Ballet Shoes for Anna (13 page)

T
OM, THOUGH HE
preferred to remain in the background, did speak to The Gang’s leader about Gussie. This was a big boy called Wilf. He had dirty fair hair which nearly reached his shoulders and he wore a jersey with a skull and crossbones woven on to it. All the smaller boys were scared of him, for if they displeased him he didn’t wait to hear an excuse but out came his fists and he was a good boxer.

There was never a teachers’ meeting but Wilf’s name came up, for all the teachers considered him a menace and longed for the day when he would move on to another school.

“I’m sure he’s a bad influence,” the headmaster was always saying. “And I shouldn’t wonder if he was a thief. Any day I’m expecting to hear he’s in juvenile court.”

Tom had sold his scarf, so it was easy for him to speak to
Wilf for he had to see him to give him the money. Passing over the money was always done when nobody was about, but Wilf had several tough friends who watched out for him to see if the coast was clear. The Gang had a pass sign of thumping one fist on the other. Tom gave this sign and was allowed into the senior classroom where Wilf was sitting alone at his desk. Tom came up to the desk and laid down forty pence.

“Where’d you sell it?”Wilf asked.

“One of the girls bought it for her mum’s birthday.”

“Where did you say you’d got it?”

“Sellin’ it cheap, I said, for a friend what’s got a shop London way.”

Wilf nodded both to show he approved and to dismiss Tom, but Tom did not move so Wilf asked:

“Well? What is it?”

“There’s a boy in my class called Gussie Docksay. ’E wants to join.”

“ ’Ow does ’e know there’s anythin’ to join?”

“ ’E’s one of the kids what ’angs around when we meet in the playground.”

“Gussie Docksay. Isn’t ’e one of the kids what was in that earthquake?”

“That’s right.”

There was a cunning smile on Wilf’s face.

“Live up The Crescent?”

“That’s right.”

Wilf came to a decision.

“Go and find ’im, I’ll see ’im now.”

Gussie had no idea that Wilf was to be feared. He knew him by sight of course, as did everybody in the school, but he had never spoken to him. So when Tom took him to the classroom door and told him to go in he went in afraid of nothing except that Wilf might refuse to let him join The Gang.

Wilf looked at Gussie and rather liked what he saw. Gussie was small for his age but he looked tough, intelligent and noticeably unafraid.

“Why do you want to join?” Wilf asked.

“Money,” Gussie explained. “It’s not for me but I have a sister who must learn to dance. She has private lessons, each one costs fifty pence. This I must earn for I pay every other week. My brother Francesco has three weeks’ money but I have none and this I do not like.”

Wilf had not listened to half of this.

“Now an’ then I gets thin’s to sell. Where they comes from is none of your business, but if you was caught sellin’ and asked where the stuff come from what’d you say?”

Gussie thought back to the old days.

“They was sent to me by an aunt in Baghdad.”

Wilf had never heard this excuse before.

“Why Baghdad?”

Gussie made an expansive gesture.

“All happens in Baghdad and there everyone has an aunt.”

Wilf’s voice became stern.

“Well, you can say what you like as long as you don’t
mention no names. If you do” – he made a gurgling sound and drew a finger across his throat – “you know what’ll ’appen.”

Gussie was charmed but felt Wilf had not quite finished the story.

“Then you throw my body in the ditch where I am eaten by hyenas.”

Wilf blew a sharp whistle on his fingers and at once three of his friends rushed in. Wilf pointed to Gussie.

“The kid’s joinin’. Stand round. Now, Gussie, you says after me, ‘I swear to obey my leader Wilf whatever he tells me to do, and I swear even in the face of death I’ll never give away the name of any member of The Gang.’ Anyone got a knife?”

A rather rusty knife was produced and Gussie was told to hold out his wrist. Then one of his friends made a nick on it and a nick in his own wrist and, when spots of blood appeared, rubbed them together.

“Now you are a blood brother,” said Wilf, “but before you gets taught the sign you ’ave to do a test.”

“Yes, I know,” Gussie agreed. “Tom said I would have to. What must I do?”

The same cunning smile came over Wilf’s face.

“In your uncle’s garden isn’t there a couple of gnomes?”

Gussie was surprised.

“I never knew they were called gnomes but there are two little men who fish. How did you know they were there? You can’t see them from the road.”

“You’d be surprised what I know,” said Wilf. “and maybe you can ’elp me to know more, there’s lots interesting about The Crescent. Now what you ’as to do is to fetch one of those gnomes an’ bring it to me here. When I ’ave the gnome you’re in.”

“And then can I sell things and start to earn some money?” Gussie asked.

Wilf smiled his cunning smile.

“I don’t know about sellin’. I might have other work for you. But when you brings that gnome I shouldn’t wonder if you could ’ave fifty pence on account like.”

Gussie was so cock-a-hoop at having succeeded in one try in joining The Gang that it was not until he was walking home from school that it got through to him how terribly difficult a task he had been set. A gnome might, for all he knew, be heavy. Then, even if he could take a gnome without The Uncle catching him, how was he to carry it to school? It was the kind of thing everybody would notice.

With a kind of turning-over feeling in his inside Gussie faced the awful fact that he might not be able to do his test. Perhaps Wilf had purposely set him something he couldn’t do. It was a terrible thought for it meant if he did not bring a gnome to school he couldn’t join The Gang so couldn’t get any money.

The children were supposed to walk home together, but there was no one to see that they did and no one to complain if they did not so quite often Francesco and Anna walked together and Gussie loitered behind, skylarking with the
other boys. This day he deliberately stayed behind because he was so full of thoughts about the gnome that he wanted to be alone.

The route The Crescent children used going to and from school crossed a busy road where a lollipop lady was waiting to see them safely across. The lights were red, so Gussie lolled against a lamp-post waiting for them to change and the lollipop lady to signal him over. While he stood there saying in his head “Suppose I could borrow a gnome without The Uncle seeing, how could I get it to school without anybody noticing?” he was distracted by what to him was an unusual sight. Two children came along pulling a strange figure in a sort of cart made of a box. It was wearing a mask and an old hat. While he was staring at the cart, the lollipop lady caught hold of him.

“Come on, dreamer. I’ve been signalling and signalling you to cross but you took not a bit of notice.”

Gussie pointed to the figure sitting in the little cart.

“What’s that?”

The lollipop lady led Gussie into the road and held up the traffic.

“That’s a penny for the guy, of course. I’ll be glad when the fifth of November’s over. Blessed nuisance you kids are with your guys.”

Safely across the road, Gussie gazed back at the little cart now disappearing round a corner. “A penny for the guy? The fifth of November? Blessed nuisance you kids are with your guys!” If other children could make little men and pull them
about in carts why couldn’t a gnome travel in the same way.

In a moment Gussie was cock-a-hoop again. He would ask Wally what a guy was. He was as good as in The Gang. He gave a hop, skip and a jump and ran home to tea.

A
LTHOUGH THE
D
OCKSAY
children were now part of the community, Wally still kept a proprietary eye on them all. So when the next morning in break he met Gussie looking for him he at once found a corner where they could talk.

“How is the fifth of November?” Gussie asked.

“Not ‘’ow is?’ You say ‘what is?’ It’s about the gunpowder treason and plot. There was this bloke called Guy Fawkes and ’e tried to blow up the ’Ouses of Parliament but they caught ’im at it. And ever since we make guys and burns them on bonfires on the fifth of November, which was the day he tried to do it. Then there’s always fireworks.”

“Can anybody make a guy?”

“Course. I sometimes makes one. I lug it around in the pram and asks people for a penny for the guy. The money what you get is to buy the fireworks.” Then Wally
remembered that Gussie had not yet got his share of Anna’s dancing lesson money. “But if you was to get given any you could use it for Anna, nobody wouldn’t know.”

Gussie could not confide in Wally, for he had a feeling he might disapprove of Wilf and of his joining The Gang. Yet he had to have the pram and that he wanted it had to be a secret.

“Could you lend me the pram just for tonight? I’ll get it back to you before school tomorrow. And could you not tell anyone you were lending it? You see, I want to surprise Francesco when I give him fifty pence.”

“Fat chance you got of gettin’ fifty pence,” said Wally. “You’ll be doing wonderful if you get ten. People don’t give like they did, they say that fireworks is dangerous and us kids shouldn’t be allowed to beg.”

“But is it permitted?”

“The p’lice don’t stop you if that’s what you mean, but me dad would wallop me if he knew I took out a guy. ’Im and me mum don’t ’old with it.”

All Gussie needed to know was that it was not a police offence. Of course The Uncle would be angry if he knew one of his gnomes was being shown as a guy, but that had to be risked.

“Could I borrow the pram tonight?”

Wally was doubtful.

“Why don’t I come along of you? Me mum won’t ’alf be after me if she ’ears you been down town on your own after dark an’ that.”

Gussie could be very persuasive.

“All I want is to fetch the pram after tea, push it around for not more’n an hour I should think, then I’ll bring it back to you.”

Grudgingly Wally agreed.

“Well, you know where it stands, at the back of Bess’s sty. But for goodness’ sake walk quiet. You ’aven’t seen me mum when she’s creatin’ and believe me you don’t want to.”

All the rest of the day Gussie worked on his plan. Teacher after teacher scolded him for inattention but Gussie didn’t care. What he had to do was desperately important and needed careful working out; let them scold, he would attend to his lessons tomorrow.

That day after tea Gussie, without saying a word to Francesco or Anna, slipped out of the house. He knew it was a safe thing to do for though Francesco might worry he wouldn’t say anything to The Aunt and of course, nobody, unless they had to, ever spoke to The Uncle.

Gussie’s first objective was the pram. Usually the things from the stall were left in it overnight covered with a sheet of plastic, but Wally had promised to clear it out so that there would be room for the guy.

It felt funny creeping through Wally’s farm without calling out “Hi! Can I come in?” Especially as the telly was blaring out to show the family were at home. It felt awful to sneak up behind Bess’s sty without saying a word or giving her a scratch, and Bess thought so too for she seemed to recognize Gussie’s smell for she gave him a surprised grunt. The pram, being old and squeaky, would not have been easy to move
quietly, but luckily any noise it made was drowned out by the pop music being belted out from the TV set.

Gussie, without attracting anyone’s attention, pushed the pram up The Crescent and quietly parked it outside Dunroamin. Now came the difficult part. Each house in The Crescent had a little path on one side of the house with a gate at the far end, beyond which stood the dustbins which were emptied once a week. Cecil always entered his garden through the French windows in the lounge, so he kept the gate into his garden locked except on the day when the dustmen came. This was not the dustmen’s day so Gussie knew the gate would not be open. But Mr Allan, father of the twins, had no French windows so he and his family always came into their garden through the gate. Gussie, knowing this, nipped up their garden path and down into their garden.

It felt strange seeing Dunroamin from the wrong side of the wall. The lights were on in their bedrooms so Francesco and Anna were doing their homework, though more likely Anna was doing her dancing. He stood on tiptoe to peer over the wall and saw what he had expected. The curtains in the lounge were drawn, so there was no chance The Uncle could see out, and most likely The Aunt was in the kitchen cooking supper. Now all he had to do was climb over the wall.

All he had to do! The wall was straight up and with no footholds and, because there had recently been rain, a little slippery. It was then that Gussie thought of the dustbins. Standing on a dustbin he could reach the top of the wall and haul himself over. Dustbins had played no part in the
children’s lives before the earthquake, but they had studied them since and were filled with admiration.

“Such a system!” Francesco had marvelled when first catching the dustmen at work. “All carried away so no smell and no mess.”

Gussie went to examine the Allans’ dustbins. There were two, they were large and made of metal with plastic tops. But what Gussie had not suspected from the easy way the dustmen handled the bins was that they were heavy and it was only by slow stages that he managed to get one to the wall. Then, very out of breath, he climbed on to the plastic lid.

Plastic dustbin lids do not always fix on securely, they get warped by wind and rain. The Allans’ dustbin had a lid like that. As a result when Gussie climbed on to the lid it tipped up, and down Gussie fell with a terrible clatter.

At once the curtains of the Allans’ lounge window were drawn back and the window was opened. Two people hung out and a voice Gussie recognized as Jonathan’s asked:

“Who’s there?”

It was obvious to Gussie that it was no good trying to hide from the twins so he ran over to the window.

“It’s me, Gussie,” he whispered. “I fell off your dustbin.”

The twins were full of curiosity.

“Whatever were you doing on our dustbin?” Priscilla asked.

“Ssh!” whispered Gussie. “Don’t let anyone hear. If you come out I’ll tell you.”

The twins were supposed to be doing their homework but they never bothered with it much and often, especially in the summer, would climb out of the window into the garden. They climbed out now.

While they were climbing out Gussie made a quick decision. He would tell the twins what he was going to do but not about Wilf or joining The Gang.

“I was going to climb the wall to take one of The Uncle’s gnomes.”

The twins thought that a splendid idea. “Where are you taking it to?”

“I thought the school,” said Gussie. “I have borrowed a perambulator, it will look like a penny for the guy.”

“But the school’s shut. Where will you put it?” Priscilla asked.

Gussie had not thought that far. “I suppose I could hide it somewhere.”

Jonathan started to giggle. “Why hide it? Let’s put it on the head’s window ledge. It’s quite large and the gnome could fish into the flower bed underneath the window.”

Gussie thought about that. It was true Wilf had said bring the gnome in to him, but he couldn’t really expect that for how could anyone carry a gnome to school without being seen? It was a joyous thought to put it on the head’s window ledge, and even more gorgeous that Jonathan meant to help.

“All right. Can you help me on to the dustbin?”

Jonathan and Priscilla held the dustbin lid in place and Gussie, now able to reach the top of the wall, hauled himself
over. On the other side he lowered himself quietly into the garden, landing on some plastic chrysanthemums. Very quietly he fumbled his way towards the gnomes.

Always Gussie had supposed the gnomes would be very heavy so he nearly spoilt everything by using too much strength to pick one up, with the result that he fell into the pool with the gnome on top of him. Luckily the lounge curtains were thick and the windows were shut, so Cecil did not hear the splash, but Jonathan and Priscilla did and in a few seconds Jonathan was hauling first the gnome and then Gussie out of the pond.

“Come on quick,” he said. “I can get up the wall. Then pass the gnome up to me. Priscilla will take it, then I’ll pull you up.”

Except that Gussie was very wet and his teeth chattering with cold it was all too easy. Mrs Allan was cooking on the other side of the house, and Mr Allan was out for the evening. In a matter of minutes the gnome, with his fishing rod, which they discovered was detachable, lying beside him, was in the pram. Priscilla had fetched her own and Jonathan’s coats and a warm sweater for Gussie and they and the pram were halfway up The Crescent.

“Now the only place we have to be careful is crossing the main road,” said Jonathan. “You better leave saying ‘a penny for the guy’ to me and Priscilla because we know how.”

“But if we get any pennies we can’t keep them,” Priscilla pointed out. “Dad wouldn’t mind about the gnome, he’d think it funny, but he’d be livid if we took charity money, so
if we get any we’ll put it in somebody’s collecting box.” As it happened nobody gave the children any money but neither did they pay any attention to them, there were too many guys about.

The school gate was locked but Jonathan climbed over and Priscilla passed him the gnome, then she and Gussie climbed over. The school grounds seemed very eerie that night for there were no lights in the grounds, but the twins knew their way perfectly. The only disappointment was that, having set up the gnome on his window ledge, it was too dark to see him.

“And remember,” Priscilla warned, “you can’t go and look at him tomorrow, Gussie. We can only go when somebody else tells us he’s there. Nobody must ever know who put him there.”

Outside the school grounds Gussie collected the pram and said goodnight to the twins, then he went off towards Wally’s farm pushing the pram. When he got to the farm it seemed as if he had only been away five minutes. It sounded as if the same tune was roaring out from the TV and Bess gave the same surprised grunt. But Gussie did not feel the same. He’d done it. He’d taken The Uncle’s gnome. Tomorrow he’d be a proper member of The Gang. Goodness, he felt proud! When he got home, in answer to Francesco’s anxious questions, all he would say was:

“You find out what ‘a penny for the guy’ means. That’s all I’ll tell you.”