When Mum Went Funny (5 page)

T
he Messerschmitt tried to shoot us down all the way home from school one day. But though we hit Billy Kemp again and again, he wouldn’t crash, so we couldn’t count him. We’d been keeping the score for a few weeks, and we were coming last by a long way.

“We’d turn into a Hurricane and shoot him down,” said Kate, “only Old Pomp’s not built to be a fighter plane. Besides, he’s a bit old for aerobatics.”

“Old Pomp could loop the loop!” said Jimmy who was very loyal to him. “If he had to.”

“I don’t think it would be very good for him,” Kate said, and I could feel her laughing to herself.

“Can Messerschmitts really shoot down Hurricanes and Spitfires?” asked Jimmy.

“Sometimes. They’ve got some good planes, the Germans.”

“You’re supposed to say the Allies are best,” said Betty.

“We’re the best because we’re in the right,” Kate told her, “but that doesn’t make our planes better.”

“What about the Lancaster?”

“Oh,” Kate nodded, “the Lancaster’s the best bomber in the world. Better than anything the German’s have got.”

Betty didn’t say anything, but I could tell she felt better. “Ka! Ka! Ka!” she went; “Ka! Ka! Ka!” and Billy Kemp waggled his wings and flew off home.

“How can we keep the score if you don’t play fair?” Betty shouted after him, but he just turned round and poked out his tongue. “I hope you fall off, Billy Kemp!” Betty screamed, “And bite your tongue!”

Mum was standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking at something when we went inside. “Do you think I’m getting forgetful?” she asked.

“Very forgetful,” Kate said at once.

“You’re always forgetting things,” we told Mum. “Remember last week you forgot to make our lunches, and Kate had to make them. And then you forgot to cook us our tea.”

“I did not. I just said I wasn’t going to cook your tea any longer. I remember perfectly well. I can hear my voice saying, ‘Cook your tea yourselves. I’m fed up with having to do everything for you.’”

Kate looked at us and winked. “We don’t remember you saying that.”

“No,” we said. “You didn’t say that to us Mum.”

“Maybe you said it to somebody else,” I told her. “But you’ve forgotten.”

“Anyway,” said Jimmy, “you wouldn’t say that to us. You’re our mother.”

“Ah!” Mum said. “That’s just it! How do you know I’m your mother?”

We laughed. “We know! Who else could you be?”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Mum nodded and looked around us. “Have you ever thought, not one of you looks the least little bit like me? I sometimes wonder,” she said. “Do you think they swapped you in the hospital, when you were born? A nurse did that over at Cambridge, just for a joke. Then she got mixed up and couldn’t remember which one was which.”

“You always say I’ve got your nose,” said Kate.

“And I’ve got your eyes,” I said.

“And we’ve got your curls,” Jimmy and Betty said.

“So you must be our mother!” we all shouted.

“Oh?” Mum looked at the thing in her hand, a bobbin from her old Singer sewing machine.

“What are you doing with that?” Jimmy wanted to know.

“That’s why I asked you if I was getting forgetful,” Mum said. “I just found this where I must have put it in the knife and fork drawer.” She shook her head. “Unless one of you put it in there?”

“Why would we do that?” Kate asked, and the rest of us shook our heads.

“Perhaps I thought I was putting it away in the drawer of my machine.” Mum put the bobbin into her apron pocket and said, “I suppose you all want something to eat? Well, help yourselves. There’s bread
in the bin, and butter in the safe. And there’s jam in the cupboard. Do I have to cut it and butter it and spread the jam on it for you?”

“Next thing you’ll be wanting me to eat it for you!” we chanted together before Mum could say it.

“The things you say to me! I’d never have dreamed of speaking in such a way to my mother when I was a girl. A good clip over the ear, that’s what I’d have got for being cheeky, and off to bed without any tea.” Mum was cutting crooked slices of bread and slapping on butter and jam as she spoke. “In those days, people said children should be seen and not heard.”

We were telling her about trying to shoot down Billy Kemp, and about school, and eating our bread and jam, and having a biscuit and a drink of milk, when Mum popped outside to see if Rosie had come up the paddock to be milked. Her eyes sparkling, Kate shot out to the sun porch where Mum kept her machine, rushed back to the kitchen, and put her special sewing scissors into the biscuit tin, just as Mum came back in and drove us out to do our jobs.

“Jimmy, you and Betty can run round the lambs; just make sure they’re all right. It won’t take you a moment. Kate, you can take Trixie – the saddle’s still on her – and move the steers into the creek paddock. Blue will help you.” I knew we’d gone far enough, so didn’t wait to be told what to do; I took the bucket and went out to look for Rosie. Kate trotted down past the shed, Blue racing ahead, barking and enjoying himself.

I found Rosie coming to meet me, and milked her where she stood. As I finished stripping her, I
wondered
if Mum had found her scissors in the biscuit tin, and if she’d ask if one of us had put them there, or if she’d pretend it hadn’t happened.

Kate was always doing things like that to Mum, trying her out. It was like a game they played without ever talking about it. “I wonder,” I thought to myself, as I carried the heavy bucket of milk up to the house, “I wonder if Kate keeps the score for how many times she beats Mum?” But I knew she wouldn’t tell me, even if she did.

W
e fired a last burst of cannon shells. Billy Kemp zoomed behind the lawsonianas, his engine faded, and Kate steered Old Pomp over to our gate.

“There’s a notice!” she said.

We sat there as she read it aloud. “‘Children for Sale. Two fat girls and two boys. Cheap to a good home! Apply within.’

“Two fat girls? I’m going to fix her!” Kate said. “Give us your pocket knife?” She leaned off Old Pomp and dug out the drawing pins that fastened the notice. I opened the sliding latch with my toes, we rode through the gate, and I closed the gate with my toes again. Kate shook the reins so poor Old Pomp waggled his ears.

“You leave it to me!”

“Leave what to you?” Jimmy asked.

“I’ll teach her to try and sell us. ‘Two fat girls!’” We roared the engines, but Kate didn’t circle the
aerodrome
. She just went straight in and landed without even bothering to turn into the wind. Old Pomp waited a moment, to see if he was going to get rubbed down, but Kate told him to go and have a roll.

Mum was at the bench as we marched into the kitchen.

“Good afternoon, Madam!” Kate sounded very businesslike. “We’ve come to buy the fat children.”

Mum looked around. “You’ve got it wrong. You’re them!”

“What do you mean we’re them?”

“I mean you’re the children who are for sale.”

“That’s what we mean,” said Kate. “We want to buy us from you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got a sign saying ‘Children for Sale’, and we want to buy them. And you said ‘You’re the children for

sale,’ and we said, ‘We want to buy us from you.’”

Mum looked a bit surprised.

“Come on! How much?”

“What do you mean?” Mum said again.

“How much for us? How much for the four children you’ve got for sale? Two boys, and two fat girls!”

Mum grinned. I could see she thought she was going to be smart and beat Kate at her own game. “Thirty bob the lot!”

“Thirty bob!”

“That’s what I said.”

Kate led us to our room. “Get your money boxes,” she told us. “And give us your pocket knife again.”

She stuck the knife in the slots of our money boxes, turned them upside down, and slid out the money along the blade. I had fivepence, and Jimmy and Betty had
two pennies, each of them. Then Betty found a
threepence
she’d hidden in a drawer. “Two shillings!” said Kate, sliding a bob out of her own money box.

We went back and stood in a row in front of Mum.

“Two bob!” said Kate.

“Two bob what?”

“Two bob’s our best offer. Here it is, and we haven’t got any more.” Kate pressed her shilling, my fivepence, Jimmy’s and Betty’s four pennies, and Betty’s
thruppeny
bit into Mum’s hand.

“Well?” Mum asked. “What are you waiting for? I’ve sold you to you.”

“We’re not waiting,” said Kate. “We’re going to tell the policeman in Matamata you sold the four of us to somebody for two bob.”

“Oh, come on!” Mum said, and tried to smile at us, one by one. But we stood silent and stared back.

“Four children for two bob,” said Kate. “That works out at sixpence each.”

“I suppose it does.” Mum sounded uncertain.

“‘You sold your children for sixpence?’” Kate’s voice sounded very deep. “That’s what the policeman’s going to say. ‘You sold your children for sixpence?’”

“Sixpence each!” Mum said a bit weakly.

“‘That’s still only two bob for the lot of them,’” Kate said in the big, gruff voice she could put on.

“It doesn’t sound much,” Mum admitted.

“It certainly does not. You wait till Constable Cuff hears about this. And Mr Jones, and Mr and Mrs Kemp.
We’re going to tell everybody in the district you sold your children for sixpence. We’ll tell Mr Bryce, and he’s a J.P.”

“What’s a J.P.?” Jimmy wanted to know.

“Never mind now,” Kate said to him.

“Sixpence each!” Mum repeated. She smiled. “It was just to make you laugh. I thought I’d put the notice on the gate so you could see it when you rode home, and you’d think it was funny. What’s the matter, can’t you take a joke?”

“Not that sort of joke,” said Kate. She sounded very serious.

“Come on, you’d all better have something to eat, then perhaps you’ll find your sense of humour.”

“We’re too upset to eat anything,” Kate told Mum. “In any case, you’ve sold us, so we’d better get going and ask someone if we can sleep in their barn tonight.” Kate looked at us. “Or under their hedge.”

“I’m not too upset to eat something,” said Jimmy, and Betty started grizzling.

“I don’t want to sleep under a hedge,” she whined. “I’m hungry!”

“Come on,” Kate said again. “Mrs Kemp will give us something to eat. She’ll be interested to hear that our mother sold us for only sixpence.”

“Sixpence each!” Mum insisted.

“Where are we going to sleep tonight?” whined Betty.

“Mr Kemp’ll let us sleep in his shed.”

“But their shed’s full of rats! Billy Kemp said.”

“Let’s be sensible,” said Mum. “Have something to eat now, and we’ll have a little talk about how to fix things up.” She took the top off the blue tin and pushed it at Jimmy and Betty. They grabbed a biscuit each and started eating at once, not looking at Kate.

Mum poured our glasses of milk. “Perhaps,” she said, “perhaps I could buy you back.” She looked at Kate, but Kate stared and didn’t take a biscuit. Nor did she take a glass of milk. So I didn’t take anything either. Mum tried smiling, but we didn’t smile. I looked at Kate, and she had a stern look on her face, so I tried to look stern, too.

“I’ll tell you what,” Mum said. “I’ll buy you back! I’ll give you what you paid me for you, and I’ll give you each threepence on top, so that means I’ll pay ninepence.”

“Ninepence!” Kate scowled. “We’re worth a lot more than ninepence.”

“That’s ninepence each!”

“Ninepence isn’t enough for us. Ninepence will only buy you about three sausages, or one and a half loaves of bread.”

“What about a shilling? And that’s final. It’s all the money I’ve got. I can’t afford to go buying children for exorbitant prices.”

“What’s exorbitant?” Jimmy asked.

“When I think of all the work we do,” said Kate, “we’re worth at least half a crown each. Who’s going to milk Rosie tonight? Who’s going to shift the steers?
And who’s going to go round the lambs? Who’s going to feed Blue, and the chooks, and collect the eggs, and bring in the tea-tree and coal for the stove?”

Mum took her little purse off the mantelpiece and looked in it. “There’s the two bob you paid for you,” she said. “That’s sixpence each. And there’s another shilling. That’s ninepence. And there’s a florin. That’s one and threepence. And there’s two threepences and another sixpence. That’s one and sixpence each. Three times what you paid for you. That’s all I’ve got.”

“There’s something else in there. Let me see!”

“There is not!”

“You’re trying to hide it. Look, a half-crown!”

“I’m saving that to pay our account at the store in Waharoa. I’ve got all sorts of bills, you know. You can’t run a family on nothing. And then there’s the farm. It eats money.”

“One and sixpence each, and half a crown. Fours into thirty, that’s seven pence ha’penny each, that’s two shillings and a penny ha’penny each. All right,” Kate said, and she snatched the half-crown. “We accept your offer, Madam.”

“Thanks, Mum!” we all said.

“What have I done?” cried Mum. She flung her apron over her head, sat down at the table, and pretended to cry. “I thought I’d got rid of them, and now I’ve bought them back for over four times what I sold them for.”

“I’ll lend you some of my money, said Betty, and put her arm around Mum. And Jimmy stood on her other
side and put his arm around her and said he’d lend her some of his, too. So I thought I’d better give her mine as well, but Kate wouldn’t let us.

“I’m looking after the money, and I’m not giving it to anyone,” she said, “not till Mum promises never to put up a notice saying we’re for sale again.”

“All right,” Mum said. “I promise never to put up a notice saying you’re for sale again. Now, how about getting on with your jobs? It’s getting late.” It was, too. Old Rosie was bawling over the fence. Kate and I gulped our glasses of milk. Mum held out the blue biscuit tin, and we grabbed one each as she looked down into it, amazed.

As we ran out the back door, we heard her shriek, “What are my good sewing scissors doing in the biscuit tin?”

“Two fat girls!” I heard Kate tell Blue. She flicked the end of the reins over the top of the batten and said to Trixie, “Sixpence each!”

I smelled the sharp scent of tea-tree burning, a bit like the stink of sheep. Instead of floating up from the kitchen chimney, the smoke flattened out till it reached us. “It only does that when it’s going to rain,” I told Rosie. I held the bucket between my knees, and pulled away so milk squirted and hissed in the bottom. “I’m glad we’re not sleeping in Mr Kemp’s shed tonight.”

Rosie looked round at me. “Keep still,” I told her. “Mum’s getting the stove hot. I hope she’s cooking something decent for tea.”