly, he ran down the slope and past the allotments. To his surprise, there was Granddad digging away, dressed in his old black suit. Alec waved, but did not stop, and headed for the tall fence round the Tank. If Granddad saw him slip through the loose planking, the old man gave no sign.

Alec paused for a second inside the fence, as he always did, to run his eye over the little kingdom amid its silent wilderness of elder bushes and weeds. The setting sun flashed on one of the few panes left in the window of the crane house, and cast giant shadows between the crumbling ivy-covered walls. Alec was heading for the canal when he remembered that the plank had collapsed under him that afternoon. He would have to cross by the old travelling crane gantry and enter the crane room through the window. Although this was a day of disaster and it seemed unsuitable to take the triumphal route, he couldn’t be bothered to find a new plank for his bridge just now. He turned right and ran along the towpath to the gantry.

Climbing the uprights by the steep steps was easy enough; the difficult part was when you had to cross the girder fifteen feet up above the canal. One false move and you would never be seen again. The safest but slowest way was to straddle the iron and edge your way over a foot at a time. The quickest and riskiest way was to balance on the six-inch-wide girder and walk boldly over like a tight-rope man. Crouching and waddling like a duck, Alec settled for a mixture of the two. Halfway over, it became easier because of the iron arm of an old hand crane which stretched alongside the main gantry.

At last he was across and wriggling his way through the broken window of the crane room. He put one foot on the lever and chain drum which were still linked to the hand crane and then he was down on the floor. He gave a jump and skip and looked around him. Now he was in command. He turned and faced the canal, peering through the dusty broken window. Then he seized the hand crane lever and slowly pushed it forward. He had spent many a Saturday afternoon greasing and oiling the mechanism, so that it moved. With a rattle the chain began to run through the pulley at the end of the crane and drop towards the canal. Alec threw the brake and stopped the chain just above the water. Then he bent down to the drum and taking the handle, carefully wound the chain up again.

When he worked the hand crane, he could imagine anything. He was loading a ship, rescuing a trapped submarine crew, hauling up treasure from a mine, replacing the piles in a nuclear reactor. He finished winding in the chain and put on the brake. Then he heaved himself on to the table and sat a moment looking out of the crane room window.

Now he was ready to investigate the mystery of the sealed, empty can.

“The question is, Watson, not why the can was empty, but why it was sealed?”

“Amazing, Holmes, I mean, Bowden. But what is the answer?”

“I’ll have to open it, won’t I, you plonker?”

Alec held up the can and inspected it. Then he raised it once more to his ear, as he had done that afternoon.

It was fantastic. There was the same noise, a sort of growling as though someone were snoring. It was crazy. Alec shook the can and again the noise stopped.

He slipped his finger into the metal ring at the top of the can and pulled. At first it would not budge. Alec tumbled from the table, placed the can on the floor, held it down with one hand, and pulled at the ring again.

There came a sudden tremendous whistling rush of air, like Concorde landing, and a voice thundered…

“Alec!”