The Standing Water (48 page)

I really wondered
why people weren’t taking more notice of that beautiful shimmering arch God had
stretched across the heavens, why they weren’t remembering that divine symbol
of forgiveness and peace, but – whatever I thought – as the days slipped by, Weirton’s
palm and the lads’ fists just battered on. And, to make matters even more
confusing, Jonathon told me his encyclopaedia said rainbows happened because of
some strange mingling of sunbeams and wet air, in which the drops reflected
light like mirrors. I wondered if perhaps a rainbow could just form on its own
without God’s help, despite what Weirton had told us after the floods about the
rainbow heralding the Lord’s intentions. I even wondered for a moment whether
many of the things we’d seen as signs from God were not just things that
happened by themselves anyway. When I had these disturbing thoughts, one glance
at Jonathon would set me right. Just as I’d predicted, the shameful mark of
Cain still scarred his forehead. It was showing no signs of going away, just
like the mark which had never disappeared from Cain’s brow in the Bible. OK,
Jonathon hadn’t yet been forced to become a wanderer on the earth, but I had no
doubts about God’s justice. I knew His will could work slowly and through
crooked paths, but I was sure that eventually His will would be done.

I still fretted
about whether we’d have Bonfire Night. For some days, I anxiously watched the
sun as that flaming globe burned less strongly and inched lower on its arc
across the sky. But I had no need to worry. One morning we marched into assembly,
and Weirton’s urgent stride across the front, his tooth nipping his lip and his
blue eyes scrunching behind his glasses told me he had an important
announcement. When we’d all got sat down, the teacher swivelled to face us,
hurled his pointing finger out over the rows and let his voice boom.

‘Children! November
the fifth is coming, and we all know what happens on that date – Bonfire Night!
And I’m most happy to tell you the council have managed to find a field dry
enough in which to hold our display! Yes, children –’ Weirton smiled; he waved
his finger around joyfully ‘– soon we’ll be enjoying our huge bonfire, our
fireworks, our mugs of soup and toffee apples. Yes, let us thank the Lord for
drying up those waters He sent in His righteousness as a warning about our
sins! Let us thank Him for permitting us to celebrate the wonderful festival of
Bonfire Night!’

My mind murmured praises
to God, thanking Him for His great mercy in allowing us to do our bit to urge
the sun on through the frosty dangers of winter. A never-ending winter could be
as bad as a never-ending flood. We’d have to put up with frozen fingers,
stinging ears not just for a few weeks, but forever – or at least until the
cold sapped our lives from us! What Weirton had said seemed sensible to me, but
I saw Perkins and Leigh exchange frowns before the headmaster went on.

‘And, as you also
know, it’s our custom in this country to burn a man on the fire – or at least a
pretend one, to remind us of that foul traitor Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up
the king and the whole Parliament! Yes, it’s a fine old tradition our nation
should take the greatest care to preserve! Now, every year, one primary school
in the Emberfield area is asked to make the guy for the town’s bonfire, and
this year – I am pleased to tell you – we have been chosen! We’ll make him on
Thursday afternoon so please bring along any old clothes or hats or anything
like that you can find at home. I’m sure –’ Weirton grinned ‘– you’ll all enjoy
making that chap, just as much as we’ll enjoy seeing justice done when that
criminal
,
that
terrorist
receives his righteous punishment by getting burned up in
those flames!’

My lips curved into
a smile as joy leapt from my stomach to throat. I was already thinking about
how I could make that guy, about what clothes I could ask my parents for, about
how I’d make him truly lifelike – as long as no clumsy buffoons interfered too
much while I was creating that effigy. We belted out a hymn, Weirton led us in
a prayer and soon we were filing back to our classes. Perkins’s lesson dragged,
break came and in the corner of the playground – the field was still too sodden
for us to go on – Jonathon and I got talking.

‘Great news about
the guy, isn’t it?’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ said
Jonathon, ‘and good news we’re having a bonfire. Hopefully, it’ll keep the poor
old sun going round in heaven, persuade him not to give up if he gets tired in
the winter. That’s, of course, if it’s really like that …’ Jonathon crinkled
his nose, narrowed his eyebrows. ‘You never know … we could have got it wrong.
Maybe I’ll check in my encyclopaedia –’

‘Of
course
it’s like that!’ I said. ‘It’s one reason why we have Bonfire Night, put up
lights at Christmas. Anyway, should be fun making the guy.’

‘Suppose,’ said
Jonathon, ‘though it was more fun making my robot. Maybe we should get back to
it … we haven’t thought of any other way of killing Weirton.’

‘Hang on!’ I said.

My heart knocked as
I stood still and silent, my first finger raised as if ready to spear and
capture a wicked idea that drifted just beyond me in the moist air. That idea
was hooked by my brain, dragged into the evil chamber of my mind.

‘What is it?’
Jonathon said.

I turned to him.

‘Got it! Why don’t
we make the guy look like Weirton?’

‘What would happen
if we did?’

‘Don’t you know
anything!? If it looks like him and we destroy it, Weirton will get destroyed
too! Haven’t you heard the legend that if you have a doll that looks like
someone and you stick pins in it, the person will feel pain in those places?
Well, imagine what would happen if that whole doll was burnt!’

‘See what you
mean.’ Jonathon nodded. ‘But are you sure it would work?’

‘Dunno, actually.’ My
heart had been beating high in my chest with wicked joy, but now my hopes
sagged somewhat. ‘But I think there’s a good chance it
could
work. There
is a legend about it, after all.’

‘There was a legend
about the gauntlet too,’ Jonathon said. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to just shove
Weirton himself into the fire? Then he’d get burnt for
sure
!’

‘We couldn’t get
anywhere near it,’ I said. ‘Remember from last year – it gets so hot it’s like
a wall of heat pushing you back. And even if we could, someone would see us do
it and we’d get in
loads
of trouble! It’s safer to rely on magic.’

‘Suppose.’ Jonathon
shrugged. ‘Suppose it’s worth trying.’

After school, we
searched our houses for things to put on the guy. We went to Jonathon’s first,
where we couldn’t believe our good fortune. His mum had a look in their loft,
and – rather apologetically – brought down an ancient doll, saying it was all
she could find. That toy was crowned with thick blond hair. We scalped the
doll, cut its locks, sculpted them into a rigid parting with some hair mousse we
wheedled out of Jonathon’s mum. With a bottle of Tippex, we painted some
strands grey to copy the colour which was flecking more and more of Weirton’s iron
hairstyle. When Jonathon’s dad came home, our mouths dropped open with joy as
he handed us a pair of scratched reading glasses. OK, their rims were dark brown
rather than black, but the TV shapes of their lenses were similar to those of
the teacher’s specs. Getting a suit was harder – Mr Browning refused to
sacrifice one to the flames.

‘We could ask my
dad,’ I said. ‘He’s got loads of suits – he hardly ever wears anything else. He
must have some old ones.’

We trudged round to
my place. It was already getting dark – and cold: frost-gripped gravel crunched
beneath our feet; clammy fog hovered on the fields and manure piles. As we
neared my house, the orange light from the windows showed a skin of ice on the
pool of our gnome. I guessed Marcus’s pond and the standing water that still
skulked in some fields must have been ice-glazed too – I supposed this meant
the poor sun was already weakening. We went up to my room and soon heard my dad
come in below. It took time to summon the bravery to make our strange request,
but we sneaked downstairs, crept up to the living room and gave a respectful
tap on its door.

‘Hello there,
lads,’ Dad said from his armchair, lowering his newspaper as we came in.

‘Hi Dad,’ I said.
‘Can we ask you for something?’

‘That all depends
on what that something is.’

‘We’re making the
guy this year at school for Bonfire Night. We need some clothes for it and were
just wondering if you have a suit you don’t need –’

‘A suit!?’ Dad’s
face jerked back, his eyebrows shot up. ‘Do you think I’m made of money!?
Unlike some, I have to pay tax and I don’t get government benefits to fund a
lavish lifestyle!’

‘Come on,’ Mum
said, from the sofa, ‘it is tradition. We should encourage the kids to keep our
traditions up.’

‘Aye, suppose
you’re right,’ Dad said. ‘And it’s a great tradition n’all. Lots of fun, but
it’s also got a serious side, hasn’t it? Shows what happens to cowards and
terrorists and traitors! It’s a shame we can’t stick some union leaders on that
bloody bonfire! That’d send a good message to all those lefties!’

We tramped upstairs
with Dad. He delved into his wardrobe and found a battered jacket and pair of
trousers – thankfully in black. He also gave us a stained white shirt and dark
blue tie. The shoes we got the next night at Jonathon’s – a scuffed pair his
brother had grown out of. We spent ages kneeling on newspaper, scrubbing them
to a shine.

‘Don’t know what
you’re making such an effort with those old shoes for,’ Mrs Browning said. ‘They’re
just going up in smoke anyway.’

‘We want our guy to
look smart,’ Jonathon said, with a smile, ‘almost as smart as Mr Weirton!’

Thursday afternoon
came, and the two junior classes were put together. We covered the tables in
Weirton’s room with newspaper, set about making our guy. A farmer had donated a
couple of bales of straw, and Weirton himself had brought the sticks to form
the traitor’s skeleton. We lashed those sticks together with strong string and
soon had a primitive figure of wood, which we topped with an old cushion for a
head. There was some competition concerning the clothes. Stubbs had brought a
pair of scruffy dungarees, which he protested should be put on, while Helen
Jacobs argued for her good-girl get-up of patched fake-scarecrow jacket and
suspiciously neat checked trousers. We agitated for our suit. Weirton strode
and pondered, grasping and stroking his chin as if this would help him decide.
Finally, he said, ‘Let’s go for the suit. No reason why Emberfield’s guy
shouldn’t be dressed up for his burning.’

We joyfully slipped
the shirt, trousers and jacket over the wooden poles though Weirton had to knot
the tie. We stuck the shoes on the stump-like legs, plonked our blond wig on
the cushion. Weirton smiled.

‘You’ve made a good
effort, lads,’ he said. ‘Well done! You know, that guy reminds me of someone,
but I can’t think who. Aw well, all that matters is we’ll cheer as we see that
evildoer go up in flames!’

The other kids had
to add some stuff, which somewhat spoilt our effect. Stubbs insisted on jamming
an old pipe in the guy’s mouth, creating that hole by gouging the cushion with
scissors. And Helen trimmed that cushion with a long fake beard, something
Weirton would never have sported. I hoped these extras wouldn’t get in the way
of any magic. Suzie Green donated some gloves – useful imitations of hands,
something we hadn’t thought of. Then all the kids crowded round the guy to
stuff it full of straw, cramming that hay into the arms, legs and torso. In the
scrabble, I did my best to shape the stuffing to make the thing look like
Weirton – cramming it in hard to push out the bulging muscles, huge chest,
sculpting a stomach to ape the teacher’s growing belly. When the guy was filled
with straw and its sleeves and trouser ends bound with rubber bands, Weirton
stood back and gazed at that merry, but also somehow sinister figure.

‘It’s great!’ he said.
‘There’s just one thing we need. We have to give it a face, but it might be
difficult to paint one on that cushion.’

‘Please, Sir,’ I said.
‘I know how to do it.’

‘Well then, go
ahead, Ryan,’ said Weirton.

I took a sheet of
paper, picked up a stapler and – after yanking out Stubbs’s pipe and pulling
off our specs – fastened that page to the cushion. I outlined ears, nose and
jaw in thick felt-tip then went up to the paints Weirton had laid out, took
some red, mixed it with white to get Weirton’s ham-like colour, and daubed it
on the face. I painted in angry blue eyes, blond eyebrows scrunched together in
a scowl, the red slash of an aggrieved mouth. I added dark lines to show a face
screwed in fury. Finally, I wedged the glasses back on.

‘Good job, Ryan!’ Weirton’s
palm slammed onto my back, making me stumble. ‘He looks in a bad mood, but then
I suppose I’d be if I was going to be burnt!’

Right under
Weirton’s gaze Jonathon and I swapped smiles. Stubbs then stepped forward and
thrust his pipe back in the guy’s mouth, spoiling somewhat my careful crafting
of his resemblance to Weirton.

‘Well done,
everybody!’ The headmaster twisted his beaming face around our group, looking
so pleased I felt pangs of guilt about using the guy’s magic to kill him. ‘Very
well done! Yes, I’m sure this will be a good lesson to everyone who attends our
display – everyone will see the punishments God wants us to inflict on
traitors, on criminals, on bullies, on murderers! You know, sometimes, like in
the floods we just had, God sends His punishments Himself; other times He wants
righteous men to act on His behalf! Yes, let no righteous person stay his hand
when taking vengeance on evildoers!’