Darcy Burdock, Book 2 Read online

  Teddy missed his parents desperately and thought about them every day. There were moments when he tried to remember what it was like that morning, before they left. It was his mum’s birthday and her and Teddy’s dad were going up, up, up and away in a hot-air balloon. He remembered his mum’s long white dress and oversized floppy straw hat, her hair blowing in the spring air, her cheeks flushed from excitement and his dad, who hugged Teddy long and hard before he left, smelling of musk and toothpaste. He couldn’t stop thinking about the air balloon, the way it would hover and puzzle its way over the fields and streets below, the way it would catch the sunshine, the way it would meander over the river.

  And the worst that would happen would be that the sunshine might bring out a freckly pink on Dad’s cheeks, maybe they would have a bumpy landing, maybe Mum would lose her big floppy straw hat to a gust of wind?

  He never imagined they would never come back.

  Hope is a delicate emotion. It has to be nurtured and taken care of, but after all it is not truth, it is not real life. Eventually it dissolves, evaporates in the hand like snow and is gone.

  After the funeral Teddy’s Aunt Beard adopted Teddy, she said she needed the extra help and hands of a strapping tall boy like Teddy to carry the pigswill and to drive the tractor. And so it was. Every morning Teddy was woken up to 2 snuffling pigs,

  3 mooing cows,

  4 clucking hens,

  5 plucking ducks,

  6 bleating goats,

  7 moaning sheep,

  8 babbling sheep,

  a horse named Sally,

  a donkey named Geoff and a bullfrog that didn’t actually belong to the farm but was always lurking about there.

  ‘Darcy, bedtime!’ Dad calls from the kitchen.

  ‘Can I please just even have one more bit of time, please, to write this one bit down of my newest story?’ Lamb-Beth leans her head onto my kneebow. I think she wants to know what is going to happen next.

  ‘Five minutes!’ Dad walks in and says, and then he does that thing when people pretend they’ve stolen your nose, which obviously isn’t real but I quickly feel to find my nose anyway just to make sure. ‘You better buy me a motorbike when you’re a bestselling author!’

  ‘Promise!’

  I pick up my pen. It’s really hard writing about a mean Aunt Beard when your own dad behaves pretty much like a king.

  Aunt Beard was called Aunt Beard for the simplest reason that she was a bearded lady and she was wretched. She was a massive wreck of a woman with blustering big boobies and she kept her hair in a long sharp fishtail plait that was as spiky as the actual bones of a fish. Her beard was also long and grew into the shape of an upside-down mountain and Teddy didn’t like her one bit because she was the grumpiest woman ever. She farted massive explosive eruptions that smellled like rotting guts and rancid sewage spinach mixed in with nappies. She made fun of Teddy’s name and said it was a stupid name for a boy. She never let Teddy have friends over, she never let him ride his bike, she never let him make a tiny mess from mud or paint or being alive. She was always moaning and groaning and shouting at the TV and swearing, and when she got out of her bubble bath she never washed away the bubbles down the plug and she never ever ever let Teddy have even a sip of her treasured Coca-Cola and would often sit opposite him, gargling whilst he drank his tap water.

  But the main reason Teddy didn’t like Aunt Beard, on top of all those things, was that she made scarecrows to go into the garden to protect the plants and vegetables and she made the scarecrows so scary that they should actually be called Scare-Everything-not-just-crows.

  They had huge horrible faces made out of old potato sacks and straw hair and she painted their faces in cheap make-up from the chemist. But because Aunt Beard never wore make-up herself she was very unpractised in this department, giving them big grizzly dripping unhappy bright red smiles and big gormless hollow deep eyes. She would dress them in old clothes from the charity shop: big woollen cardigans and shirts. She padded their bodies out with stuffed carrier bags so they looked really like humans and almost soft under all the clothes. It made Teddy feel embarrassed to complain about the scarecrows because Aunt Beard would call him a ‘Big Girl’s Blouse’, but the few times Teddy did ask Aunt Beard to maybe not make the scarecrows quite so scary, Aunt Beard would tell him that the scarecrows had minds of their own and she had nothing to do with their creation. Teddy knew she was joking but it didn’t stop them from being completely terrifying.

  These thoughts and ideas would keep Teddy up in his bed all night worrying and losing his mind about how frightening and scary the scarecrows were, so much that he—

  ‘This is the last call for Miss Darcy Burdock, the last call for a Miss Darcy Burdock, please evacuate the living area and make your way up to bed.’ That was Dad pretending he was a pilot.

  I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t not appreciate his excellent attempts to get me up to bed.

  That night I know I am so happy to have Lamb-Beth back as she is curled up at the end of the bed. I didn’t ask her why or how she escaped and ended up at the allotment – for some reason that didn’t seem important any more. She was home now. Poppy is here too because she also wanted to sleep with Lamb-Beth. Both of them are breathing so heavy in luxury sleep land; taking turns breathing so they sound like two kettles having an argument, but I am not. I am hot and sweaty and unable to get to sleep.

  I can’t stop thinking about the scarecrows I saw at the allotment. It’s funny how the things you don’t care about in the day torture you mad in the night. I get up to reach my writing book and in the darkness, with the light off, I continue my story underneath the glow of my torch.

  —often didn’t sleep a wink at all. The thought of the scarecrows, lunging sloppily into his bedroom, bumping their straw-filled elbows against the door frame, heaving and heavy. He knew it was silly but he couldn’t stop having these terrifying nightmares.

  At breakfast one morning, over cereal, Aunt Beard stomped in and began being loud and taking up too much space and then she looked over to Teddy and grunted, ‘You look tired, been out partying all night, have we?’ She snuffled sarcastically into her coffee cup and stroked her beloved beard. This just angered Teddy even more.

  ‘No. I am tired because I couldn’t sleep because the scarecrows outside my window are way too scary and that gives me nightmares, I’ve told you this before.’

  ‘Get over it and grow up,’ Aunt Beard hissed as she swallowed her coffee. ‘Look at you; you’re hardly a baby. Unless you’re a baby in a man’s body!’ She shook her head and left, snorting and sniggering to herself.

  ‘Just because I’m tall doesn’t mean I’m not a kid still! It doesn’t mean I don’t get frightened!’ Teddy shouted after her. But it was no good. Aunt and her beard had left and only the cereal and milk heard his words.

  If only his parents were alive, his dad would never have stood for this. His mum would have punched Aunt Beard right on the nose. Teddy was no longer hungry and he took his bowl of leftover cereal and his tea and was on his way to the pigsty to give them the leftovers . . . when it hit him.

  ‘Tall,’ he said. ‘I am . . . tall. I am . . . tall.’ And something that his aunt had said about a baby trapped in a man’s body . . . it suddenly triggered something. An idea, perhaps? An escape? And suddenly he had a terrifically good plan.

  All day Teddy could not stop thinking about his idea: he thought about it whilst Aunt Beard guzzled her ice-cold Coca-Cola and stewed on it so long and so much he blew the idea up into little popping mind bubbles that he could almost see drifting out of his head and into the air like cartoons that could burst.

  And at dinner Teddy and Aunt Beard sat at opposite ends of the table, slurping the cold carrot soup and mung bean gratin that Aunt Beard had prepared and Teddy found himself unusually talkative, expressive, complimenting his aunt on every mouthful and every ingredient. He obviously didn’t want to give the game away, but he just couldn’t contain his exciteme
nt, and luckily she was ignoring him as usual so didn’t get suspicious. And all the time he was thinking and planning and plotting and cooking up his wickedly excellent idea.

  Ever wondered why when you are having a good time things rush by really quickly? And when you are having a bad time things ache and concrete themselves to the ground, not moving one bit.

  Well, I know the answer to this and why this happens, it is exactly what was happening to Teddy at this moment in time. When you are having a good time you take off into a new magical happiness part of your mind and you forget about everything because nothing is more important than happiness. You forget about eating and drinking and listening and what everybody thinks of you and you forget about time. All that is important is the smile on your face, the butterflies in your tummy.

  Then, unexpectedly Aunt Beard leaped up. Was it that time already?

  ‘Right, time to put the animals to bed.’

  This was Teddy’s moment. He acted casual but really he was connecting the little idea dots in his head, hatching his perfectly formed plan.

  It was dark outside, a spring evening, a light breeze fanning the boogying branches, scattering the leaves, wiggling like dangling earrings.

  Aunt Beard was in the furthest pen from her house, putting the sheep to bed, when what was about to happen . . . happened.

  She was just closing the gate on the pen, shutting in the moaning babbling sheep, when they all rushed to the corner of the pen, where they cowered, shaking and shivering.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Aunt Beard tried to be concerned but her instant reaction to absolutely everything was anger. ‘It’s not cold – why are you shivering like that?’ And then she looked out into the night sky; nope, nothing. ‘Weird stupid sheep,’ she muttered bitterly.

  But as she turned to walk back towards the house . . .

  Aargggghhhhh! I was beginning to scare myself! I wished Poppy would wake up but she was snoring like a whale. Do whales snore? Shut up, Darcy. You talk too much, you’re thinking faster than what a rapper raps. If I were a rapper I’d call myself D Bizzle.

  Something stood over Aunt Beard, towering over her, making her feel tinier and tinier and its face, its face was ugly and terrifying, maybe the most terrifying thing she’d ever seen. With the darkness slitting grey shards over its mortifying grimace she felt as though she had swallowed her own heart.

  It was a scarecrow – one of her scarecrows, pacing, looming over her, shadowing over her, melting her into the ground. She stumbled back, fell into the pen with all the sheep, she was on her bottom now and the scarecrow followed her in, taking long, lazy drawn-out strides. Aunt Beard was on her back, scampering on the floor, her face as bleached as a posh packaged shirt. She had never felt such fear. When she was finally able to make use of her throat she screamed, she gasped, she shouted and then . . . she fainted.

  Teddy took off his scarecrow mask and ran back into the house and even though it was a bit mean, he couldn’t help but feel like jumping up and down and dancing and celebrating and so he did, and then he ran back into the house and straight to the kitchen where he almost ripped off the fridge door and took the first bottle of Coca-Cola he could find and unscrewed the lid before polishing off nearly the whole bottle in one mouthful. He burped and laughed his way up the stairs, took off his scarecrow costume and put his pyjamas on, getting into bed wearing a fabulous smile. Replaying the action like the best film he had ever seen, over and over and over. Of course his heart was racing from the excitement but he had to pretend to be asleep.

  Moments later Aunt Beard, who had evidently now come round, came crashing into the house but she was screaming and sweating, searching for water, for a shot of whisky, for a cry, for a cuddle, for anything to make it easier to digest her traumatic experience. Teddy had to make the scene realistic so he began darting down the stairs, trying to hold the laughter in, asking what the fuss was about, pouring his broken aunt a cup of water, which she drank in one gulp. But always secretly smirking with satisfaction, keeping the fizzy happy Coca-Cola burps down. This was probably the best night of his life.

  The next morning Teddy came down from an excellent night’s sleep, stretching and yawning, only to find Aunt Beard sitting up stiff in her chair, a baseball bat on her lap, staring wide-eyed at the front door.

  ‘I’ve got a job for you today, Teddy, seeing as you’re the man of the house and responsible: the scarecrows, they can come down. You were right, after all, I don’t want you getting scared every night. I mean of course, I’d prefer to have the scarecrows up but you know, maybe until you grow up a bit, get a bit older, more mature, best to take them down?’

  ‘Why can’t you do it?’ Teddy asked, innocently as possible.

  ‘Oh, I would, I would, but I’m too busy and oh, I’ve got a bad back.’ Aunt Beard pretended to lean over and massage her lower back, she was a shocking actress, the worst he had seen. ‘But it should be done. Soon. Very soon, maybe even immediately, now.’

  ‘OK,’ Teddy giggled. ‘OK. I’ll do it now.’

  And so he did.

  I get up and find Grandma watching the TV, and by one look of our eyes to each other she opens up her arm like a wing and invites me in for a snuggle. It isn’t long before I am sleeping as beautifully as violin music and the scarecrows are nothing but a faraway thought.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I wake up in my own bed but I don’t remember getting there. I imagine a huge dinosaur rolling me carefully up onto his long neck and feeding me through my bedroom window, like a letter going into a letterbox, then stomping off to strip the trees of green stuff. Although in reality, Dad probably just carried me up the stairs and into bed. We don’t much want to say goodbye to Grandma but Mum looks to me to be a bit ‘grandma-ed’ out so we cuddle her and I hold her rolls of chub in my hands and breathe in her rose petal smell. Grandma will probably have to be my new best friend because the Will Situation is not improved. I get Mum to write my sick note and she doesn’t put much thought into it because I guess she can do what she likes, she’s a mum after all.

  Dear School Office

  Darcy was ill so stayed at home.

  Hope OK.

  M. Burdock.

  I am dreading school. My grey uniform isn’t as itchy any more as when I first got it, which I guess is a positive, and at least my eyes aren’t all stained red and Victorian horror maid any more now that Lamb-Beth’s home. Dad takes us in today and we sing some of his punk songs in the car, which is actually quite a good way of releasing your anger and worries. I step out of the car and I can see Will, he is doing kick-ups with two other boys and laughing like an overly happy wretched hyena.

  The sun is scaling the top of the school, making it look oddly fascinating in this light, like a pleasant important posh old building that you might see on a postcard or documentary. The heat is bringing all wonderful new colours of different shades, golden red and plush greens. Some birds peck at the crumbs of a cookie. I wave to Dad who winks back and I take a breath and go to walk past Will with his friends. I ready myself for us to have a fall-out of some kind. For him to be weird about things or make me feel even worse. But he dips his head, goes bright purple and ignores me, letting me walk past him completely without uttering a single word. I want to explode and everything to be over. I want to do school and then get home and into bed right away so I can cry my eyes out. I feel everything ending and rhyming with ‘ad’. Sad, Mad and Bad but not Glad. Obviously.

  I open up the heavy wooden door to take my sick note for my secretly not sick day off school. The receptionist signs it and ticks a few boxes, peering over me and back at her diary.

  ‘How’s your lamb?’ she says, squiggling some words into a box.

  ‘Fine, thanks.’ I smile back but feel a bit confused. Nobody at school even knew I had a lamb, and nobody knew she was missing.

  ‘So where did Lamb-Beth end up? How did you find her?’ She tilts her head, completely interested in Lamb-Beth.

  ‘Erm. Ho
w did you know Lamb-Beth went missing?’ I ask, weirded out and mind-boggled.

  ‘Oh, your thoughtful friend William was asking absolutely everybody – he handed out flyers and everything . . . just look at that wall over there . . .’

  I was completely taken aback. In the entrance to the school was a whole wall with photographs of me and Lamb-Beth, Poppy, Hector, Mum and Dad all with her too, and one of Will, Lamb-Beth and me too, and underneath it read in giant letters:

  PLEASE HELP ME AND MY

  BEST FRIEND FIND LAMB-BETH

  I stepped back a few places, nearly tripping on my rat-tail shoelace and shook my head in disbelief. I was so overly happy and smiling so hard my cheeks pushed up so they made my eyes blind. I ran outside and shouted Will’s name over and over and over and ran towards him and he ran towards me, but pretended like he wasn’t and when we reached each other we obviously didn’t hug or anything, we just stood there, facing each other, panting and out of breath, until we both at the same time wheezed, ‘Sorry.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  We enter the canteen together at lunch time and we see Clementine heading our way – so much had happened that I almost forgot about her. Missing Lamb-Beth made me forget completely about her ridiculous over-the-top birthday party at the posh restaurant . . . well sort-of-ish. She comes closer and I deliberately step back, lurking behind Will so she can accost him with her wretched self. But she just sneers at us and walks past.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I gawp. ‘Didn’t you go to her birthday? Thought you two were friends these days.’ The word friend feels oversized and ugly.