The Farm Beneath the Water (7 page)

Chapter Eight

In the Playground

“Don’t be ridiculous, Joanne,” said Dad, as they drove to school on Monday morning. “Of course you can’t stay up all night.” He signalled right as they approached the main road. “Hannah, move your head. I can’t see out that side.”

“But it’s on a Friday,” said Jo, leaning forward from the back seat. “We won’t have to get up for school the next day.”

“I don’t care what day it is. You’re going to bed as usual.”

“Why do you want to stay up all night next Friday anyway?” asked Hannah.

“Because Sophie’s going to be here all night,” said Sam.

“Is she? How do you know?”

“We heard Daddy talking to her on the phone.”

“Oh, there’s Lottie,” said Hannah, spotting her friend on the pavement.

“She’s going to watch the bats flying out of the attic and record them,” said Jo. “And we want to help her.”

“I bet the last thing she wants is you two ‘helping’
her. She probably wants a quiet, peaceful atmosphere, not the poor bats frightened to death.”

“We wouldn’t frighten them,” said Sam. “We are professional batologists.”

“
Batologists
?
” said Martha. “That’s not even a word, you weirdos.”

“I thought you were archaeologists,” said Hannah.

Jo gave Hannah one of her hard stares. “The Society of Bean has many branches.”

“Please can we stay up, Dad?” asked Sam.

“Well, we’ll see.”

The Beans squealed with joy.

“But it certainly won’t be all night, so don’t get that into your heads.” He pulled in at the school gates to let Martha and Hannah out. “Right, see you later, you two.”

Hannah waited for Lottie at the gates, and they made their way across the playground to their favourite bench: the one in the far corner, in the full beam of the morning sun and with a view of the whole playground.

“So you’ll never guess what,” said Lottie, giving the bench a quick scan and a sweep with her hand before sitting down. “It turns out my dad has known about the reservoir plans for ages.”

Hannah stared at her. “What?”

“I told him about it on the phone last night and he said he’d known for months.”

“But … how come?”

“He said your dad asked him to step up his bird surveys, so they’d have as much evidence as
possible against the farm being flooded. But your dad asked him not to tell me, because he didn’t want you knowing and getting worried. He didn’t want to burden you with it when it might all come to nothing.”

So Dad had known about this for months. No wonder he looked so tired, if he’d been secretly fighting the reservoir plans all this time.

“I wish I
had
known,” said Hannah. “At least it wouldn’t have been so much of a shock.”

“What’s a shock?” asked Jonah.

Hannah looked round. “Nothing.” She hadn’t realised he was right behind their bench. He had gelled his hair into little spikes all over his head. He and Ben were kicking a football against the wall with another Year 9 boy. Matthew Barnes, Hannah thought he was called. He had brown eyes that matched his brown hair, and he always had a football in his hands or at his feet.

“So we’re rehearsing at your farm now, as well as at school?” said Jonah.

“Well, six weeks isn’t very long,” said Hannah. “I thought it would be good to get some extra practice in. Especially with the fight scenes – they’re going to be quite complicated. Hopefully the swords will arrive before Wednesday.”

“Are you using real swords?” asked Matthew.

“Samurai swords,” said Jonah. “Slice you in half like butter.”

Hannah laughed. “They’re plastic ones Lottie ordered online. They look good, though. At least,
they do in the picture.”

“So do you get a budget for this play, then?” asked Jonah.

“Yep.” Secretly, it was one of the things she found most thrilling. “Fifty pounds to spend on whatever I want.”

“Doughnuts at every rehearsal,” suggested Jonah.

“I have to keep accounts, though.”

“Oh. Spoilsports.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah saw Miranda swanning towards them, with Poppy beside her. She steeled herself for the encounter.

“Is Adamson coming?” asked Ben. “To the farm?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Lottie sarcastically. “He’d be
really
welcome on Hannah’s farm, wouldn’t he, after what he did last time he was there?”

“Hi, Hannah,” cooed Miranda. “I saw your little note about extra rehearsals at your farm. I’m afraid I won’t be able to come.”

“On Wednesday? Well, that’s—”

“To any of them. I just don’t have the time, I’m afraid.”

“What do you mean, you don’t have the time? You’re Juliet!”

“I just feel,” said Miranda, flicking her hair back, “that my time could be more productively spent rehearsing at home. And after all,” she said, smiling sweetly, “these are
extra
rehearsals, aren’t they? They’re not compulsory.”

Hannah opened her mouth to retort and then snapped it shut again. Why was she trying to persuade
Miranda to come to the farm? The rehearsals would be ten times more fun without her.

“That’s no problem. We’ll do the scenes you’re not in. No problem at all.”

Miranda looked slightly taken aback. Maybe she was expecting me to beg her on bended knee, thought Hannah.

“So,” said Jonah, “will you still get to live in your house when they flood the farm, or will the house be underwater, too?”

Hannah’s stomach somersaulted. “What?”

“What are you talking about?” said Ben.

“This new reservoir they’re building at Hannah’s farm. It’s going to be so cool. Windsurfing, sailing, scuba-diving…”

Hannah’s heart started beating very fast.

Matthew stopped kicking the football and looked round. “Diving? Where?”

“Wait a minute,” said Lottie. “How do you know about the reservoir? They haven’t announced it yet.”

“My dad’s mate told him. He’s on the council. My dad’s going to apply for the catering licence. He reckons he’ll make a fortune.”

Ben stared at Hannah. “They’re building a reservoir on your farm?”

“Yep,” said Jonah. “It won’t be a farm much longer. It’ll be a massive great lake.”

“Are we really getting a reservoir in Middleham?” said Matthew, tucking the football under his arm and moving closer. “That’s awesome. We never get anything good here. Hey, will there be fishing?”

“Bound to be,” said Jonah. “They’ll probably stock it with trout or salmon or something.”

“So are they going to flood your whole farm?” asked Ben. “Where are you going to live? Will you get another farm?”

Hannah couldn’t speak. The others kept talking, but their words seemed far off in the distance. Hannah felt sick, and the outside world was a meaningless blur.

So people
wanted
the reservoir. They weren’t going to try to stop it. They thought a reservoir would be a great thing to have in the village. They were looking forward to it. They were excited about it.

And, Hannah realised, why wouldn’t they be? What did most people in the village care about Clayhill Farm? The only thing the farm offered for everybody else was land to walk on. Whereas a reservoir…

What were a few footpaths and a bit of birdwatching compared with scuba-diving and windsurfing, fishing and sailing?

Lottie’s raised voice cut into Hannah’s thoughts.

“There isn’t going to be a reservoir in Middleham, Jonah, so you and your dad can stop making plans for windsurfing and catering licences.”

“There is, actually. You don’t know everything, even though you think you do.”

“I know they’re planning to build a reservoir, but it’s not going to happen. The farm’s full of wildlife and we’re not going to let it be destroyed.”

“Oh, wildlife. Big deal. There’s plenty of other fields.”

“I went windsurfing on Rutland reservoir last summer,” said Matthew. “It was so cool. I can’t believe we’re going to get one here.”

“I hope they start soon,” said Jonah. “Be great to have something to do in this stinking hole. Hey, if it freezes in winter we could go skating.”

“Will you just shut up about it?” said Lottie. “That’s Hannah’s home you’re talking about. And anyway, it’s not going to happen.”

“Well, they’re having a meeting this Thursday about their plans, so we’ll find out then, won’t we? My dad’s going to go. He wants to get the catering contract before anyone else gets in on it.”

“But they can’t flood your farm,” said Ben, “if your family doesn’t want to sell it. Can they?”

Hannah’s voice came out croaky. “We don’t own it. We rent it.”

She didn’t add: And the landlord will be delighted to sell it. That’s exactly what he wants.

“It’s very run down, anyway,” said Miranda. “It’ll be much better to have something there that’s actually useful.”

Hannah glared at her. “How can you say it’s run down? You’ve never even been there.”

Miranda gave a bored shrug. “That’s what everybody says.”

“Everybody? Who’s everybody?”

“Anyway, you can rent another farm, can’t you?” said Jonah. “And it will be awesome to have a
reservoir in the village, you’ve got to admit it.”

“All you care about,” said Hannah, “is your stupid water sports. You don’t care at all about the wildlife. You’re so selfish.”

“Actually,” said Miranda, “don’t you think it’s you who’s being selfish, Hannah?”

Hannah shot her a look of loathing, but Miranda didn’t seem to notice. “I mean, we need reservoirs, don’t we? If everybody had your attitude, where would we get our water from?”

Of course, thought Hannah, with a dull ache inside her. Of course that was how other people would see it. And maybe they were right. Maybe she
was
being selfish.

“Anyway,” said Miranda, “it doesn’t matter what you think. The water company’s hardly going to listen to you, are they? If they want a reservoir, they’ll build a reservoir. There’s no point trying to stop them.”

From the school building, the bell for registration sounded. Hannah had never been so glad to hear it. She couldn’t stand this for one more second.

Lottie gave her a concerned look as they walked across the playground. “Are you all right? Don’t take any notice of Miranda. She’s just being a cow.”

“Is she?” said Hannah.

“What do you mean? Of course she is.”

Lottie ranted about Miranda all the way to their form room. But Hannah wasn’t listening. The conversation in the playground played over and over in her head.

People would love a reservoir, wouldn’t they?

And if the village wanted it and the landlord wanted it and the water board wanted it, what possible chance did her dad and a few eccentric wildlife enthusiasts have of stopping their plans?

They had no chance, did they? Absolutely no chance at all.

Chapter Nine

The Invasion

Hannah took a deep breath of clean Clayhill air as she crossed the road from Elm Lane on to the farm track that afternoon. It was a warm day again, the sky bright blue, dotted with low, grey-white fluffy clouds. But the harvest was nearly finished and the nights were getting colder. There was a definite feel of autumn in the air.

A tractor pulled a seed drill across the freshly turned soil of Brook Field. It didn’t look like Dad in the tractor. It must be Adam, his new farm worker. Hannah wondered what he was planting.

Into her head rushed an image of flood waters pouring into the shallow valley, washing away the delicate green shoots. Would there be another harvest at Clayhill?

No. She couldn’t let herself think about that.

She rounded the bend in the track, a turn she always loved. It was here that the farmhouse came into view, nestled right in the centre of the land.

But today, as she turned the corner, she stopped dead.

It looked as though a plague of giant wasps had
invaded the farm. Dozens of people in bright-yellow fluorescent jackets swarmed all over North and South Meadows. Some were on their own, some were in groups. Some carried notebooks, some had tools, some held electronic devices and some were taking photographs.

Hannah stood rigid, not even breathing. They weren’t starting already, were they? They couldn’t be, surely. They couldn’t just demolish the farm without permission.

Unless … unless they
had
permission.

What if the landlord had already agreed to this? What if it didn’t matter what she or Dad or anybody else thought? What if the landlord just had to sign a piece of paper and they could come in with their bulldozers?

Two of the men strode up North Meadow.

“Heavy clay subsoil with twelve per cent greensand,” one of them said.

They wore ID cards clipped to their jackets. They came close enough to Hannah for her to read the words written on their badges, though they took no more notice of her than if she had been one of the sheep grazing in South Meadow.

Aqua
, the badges said.
Delivering water to you
.

Hannah remembered seeing other people, wearing the same badges, walking over the fields during the summer holidays. But there were often people at the farm mending pipes or cables, and she had thought nothing of it at the time.

“So there’ll be earthworks running right around
the perimeter?” said one of the men.

“That’s right,” said the other. “Half a million cubic metres of soil. We need to build up the banks to a ten-metre height to get enough depth of water.”

“And what’s the total area to be flooded?”

“Nearly four hundred acres. Right up to the wood there. It’s a perfect site. Only the one house on it. And the landlord’s happy. As long as the price is right, of course.”

They chuckled.

Hannah started to run. She hurtled down the bumpy track, leaping over potholes, hoisting the strap of her canvas bag back on to her shoulder every few seconds. She had to find Dad. Please, please, she thought, let him be in his office.

As she raced past the gateway to South Meadow, one of the wasp men, absorbed in tapping a number into his mobile phone, stepped on to the track right in front of her. Hannah swerved and knocked his arm. The sheaf of papers he was carrying spilled on to the tarmac. The man swore and stooped to pick them up, the phone still clamped to his ear.

“Sorry,” said Hannah, chasing after a couple of pieces of paper which had caught on the breeze and were dancing towards the farmyard.

She grabbed them just before they reached a large muddy puddle, and turned round to give them back. The man was walking up the track, head down, his papers clamped under one arm. He obviously didn’t realise that two sheets were missing.

Suddenly he gave a shout into his phone. “
Finally
,
a signal. Listen, Terry, this place is a nightmare for reception so I might get cut off any minute.”

As Hannah ran after him, her eye caught the top sheet of paper and she stopped.

It was an aerial photograph of Clayhill Farm. Around the borders of the farm, a thick line had been drawn in black felt-tipped pen.

There was a date at the bottom of the photograph. It was just over a year ago.

Her heart thumping, Hannah pulled out the bottom piece of paper. It was the same photograph, with the same black border, but on this picture, the area inside the border was covered with heavy criss-crossed lines.

Underneath the photograph were the words:

Middleham Reservoir. Area to be flooded
.

The criss-crossed lines completely obliterated the farm.

Hannah’s throat tightened. She looked across the land, at the pastures, the pig field, the ancient hedgerows full of songbirds, the ponds where the frogs spawned every spring, the veteran oak trees that were homes for owls and bats and countless other creatures, the yard with its centuries-old barn, stables and granary, and their own lovely, ramshackle farmhouse.

Her father and her grandfather and other farmers for hundreds of years before them had spent their whole lives looking after this land. The water company couldn’t just destroy it. They wouldn’t be allowed to.

Would they?

She became aware of heavy footsteps approaching. She looked up. The man who had dropped the papers was striding back towards her. He stopped in front of her and snatched the papers from her hand. Then he turned back up the track without a word.

For a moment Hannah stood there, too astonished to react. The rudeness of him!

But she had more urgent things to worry about than rudeness. She turned back towards the farmyard and broke into a run.