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‘Come on, Sam,’ I said. ‘You’d better come and do some schoolwork, some English or History or something.’
‘I want to do Geoffrey Chaucer.’
‘Okay – The Canterbury Tales.’
‘No. Geoffrey Chaucer.’
‘All right, come on then.’
Sam started putting his green felt pens away in the tray, all the lids at the same end and the shades varying from light asparagus at one side to dark forest at the other. His tidying up went slower and slower until it stopped.
‘Come on, Sam. We’d better go.’
‘Would you like another thirty degrees of cake? Or twenty-five degrees?’
What was he on about? Then I realised.
‘The Hoover isn’t making that noise anymore,’ I said. ‘I’m the only person who ever switches it on and I’m here, aren’t I?’ Sam considered this then got up.
‘Bye, Jeannie.’
Jeannie gave him a little wave and her rings sparkled red and blue and gold. I could imagine her waving like that from a galleon as it set sail on the Indian Ocean or from a craft launched into space and heading for the planet Pluto or from a husky-drawn sled setting off for the North Pole.
‘Bye, Sam,’ she said. ‘And don’t forget that wish list. Show it to me next time you come. Today I wished for an afternoon snoozing in my chair and dreaming of the time I went to the Bolshoi Ballet. And now look. They’re amazing things, wish lists.’
‘Thanks, Jeannie,’ I said. Sam studied my face, examining my eyes and my mouth and I realised I probably didn’t look very thankful. I was still feeling sick about the mistake with the Hoover. I forced a smile.
As we walked back up the lane I said sorry again. He didn’t reply. I guessed, if he was listening at all, he was wishing I’d shut up about the damned Hoover, but I needed to apologise. I longed to put my arm around him but I knew I couldn’t because he’d shrink away and then I’d be upset.
I wanted him to listen to me, to really take in what I was going to say because it was important. It was always hard to tell if Sam was listening. Sometimes I thought he was listening and it turned out he hadn’t heard a word, and at other times, when Duncan and I were yelling at each other, he took in a lot more than I hoped.
But I knew how to check.
‘It’s whatever you want for tea. If you like I’ll make you 19 pieces of pasta with nothing on.’
He looked at me; yes, he was listening.
‘I’m very proud of you, Sam,’ I said. ‘You’re getting big and you’re dead clever, a lot cleverer than me.’ He looked straight ahead. ‘You’re so big and clever that I want you to help me by being really brave as well.’ I hesitated. How could I put it? How was I going to say I needed him to be brave enough to help us both escape from Backwoods Farm and from Duncan and the life we were stuck in? How could I explain there was a whole world out there for us to explore and that it was time we took our courage in our hands and went to find it.
But as the words began to form Sam looked at me closely – really studied me for a moment as though he’d never seen me properly before – and then he took off and ran like the wind back towards the house. He was flying again, his trainers skimming the grass as he leapt the puddles. I could hear him counting his steps; counting up to 823 by the time he rounded the corner and vaulted the garden wall.
Chapter 12
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Do wishes come true?
Truestory
Date: 5 June 2014
Time: 16.00
Is it safe for me to wish for something I might not want?
Re: Do wishes come true?
Fizzy Mascara
Date: 5 June 2014
Time: 16.06
Well don’t bother praying to some dodgy ‘god’. If you want something badly then you’re gonna have to work for it. It’s all down to you – nobody else.
Re: Do wishes come true?
NoShitSherlock
Date: 5 June 2014
Time: 16.09
Wish away, Truestory! Won’t make no difference!!!
Re: Do wishes come true?
Sweet Cheeks
Date: 5 June 2014
Time: 16.15
I wished for an iPod touch and I just got one for my birthday. WISHES DO COME TRUE!!!!!
Re: Do wishes come true?
SpiritLove
Date: 5 June 2014
Time: 16.22
Believe it, visualise it and it will come to pass, Truestory. At the Spirit&Soul Spiritual Community we use these techniques to help our members find love, bring back an ex-lover, create wealth, happiness, passion and success. If you want on-line ‘Wish-Support’ our usual rate is $183 but we have a special offer on at the moment of $3.50. Just click here.
Re: Do wishes come true?
Razzamatazz68
Date: 5 June 2014
Time: 16.30
Why u going to wish 4 something u don’t want?
Re: Do wishes come true?
Truestory
Date: 5 June 2014
Time: 16.30
It has been suggested that I compile a Wish List and I do not know if this is a good idea.
Re: Do wishes come true?
Razzamatazz68
Date: 5 June 2014
Time: 16.31
Sure, why not?
Re: Do wishes come true?
FlyAwayBlackbird
Date: 5 June 2014
Time: 16.40
I read about this on a great site. Apparently their are only 1342 wishes left in the world so don’t lets waste them!! You’ve gotta be specific, it said, and spell out your wish in detail. Then youve got to do other things that I can’t remember but are something to do with lucky numbers and then your wish will come true. Good luck Truestory!! Hope all your wishes come true. xx
Chapter 13
Duncan came in when Sam was eating his tea – chewing each piece of pasta exactly five times and counting the pieces down from 19. He had got to 8.
‘I’ve borrowed a rotovator from Melville’s but we should probably have rotovated it before we put the tunnel up, if we’d thought.’
I didn’t say anything but I must have banged the pots in the sink and perhaps I rolled my eyes and sighed.
‘You always know everything, don’t you?’ he said and he grabbed the jacket he’d just taken off and went out, crashing the door so hard the eighth piece of pasta stuck in Sam’s throat.
Later I was plating up chips, egg and beans for Larry and Duncan. Sam was parked at the table drawing one of his maps.
‘How’s you?’ Larry asked him, dragging a chair back and plonking himself at the kitchen table, and I realised my heart hadn’t clenched with fear over him talking to Sam.
Larry took his plate from me and squashed his egg with a rolled up piece of bread. The yolk burst and Sam squinted as the gooey yellow mixed with the tomato-ey beans and it all dribbled towards Larry’s chips.
‘Answer him.’ Duncan scowled at Sam, who was studying Larry as he shoved half a slice of bread in his mouth.
Sam looked baffled. Answer who?
‘How’s you today then?’ Larry said again as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘What you been up to?’
‘I’ve been up to Geoffrey Chaucer.’
‘Oh, the Canterbury Tales.’
‘No, Geoffrey Chaucer.’
Larry put his knife and fork down and grabbed his rucksack that was leaning against the table leg. ‘I’ve got something you might like.’ He rummaged around and pulled out a hardback book. The Canterbury Tales. He opened the book and unfolded a sheet from the back and laid it on the table.
‘See,’ said Larry, ‘a map of the route the pilgrims took on their journey from Southwark to Canterbury. You like maps, don’t you? Come and have a look at this.’
He edged his chair nearer.
‘Come a bit closer, son.’
Sam looked from the map with its black roads and paths and boundaries and red contour lines to the fried egg with its bright yellow yolk and back to the map. He was obviously fascinated by the map and repelled by the egg in equal measure.
‘That’s interesting, isn’t it?’ I said, trying to keep his attention on the map. I leant over and flattened the map so he could get a better view.
Larry had scraped all the goo out of the egg and there was only hard yellow left – but it was a hard yellow that was very bright indeed. Larry put his finger on the corner of the map, then with his other hand he took a slice of bread and scooped the remains of the egg yolk up and shoved it in his mouth.
Sam stared at him as you might at a python swallowing an antelope, with a look on his face like the egg yolk was burning his own throat.
‘See, they started from Southwark Cathedral,’ said Larry, wiping his greasy hand on his trousers, ‘and went through Deptford and Greenwich and Dartford, stopping at inns along the way until they got to the shrine of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.’
Larry’s finger followed the pilgrims’ route east and Sam slid his chair beside him and bent low over the map.
‘They told stories to each other as they travelled to pass the time.’
Larry used his last chip to wipe the plate clean and took a big swig of tea.
‘Course, it’s mainly the A2 nowadays.’
Sam pulled the map closer and studied it.
‘Have you been here?’
‘Yeah, some of it. There’s apple-picking, strawberries, all sorts at the right time of year.’
‘Geoffrey Chaucer was an alchemist,’ said Sam. ‘He used silver and orpiment and burnt bones and iron filings and ground them into a powder to make gold.’
‘News to me,’ said Larry.
‘News to everybody else too, I should think,’ said Duncan. ‘Is that what you’ve been teaching him this afternoon? Shame there wasn’t another polytunnel to put up.’
I grabbed a couple of plates. ‘Geoffrey Chaucer is an important part of Key Stage Two.’
‘Orpiment is otherwise known as sulphide of arsenic,’ went on Sam. ‘It is very poisonous and it is bright yellow.’ He smoothed out the map and then looked back at Larry. ‘Geoffrey Chaucer was a time traveller too.’
‘That’s news as well.’
‘Jeannie told me. Even Wikipedia does not know that.’
I usually wished Sam would talk. As a rule I was grateful when he said anything at all, but now I wished he’d shut up and keep his ridiculous Geoffrey Chaucer information to himself.
He’d told me he’d learn about Chaucer on his own this afternoon to make up for the work he missed this morning – but it looked like he’d been reading a lot of old rubbish on the internet. With Sam, though, if it was written down it meant it was true – even if it was something as daft as this alchemy nonsense.
Home schooling was a nightmare. Sam would only study what he was interested in, then I couldn’t stop him, but anything else and it was a waste of time. I took the easy way out at times and let him read whatever he chose. What else could I do? Constantly fight with him? Do battle day in, day out? I didn’t have the energy.
After tea we sat in front of the fire. I was in the armchair and Sam and Larry were on the sofa looking at the Chaucer map. Larry told Sam some of the stories. Sam studied the map and looked up at Larry every minute or two, taking in every word he said.
What was it about Larry that fascinated Sam?
He was scruffy and looked a bit like a gypsy. He had a funny accent – to Sam at any rate. He’d arrived from nowhere and caused a lot of rows since he got here, but none of that seemed to put Sam off. Larry kept producing maps, of course, which wasn’t doing any harm.
I plonked a basket of paperwork on my knee. This was the most boring job but it had to be done. Duncan was scared of paperwork so it was left to me – and I only did it when it had built up so much I couldn’t stand it anymore and was forced to tackle it.
Sometimes it came in handy that Duncan was frightened of words. That stuff about Chaucer and Key Stage Two was rubbish; I had no idea if Geoffrey Chaucer was anything to do with Key Stage Two and even if he was I didn’t think it’d be anything to do with his alchemy and his time travel.
I opened the letters – receipts from the dairy, vet’s bills, hardware accounts, bank statements and insurance premiums – for every pound coming in, there seemed to be two going out. As I put the letters into separate piles around the chair and along the chair arms, I listened to Larry’s stories.
He was telling Sam the Knight’s Tale; about how Arcita and Palamon were two men who loved the same woman, Emilia, and who pined for her through their prison window. Larry said the men fought a great battle for Emilia’s hand in marriage but there was a twist and the victor, Arcita, was killed and before he died he said that Emilia should marry Palamon instead, so she did.
I’d half thought Larry had The Canterbury Tales in his bag to rip out the pages to make his roll-ups, but he seemed to know what he was on about.
I rested my head back and let the paperwork wait and I listened to the story too.
Larry showed Sam the old language and explained the translations and Sam repeated the phrases out loud.
‘I did some of this at school,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think I got it then. It seemed a bit boring at the time.’
‘They’re great stories,’ said Larry. ‘Chaucer was a master storyteller.’
Duncan was sitting by the back door mending some mole traps – I’d told him many a time not to bring those filthy old things inside, but he never listened. He wasn’t listening now either and hadn’t noticed Sam was having an in-depth conversation about Olde English with a guy who only wandered off the street a couple of days ago.
My eyes were closing with the heat of the fire and the stories. Through half-open eyelids I watched Sam with Larry. Sometimes he looked like a normal boy. He looked like any young lad sitting with his dad in front of the fire listening to stories.
Except who was I kidding? Sam wasn’t a normal boy and Larry most certainly wasn’t his dad.
The next morning Duncan took Larry to the cattle auction with some bull calves. Larry can’t have been at the auction all the time though because when they got back he came straight inside and said he had a surprise, and he unrolled an antique map of Backwoods Farm on the kitchen table. It showed an outline of the house and garden, the buildings such as they were then, and the surrounding fields.
‘It’s not the original. It’s a photocopy; I found it in the library.’
‘Oh, that’s so kind,’ I said.
I was lost for the right words. My first thought was: Duncan’s never done anything like this for his son, but then I realised I hadn’t done anything like it either. It was Larry, who’d been here three days, who’d thought of it and gone out and done it.
Sam’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head. He approached the table slowly like the map was going to bite him. He gazed at it, puzzled, until Larry said:
‘It’s Backwoods. It’s like one of they maps you draw.’ And Sam frowned and stared at it and did not say a word.
‘Isn’t that lovely, Sam?’ I said, by way of a thank you to Larry. ‘That is so lovely.’
‘Anyway, it’s yours, son,’ said Larry. ‘Though like I say, it’s only a photocopy.’
Sam obviously didn’t care it was a photocopy; He touched it like it was a precious object, a piece of real-life treasure.
‘I will ask Jeannie for a carved treasure box,’ he said.
There was some writing on it, all fancy and flowing.
Duncan had arrived inside and bent over to look at the map.
; ‘See the date: 1845,’ he said. ‘That map must have been drawn up when my great, great grandparents bought the farm. That’s six generations, counting Sam.’
Sam carried on staring until Larry pushed it towards him.
‘Anyways, it’s yours, son. Here’s the farmhouse,’ he said, pointing, ‘and the lane and Jeannie’s cottage.’
Sam carried on studying it hard. Eventually he whispered:
‘There is Big Hill. But where is the Wildwood?’
Larry pointed to The Wildwood, which was a fairly small wood and not a forest, like Sam drew on his own maps. Sam stared at it and gulped but said nothing.
Wayside Cottage was there and another cottage nearer called Byway Cottage where there was now Sam’s Pile of Rubble Covered in Weeds. In the garden at Backwoods there was a big space marked ‘Vegetable Garden’ and next to it the orchard, where the polytunnel had been put up, and beside that the ‘Flower Garden’. At the bottom of the flower garden where there was now overgrown vine and head-high nettles, known by Sam as ‘The World of the Jungle at the Bottom of the Garden’ it said something we all puzzled over but no one could read.
Sam took one of his own maps from the thick pile of finished maps beside the range and he laid it beside the antique map. He held on tight to the edge of the kitchen table as he studied both maps side by side.
Larry and I watched him. Larry was delighted he’d brought something that fascinated Sam so much. We looked over Sam’s shoulder as he studied both maps. They were very different. The biggest difference was the size of The Wildwood – the forest Sam always drew like an enormous barrier, thick and impenetrable, surrounding Backwoods like a great safety blanket, keeping the world out, was in fact not much bigger than the ‘Long Four Acre’. It was a small wood. He traced his finger around it and stared and stared.
Truestory