The First Book of Calamity Leek (11 page)

We held our breaths, and I checked on Truly in her barrow, in case she felt like starting a moan and ruining everything, but she still lay quiet as a fish. And I looked up at eighteen-year-old Emily, and I sent over a request. If she was planning on doing any miracles this year – which might be nice for us – well then, what about starting on her very own birthday and sorting out Truly?

Mother started some kissing up Emily's shins, and Aunty spat in the grass and pointed Mr Stick at us. ‘Let's get on with it, nieces, before we all catch our deaths.'

Two by two, my sisters went up and laid down their strawdolls and apples at the base of Emily's plinth. Nancy went last with Danny Zuko's head. And up in Heaven, the Goddess Daughter sure was sad about something, because the rain kept on coming.

We were in the middle of singing Happy Birthday to Emily, when I heard a thumping noise next to me. It was Truly's heels banging in her barrow.

‘Aunty—' I said.

‘Games,' Mother said, turning round. Rain was stuck on her black glasses like dead tears. ‘Emily says she wants party games.'

‘Aunty—' I said a bit louder.

‘And they'd better be bloody good ones, Miss Swindon.'

‘Then bloody good games Emily shall bloody well have!' Aunty yelled out cheery. ‘Musical statues all right with you, Emily? I'll sing the music.'

‘One will judge the statues.'

I watched Truly's heels rattling busy next to me, and I tried to catch Aunty's eye. But she was busy starting on ‘Hopelessly Devoted' again.

I tried to catch the eye of Odette Pontefract, but she was being a statue patting a toddler in the trolley. I tried to hiss at Fantine Welshpool at the bottom of the row, but she was busy being a one-legged statue praying to Emily. So you see, I did try.

‘STOP!' Mother shouted.

And I thought that was good, because now everyone would hear Truly's heels. But the barrow was quiet, so I
reckoned Truly must have stopped rattling and started joining in with statues. Which would be easy for her this year, wouldn't it? And I had a little smile, thinking about Truly at last year's birthday party – trying to keep herself upside down in a one-handed cartwheel statue. That was Truly Polperro for you.

Emily won the game. Mother kissed her pink toes. ‘Well done, my angel,' Mother said. ‘What's that, my angel? You want more?'

Hailstones came jumping down onto the Lawn. It sure wasn't just Truly feeling the cold now. But Mother flung off her black shawl to go skipping about, her hair flapping Heavenly in excitement. ‘That one's out! That one's out! They're all out! Well done, Emily! Marvellous! Again?'

Sometime in the next game, Maria Liphook screamed like a proper loonhead, and went running off to the yard. But Mother didn't mind because Emily was winning, and Aunty didn't mind because she was holding tight onto a big smile at Mother. After ten more games, Mother got back in her chair and sat patting on Emily's feet. There sure weren't no cold in the rain for our Heavenly Mother.

Then it was time for us to clear the area to give Mother and Emily some Quality Time. Which weren't such a bad idea, because my sisters' eyes were bleeding paint down their cheeks. Their lips dribbled red off their chins and onto their smocks.

I climbed out of my barrow with my sick bucket, and helped Nancy and Mary heave Danny's corpse in. Annie ran up to take Truly's barrow.

It was when she went to tuck a fur over Truly that Annie
jumped back, her finger pointing at Truly's lips, her mouth moving without words.

I went to look closer and gave out a yelp – least Nancy says I did, because Nancy said, ‘What is it, Clam?' and came to see, and went, ‘Oh no.'

Dorothy ran up and blinked ten times, and turned away.

Sandra barged down the line to us, and, course, she screamed it loud, ‘Truly's lips are blue!'

So everyone came running, and Aunty came too.

Aunty jabbed fingers in Truly's neck. ‘Cold as cod,' she said.

She kept her fingers dug in, turning her head like she was listening for something. ‘Nope. Nothing doing,' she said.

‘What?' Annie whispered.

Aunty took her fingers away. ‘Nothing doing, I said.'

‘Can we not try wheeling her up with Emily?' I whispered.

‘Rather too late for miracles, niece.'

‘I don't understand,' Annie said.

‘Hyperthermia,' Aunty said.

‘What?' Annie said.

‘You heard me.' Aunty prodded Truly's tummy. She put her ear to Truly's heart, and shook her head. ‘Hyper – thermia. Overheated insides.'

Eliza Aberdeen fainted off into the Glamis Castles.

Aunty slammed her hat down low. ‘Well, that's ten grand down the spout, I'd say. That's a new top lip flushed down the pan.' Aunty fixed her eye on Mother, but she couldn't put a tinkle with it. ‘Nancy, pick up Eliza at once, we don't need any more casualties.' Aunty spun round and stomped off south through the Glamis Castles, spitting and thwacking roseheads off bushes as she went.

Well.

Well, we stood round Truly's barrow, dumb as worms.

Annie tried to shake Truly's shoulders awake. She tried Truly's arms.

The rain slowed. Annie tried Truly's legs.

The sky lid went dark.

The rain stopped. Dorothy stopped Annie's hands.

One by one we turned the waterworks on.

Only Annie stayed dry-eyed. ‘No, this ain't so, Truly. No, come on, Truly, quit fooling,' Annie said, like she was waiting on someone to shout out it was just a demonmale dream we were all in, nothing more.

Mother had driven her chair down the Lawn to us before we heard her. She stopped a safe distance off, and waved her handkerchief in front to keep her Heavenly eyes double-safe from us. ‘Attention, weapons!'

We swallowed our tears and saluted.

‘The weapons are making an obscene amount of noise,' Mother said. ‘Emily abhors crying on her birthday. The weapons had better get back in their box at once, before Emily's afternoon is completely ruined.'

Mother spun her electric chair about and drove back up the Lawn, to get back to kissing Emily's toes.

We roasted Danny Zuko's head on a spit in the yard that night. We ate him with Evita Thrupp's best rosemary loaf, and he tasted good. Nancy had herself three helpings, which might be why she is more pig than sister. Annie St Albans didn't eat nothing. She kicked away the ear I saved off Nancy for her, which everyone says is the best bit.

We left Truly with Emily on the Sacred Lawn, it being late and all the sky being emptied of rain.

IT IS HEAVY,
this new pot. And I am pinned in it, which roses never are. That is because there is now a compound fracture inside. That is what they say. Doctor Andrea Doors shows me the photograph.

‘That's an X-ray,' she says, ‘of your femur.'

Only it isn't really me. It isn't good and proper me, like the photograph Aunty took against the schoolroom wall a few days after Truly died. The one which meant we eldest would soon be flying over the clouds to War.

‘Line up, line up, heads up. No sloppy fringes, double chins or cheeky grins for Her Majesty's Government,' Aunty had said. ‘One at a time.'

She went as far as Eliza Aberdeen.

‘Millie Gatwick, you'll be advertised in the next batch,' she said. ‘Those boobs'll take a touch more ripening before you're ready, so there's really no point hanging around here. Goodness, it's exciting, isn't it?'

After that, Aunty measured us for what she called our burkas. Of course, we wouldn't be wearing them to fight
in, they were just for flying us to War. Because we had to get there safely, and Aunty said we'd be pleased to hear there wasn't a demon body alive could touch us in these things.

‘Ta-dah! Get a squizz at that, nieces!' She flicked her wrists. ‘Call me a genius! One hundred and ten per cent protection, I'd say!'

What floated down wasn't black like the one Aunty puts on when she has to go Outside sometimes. It was blue, like Emily's cloak. ‘Actually, this one's an old tablecloth I begged off your Mother,' Aunty said, ‘but I've cut a slit for your eyes, so it'll give you a fair impression of the real thing.'

For the rest of that day we elder nieces had turns in it round the yard. Course, Mary spun about and made herself dizzy, and Dorothy tripped over the hem, and Annie – who had already started with her ‘Why this' and ‘why that' nonsense, and which we didn't know was only going to grow more dangerous, the more sad she got about Truly – well, Annie kicked up yard concrete and said she didn't want to put it on at all. But I'll tell you this, I ain't never ever felt so safe my whole life. And I'll tell you this too – my ears didn't even touch the sides.

But, see, it ain't so bad, this new pot on my leg, because even if I can't run off and start things just yet, it meant a few of my leftover sisters came to see me. I wasn't the most lively of the lot, seeing as I was mostly sleeping. But I remember they did tiptoe in, my sisters. I remember them smelling good and proper of themselves – of straw and compost, beeswax and pigs – a smell settled too deep in their bones for this new world to scrub out. Annie left
me a pretty Milli Vanilli shrub rose in a pot. And that wasn't all. There was a purple wireworm hiding under the mulch. I put him on my finger today, when no one was here to see. I am going to name him Danny Zuko.

WE BURIED TRULY
in the plum orchard, which was always her favourite place.

Aunty said, ‘Put her where you like, as long as you dig it deep enough.'

Annie said she'd probably like to lie under the tallest Victoria plum tree and feel them fruit bombs dropping on her.

I said putting her in the middle of the orchard was a good thing, because if she sat up out of the soil one night, there was no way she'd be able to see the Wall and feel foolish about climbing up it and dying off so careless. Course, I said that to get a smile from my sisters, who were busy sobbing and sticking strawdoll Trulys in her grave, and whispering about her possible ascension to Heaven, like happened to Emily. But it wasn't the bone-marrow truth, what I said about Truly sitting up. No, the real truth I read from page
D
of the Appendix the night after we buried her, while we sat stuffing petals into ‘Home Sweet Home' cushions in the dorm.

‘I am sorry to say it,' I said, ‘but today there's a new
page stuck in
D for Deserter
– saying Truly has most probably been dragged straight down to Bowels. It says, “Just you remember this, nieces – no one ever gets to Heaven without fighting the Good Fight first on Earth. Which is what Deserter means.”'

‘Isn't that set down good and clear for us, Annie?' I said, looking where she wasn't stuffing her quota of cushions, because she was lying face down in Truly's straw.

Annie said nothing.

‘So, Truly's being cooked up for Him right now?' Millie whispered.

‘Most likely, I'm afraid.'

Which was very sad news for her, and for three days the Goddess Daughter threw grey sheets over the sky lid and cried non-stop. And we did too. And after this Aunty said, ‘No use crying over spilt milk and ruining valuable tear ducts. Time to accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative. Aka dry up.'

So we did.

Days went by. Winter snuck into the Garden. Trees dropped their leaves and died off. The last of the roses died off. Grubs did too. The duty list doubled. Close combat sessions tripled. Our weekly cushion quota increased to sixty. There was harvesting to finish, the yard fence wanted painting, and the latrines disinfecting. Cloth had to be stitched into winter smocks for those who would still be around to wear them, and rabbit traps needed setting for skins to patch up our old fur coats. Like this, more days went by.

To our lunchtime ablutions, Aunty added Exfoliation with a fistful of gravel in straw. To evening moisturising,
double beeswax portions were given to us eldest. ‘It's the Final Countdown!' Aunty said. ‘Don't cry for me, Argentina! Reading, writing and arithmetic will be scrapped forthwith for all eldest nieces. Mother herself has requested afternoons to be dedicated to Fight Revision. Action stations!'

We elder sisters practised Snogging, Slow Dancing and Groping, like Aunty showed us, because that was how demonmales would expect the Fight to begin when they met us Outside. Then we did Judo and Jabbing-of-Blades-in-Bales, like Mother ordered, which is how we'd finish them off. Seeing as Truly weren't here, Aunty said Annie should practise snogging with me. Which was nice, I told Annie, because she really had the softest lips of us all. And never mind that she didn't say much to me saying that, nor didn't bother shifting her lips much either, she really kissed nicest of all.

Only after all this Revision did our younger sisters join us on the schoolroom floor in front of the television screen, to listen to Aunty's daily Tale from the
Archive
and watch a Showreel lesson on the Outside World.

Now, like I've most probably told you already, this Showreel lesson was made special by Aunty to
show
us sisters the
real
truth of women's tragic lives on Earth. So, though it starts off happy, with Aunty showing us a female called Cinderella and her loving sisters sharpening knives, quicksharp Aunty shows us another one called Sleeping Beauty, waking up all dozy from a good old sleep, and getting snogged straight off. Before she's even washed her face or changed her smock, she's been trapped in marriage. After this, the Showreel gets worse, with injuns fighting poor old Calamity Jane, and demonmales fighting poor
old Fantine on the barricades. And after all this, it's worst of all, because brave Aunty actually meets the Devil. Yes, poor Aunty has to pop off the stage and ends up running through the Earth's Bowels, because the Devil has stuck on a cloak and mask and is chasing after her, saying he only wants to sing once again with her a strange duet.