Washy and the Crocodile (9 page)

“In the outback,” said Jack helpfully.

“Indeed,” said his uncle. “Charlie was a very decisive person, and she made a very good impression on her contact at the Australian embassy who thought she was just right for the job. So off she went, full of hopes and dreams and aspirations.”

“Good,” said Evie. She knew just how Charlie felt!

“At first, she found it very difficult,” continued Uncle Otto. “The children had no interest in ballet, because it was totally outside their experience. She was visiting some very isolated communities, where there were very few children. She wasn't Australian, and they didn't really understand her; and she didn't know how to reach them.”

He stopped again, like a marathon runner who was having great difficulty in finishing the course, but was determined not to give up.

“And then it happened.”

“What happened?” Asked Jack. Uncle Otto was telling this story all wrong. What was wrong with him? Had he eaten too many plums?

“They'd organised a gathering miles from anywhere, right in the middle of the dry season, and it was extremely hot, even in the shade, and although some children had turned up they were hot and bothered and quarrelsome”—Uncle Otto looked at his two little charges rather carefully at this point—”and they clearly had no interest in what she was doing.”

“Oh, dear,” breathed little Evie, who was totally absorbed by the unknown girl's plight. As for Jack, he was giving nothing away. Ballet! What good was that to anyone? Why didn't she help them to learn something useful, like car maintenance? Or—

“Because she didn't want to, Jack,” said Uncle Otto, stopping his nephew's chain of thought dead before he'd even had a chance to develop it, which was
really
unfair. “She'd reached a crisis, and she felt like giving up and going home and going back to Shropshire and retraining as a librarian.”

“Golly,” said Evie. “That was desperate. Even Sam doesn't want to be a librarian.”

“I know,” said her uncle, and winked. “Charlie thought she'd make one final effort. She thought, if they won't dance, I will. And she started to dance. On her own. In a shearing shed full of discarded wool, with the sun boiling down on the tin roof, and no music, because the shearers had turned off the power.”

“So what happened?” Asked Jack. “I suppose it was a disaster, and no one joined in, and she came back home and never danced again!” He didn't really want this to have happened, but he still said it. He wasn't quite sure why. Uncle Otto smiled at him.

“No,” he said. And paused.

“What
happened
?” The twins said, as one twin. And stared at each other in surprise.

“A tall, dark young man was leaning against the door to the shed as if he had no interest in dance at all, and picking his teeth with a huge tooth-pick”—

“Which he kept in his hair. It was Washy,” breathed Evie.

“You've got it,” said her uncle. “It was Washy. He saw that the young white girl with hair the colour of liquid amber had a problem, and he put his tooth-pick back in his dark, curly hair, and glided across the concrete floor of the shearing shed as if he had been waiting for that moment all his life, and he began to dance with her, and she with him, and they danced together, and the children had never seen anything like it, and they were totally absorbed, and then they all began to dance, and time stopped still, and the aborigine cook at the station who was related to Washy by his marriage to his third wife belaboured the triangle for lunch and made enough noise to raise the dead and no-one paid the slightest attention, not even the children who at first hadn't had the slightest interest in what was going on,” said Uncle Otto, and finally paused for breath. “Charlie was dancing, and Washy was dancing, and the children were dancing, and—”

“They were all having a good time,” said Jack.

“Yes,” said his uncle. “They were all having a good time.”

“That was good,” said Jack. There was a pause while they all thought about Charlie and Washy and the children, in the shearing shed, dancing away the morning and forgetting their lunch.

“And then what happened?” Asked Otto's niece, who always liked the human interest side of a story. “Did Charlie go on and tour the whole of the outback? Did she take Washy with her? How did the two of them get on?”

But Uncle Otto did not immediately reply, and Mummy came back with Sophie on her sticks, and the opportunity to continue the story of the girl who went into the outback and danced with an aborigine and what became of her mission, was lost. Mummy wanted them all to be natural with Sophie and to make her feel that she was special and not disadvantaged, and that one day they
would
raise the money, and that she
would
have the operation, and it
would
work; and they were all very happy to do that.

Especially Uncle Otto, noticed Jack. It was almost as if he didn't want to go on with his story. Which was very odd.

***

That night, after such a hot day, there was a ferocious storm. The rain lashed down in torrents and the wind tormented the old plum tree as if it was determined to tear it up by the roots and throw it away, and it seemed as if the night were never going to end and that dawn would never arrive and they would never see the sun again.

Tommy was very scared. He came upstairs, which he was not allowed to do, and lay outside Jack's room, which he was definitely not allowed to do, and scratched his paw on the door, which was beyond all conception of what he was not allowed to do, and Jack got up and let him in and sat him on the bed, where Evie was already sitting, and the three of them sat there and quaked and shivered and hugged each other and didn't really feel very much better, until finally Jack said that this wouldn't do and they would have to go and talk to Uncle Otto. Which none of them was allowed to do.

So they all went to find Uncle Otto, and they looked in his bedroom where he kept his old sword propped against the wash-basin as if he needed it for shaving, and he kept his old uniform hanging on the hook behind the door as if he might need to wear it again at instant notice, and he kept all his other bits and pieces that really should have been given to charity, said Mummy, only she didn't know what charity would take them, and one day she was going to put them all in the dustbin and he would feel very much better, she was quite sure of that, and just watch her, she meant it this time, and ... But Uncle Otto wasn't there. Nor was he anywhere else upstairs.

So they all crept downstairs, where the noise of the storm was absolutely terrifying, and the curtains were banging against the windows as if the Earl of Hell himself had become their new cleaner (thought Jack to himself, so as not to scare his sister). But there was no sign of their uncle at all.

***

The next morning the storm had gone completely, and the morning was as fresh and clear and sunny as if the world had just been spring-cleaned; and they all decided to have breakfast in the garden.

Jack and Evie said nothing about how scared they had been, and nothing about Tommy's illegal behaviour, and nothing about their futile search for Uncle Otto, who was sitting quietly in his old deck-chair, although it was still sopping wet from the storm; and they said so little that Mummy became curious. This wasn't like them!

“Did you hear the storm, darlings?” She said. “Were you scared?
I
was! I thought you'd come and join me!”

“Storm,” said Jack. And he looked puzzled. “Was there a storm last night?”

“Apparently,” said his sister, following his lead. The two children looked at each other, and Annie and Uncle Otto looked at them both, and then at each other. Something was up: but they didn't yet know what.

“I had a dream,” said Jack, as if no-one else were there.

“So did I,” his sister echoed him.

“In my dream,” said Jack, ignoring his sister, “Washy, Wombat and Sophie were all together.”

“So they were,” said Evie. “In the bush. There was a wuzzy near-by.”

“A whaty?” Asked her mother.

“Not a whaty,” replied Evie. “A wuzzy. It's an aborigine hut. Where they keep their... stuff.” Actually, she had no idea what aborigines kept in their wuzzy. But she wasn't going to admit to that. No way!

Jack glared impatiently at his sister, as if it didn't matter what was near-by, and went on almost as if he were in a trance, thought his mother anxiously. What was going on? How could the two children have had the same dream? It wasn't possible! She looked at Uncle Otto, but he was smiling as if he hadn't a care in the world: and he returned her look and raised a finger to his lips. Don't interrupt!— he seemed to be saying. So she didn't.

“Sophie was explaining why her leg didn't work properly,” Jack went on, “and Washy”—

“Was asking her things about it.” Said Evie.

“That's right. And then he turned—”

“
She
turned—”

“
He
turned around to see what Wombat was up to.” Said Jack, firmly. It was his dream. Wasn't it?

“The Wombat was behind them,” added Evie helpfully. The dream needed stage directions if the others were to grasp what was going on.

“Not listening, it seemed. He didn't seem to be paying attention at all.”

“He had a lump of mud in his... paws—”

“A sort of clay, really, earth mixed with water and put near the fire for a bit”—

“Washy always had a fire going. Outside his... wuzzy.” Explained Evie. Triumphantly.

“Yes,” said Jack. And paused.

No one spoke. Otto spoke.

“What was Wombat doing?” He asked gently. “With the lump of clay?”

The children looked at each other carefully. Now was the time!

“He seemed to be modelling something,” said Evie. And paused.

“He'd made it look quite... human,” said Evie. And paused again. She was a natural raconteur, thought her mother, without taking her mind off the story. Where did that come from? Not from her, certainly!

“It was quite uncanny,” said Jack. “I'd never have believed it.”

“Nor would I”, added his sister. “He'd made a lump of clay look like a human being.”

“A woman.”

“A girl.” Corrected Evie.

“Who looked a bit like”—

“Who looked very like”—

“Sophie.”

There was a pause, during which Mummy was too surprised to say anything.

Otto asked, in a very matter of fact sort of way:

“And what was Wombat doing with this model of... Sophie?”

“We don't know. He seemed to be working on her leg,” said Jack. “He said to the other two, you know I've never done this before, don't you? And they all laughed. It was as if—”

But their mother had had enough.

“That's
enough
,” she said. “ No matter what you dreamt—what you
both
dreamt, and I can't explain that and I'm not going to try—it was just a dream. It wasn't real. It didn't happen. Washy and his friend, the wombat, have never met Sophie. Not in real life. How could they? And now, we're all going to go inside and find our gardening tools and put our sun-hats on, because Mummy needs some help in the garden.
Doesn't
she.”

When Mummy got like this, there was very little they could do to stop her; and like two little lambs they went to fetch their hats.

After all, Mummy was right. It had been a dream. A very strange dream. That was all. So they put on their hats and went out into the garden, wondering what Mummy had in mind: and if they only knew it, she was wondering just the same thing.

***

When they went outside again, they forgot all about gardening. There was someone down by the gate, and they all looked there. A girl was standing stock still in the lane. She was a tallish girl, with hair the colour of liquid amber; and she looked, thought Evie, as if she could dance like an angel.

The newcomer was wearing baggy shorts and a much-washed T shirt, and her rucksack didn't seem to bother her at all. Although it looked extremely heavy, thought Evie, who was taking everything in at the same time and wondering who this girl was and why she had come here, and why she was staring about her so intently as if the cottage and its garden had been described to her very carefully but she had never seen them—and most importantly, why Uncle Otto was looking down at his lap as if he had dropped something and taking out his handkerchief and mopping his eyes quite carefully, as if the heat had got to him, which it never did because he was used to the outback where it got
really
hot, and—

The girl spoke. She had a soft, quiet voice but it instantly commanded their attention.

“I'm looking for Uncle Otto,” she said in her soft, quiet voice, which had a touch of the Australian bush about it, and a touch of her native Shropshire in England.