The Extremely Epic Viking Tale of Yondersaay (2 page)

“Bye, Mum! Bye, Dad!” Dani and Ruairi shouted and ran across the empty parking lot toward the school door. Dani waited until she saw the car careen back down the tree-lined avenue before she said, “Today’s the day, Ruairi, my friend. Today’s the day.”

Ruairi had been having a similar conversation with his big sister every morning for about two months. Because every morning for about two months, Dani had been carrying out her plan. Her long-term plan.

Ruairi liked to remind Dani that it involved great sacrifice from him because it meant arriving at school half an hour before everyone else, and that meant getting out of bed a half hour too early every day. And Ruairi did not appreciate that. He could have let Dani carry out her plan herself, but then who would be there to talk her out of the dangerous variations or to cover for her when she nearly got caught?

This morning, like every morning for the past two months or so, Dani took a bright red jumper with a gaudy green Christmas tree on the front out of her bag and put it on. She scooped fistfuls of breadcrumbs from the Ziploc bag she had concealed in her book bag. Then she spread all the crumbs out over one particular parking space. She looked up into the branches of the trees all around the car park, and down the avenue, and smiled.

Dani and Ruairi went inside to wait.

The day before this day and every day of the past two months, just before the teachers arrived, Dani took her phone out of her pocket and pressed Play on a particular recording; it sounded a bit like a tinny
click-clack
. Then she and Ruairi went inside to their classrooms as normal.

Since today was
the
day, Dani didn’t play her sound. Instead, just as the first teacher arrived—and the first teacher to arrive was, as always, Mr. De Villiers—Dani and Ruairi slipped inside the school building.

Through the glass front door, Dani and Ruairi watched Mr. De Villiers’s large car nose through the gates toward his parking space. Ruairi suddenly remembered something.

“Dani! The sign!” he said, gesturing to the “project” in his hands. “I forgot.” He slipped outside and stuck the sign to the front of the door with the tape he had in his pocket.

He dashed back inside just as the teacher climbed out of his car, wearing his bright red-and-green Christmas jumper. Mr. De Villiers was merrily singing the same song he sang every single day from November first to the end of school, and was almost at the end.

“Follow me in merry measure, Fa la la la la, la la la la. While I tell of Yuletide treasure, Fa la la la la, la la la la,” he sang as he approached the door to the school. He climbed the first of three steps and reached his hand into his pocket. On the second step, he took his hand out of his pocket and raised his car alarm in the air. On the third step, just before he clicked his alarm, right as he reached out for the door handle, he stopped.

“‘Please use other door,’ eh?” he said, reading out loud the sign that Ruairi had just that minute stuck onto the entrance to the building. Mr. De Villiers shrugged and turned back. He descended the steps one by one and started to walk around the building to look for another open door. As he passed his car, he remembered his alarm and pressed the button.

The last thing Ruairi heard before the onslaught was the tinny “click-clack” of Mr. De Villiers’s car alarm. For as soon as he pressed the button, the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pigeons and doves and hadedas that had been perched among the branches of the surrounding elms and oaks flew down and launched themselves at the crumbs Dani had scattered for them. Since the bread crumbs had been strategically placed around, about, and under Mr. De Villiers’s car, all the airborne creatures soared onto and around and under Mr. De Villiers’s cumbersome 4x4. He clutched at his chest and stumbled backward in a blind panic as the winged multitude descended on him.

It was when the screaming started that Ruairi turned to Dani and said, “I don’t think he finds it funny. I don’t think he finds it funny at all.”

Dani immediately bolted out the door and ran to Mr. De Villiers’s aid. Singing serenely to him, she took him by the elbow and led him through the door of the school building. Ruairi dashed out to take Mr. De Villiers’s other elbow as they approached. Slowly and calmly, dissipating all pigeon-induced panic, they into the building, quietly singing Fa la la la la, la la la la.

“You do realize that man is probably traumatized for life,” Ruairi said to Dani as they sat in tiny plastic chairs outside the principal’s office.

“Why are these chairs so small?” Dani said, looking around at her chair and all the chairs.

“That’s what you’re thinking about right now? We’re about to be expelled on the last day of school before Christmas, and you’re wondering why they have tiny chairs.”

“Relax, Ruairi. They can’t prove a thing.” Dani scrumpled herself further down into the chair. She was almost convincing, looking like she wasn’t just as terrified as Ruairi.

“You’re still wearing your Christmas jumper,” Ruairi said flatly. Dani glanced down, gasped at the lurid colors, and whipped the thing over her head. Ruairi stiffened as the door to the principal’s office opened and the principal came out and stood in front of them.

“Daniella and Ruairi, I’m afraid you’re going to have to go home early today,” Mrs. Nkosi informed them gravely. “Because,” she broke into a huge grin, “this delightful woman has come to take you home.” Mrs. Nkosi moved out of the way to reveal a beaming Granny Miller in her good maroon coat and her good maroon hat with the puffin feathers.

“My younglings,” Granny said, “I have a huge surprise for you! I’ll tell you when we get to your house. Oh, who am I joking. I could never keep a surprise for that long. It’s dependent on Mum and Dad agreeing, so it’s not definite yet, but … I’m taking us all home to Yondersaay for Christmas this year!” She let out a squeal of delight.

Ruairi was stunned. Dani leaped out of her tiny chair and bounded over to her great-great-great-grandmother and enveloped her in a hug. Ruairi could see that mixed up in Dani’s happiness at the sight of Granny Miller was enormous relief.

As the three moved toward the door, Dani turned back to the principal and quietly asked, “Mrs. Nkosi, how is Mr. De Villiers doing?”

“He’s fine. We were very worried at first. He had completely stopped singing
Deck the Halls
—completely stopped. But he’s fa-la-la-ing away again now. We’ve decided to take that as a good sign.

“Don’t worry. And thank you both for taking such good care of him this morning. I wonder if we’ll ever find out who was clever enough to spend almost two months coming to school half an hour early to train those blasted rats-with-wings to descend for bread crumbs when they saw a person in a Christmas jumper and heard a car alarm. I wouldn’t be surprised if we never find her. Or her little brother.” And Mrs. Nkosi shook Granny’s hand and went back into her office.

“What a nice woman,” Granny said. “You know, I would have been here to collect you much earlier, but there was a “Please Use Other Door” sign on the door to the building. I went around the building but couldn’t find another open door, and when I came back, the sign was still there, so naturally I went around again. And again. Luckily, a frazzled-looking man with a very bright jumper came out to check his car, and I noticed the door actually did open. All righty, then. Let’s go convince Mum and Dad that we should all Christmas in Yondersaay.”

“Ready to go, Mum and Dad?” Granny bellowed down the Millers’ front hallway. Ruairi and Dani struggled in after her, laden down with her piles and piles of trunks and hatboxes and suitcases.

“Not quite yet,” Mum said, and the three heard a door slam at the back of the house.

“Well, get a move on!” Granny shouted. “The taxi is picking us up in an hour to take us to the airport. We can’t miss that flight as there’s only a thirty-minute layover in Dubai, and there’s only one flight this week that will take us from there to Copenhagen and on to Berlin, and from there, it’s a wee hop to Dublin airport, a wee-er one to Inverness, and in the middle of all that, there’s the ferry, the catamaran, and the helicopter until finally we catch the Yonder Air flight to Yondersaay.”

Mum emerged from the living room looking less than delighted with the sudden change in Christmas plans. “We’re nearly ready, Granny.” She turned to her children. “Has Granny told you? She’s feeling a little bit homesick, so Dad and I have agreed that we’ll all go up to Yondersaay for Christmas this year. On three conditions—” Dani and Ruairi started whooping and cheering immediately and took no notice of Mum’s three conditions, which were all about safety and good manners and the usual nonsense.

They hugged their mum and shouted, “Yaaaaaay, we’re going to Yondersaay!”

“Mum,” Granny said, and Ruairi saw Granny finally taking in her great-great-granddaughter-in-law, “why are you dressed as a Victorian governess?”

“Audition,” Mum said, struggling out of her corset.

“Oh, for a play, is it?”

“Good lord, no. Commercial.”

“Would you not go in for one of those lovely plays in the Theatre on the Bay or the Baxter?”

“No, no, no. Somebody I know might come along and see me and then I’d see them and I’d have to run off the stage.”

“My dear, what will you do if you actually get booked on one of these commercials?”

“Honestly, Granny, who can think that far ahead?”

Ruairi and Dani went upstairs at supersonic speeds to pack their suitcases, remembering that unlike in South Africa, it was icy and snowy on Yondersaay at this time of year. Dani upended drawers onto the floor; Ruairi tossed items out of the wardrobe. With everything everywhere, they absolutely couldn’t find a single thing they needed.

Mum and Dad were downstairs in the living room. Ruairi could hear little snippets of their conversation.

“It is important to be seen to be committed to the job in these hard times. We all have to prove our worth,” Dad was saying.

Dani put her head over the railing at the top of the stairs and shouted, “Mum, where’s my purple jumper? Mum! My purple jumper!”

“But they can’t expect you to miss out on Christmas with your family,” Mum said as she came to the bottom of the stairs. “It’s in the ironing basket, Dani. Get Ruairi’s fleece while you’re there, and don’t forget it’s cold on Yondersaay now—not like when we’re usually there—bring your snow boots and thermal socks.”

“You don’t understand—” Dad was saying.

“I understand. You’re talking about commitment—”

“I can’t find it, Mum! My purple jumper. Where is my purple jumper?”

Mum and Dad’s heads popped into view at the bottom of the stairs. “Watch your tone, young lady!” they snapped, together. Then their heads disappeared, and the living room door slammed shut. Ruairi and Dani stopped what they were doing and came to the top of the stairs. They stood looking at the closed door.

“It’s all your fault,” Ruairi said, close to tears.

Dani put her arm around her little brother’s shoulder. “It’s not my fault, it’s not anybody’s fault.”

“I know,” he said, as they ambled back to their packing.