The Wrong Night Read online



  The Wrong Night

  By Katrine Robinson

  Copyright Katrine Robinson 2011

  *****

  *****

  For all those who know it was so,

  and all those who hope it is so

  and all those who wish it might be so.

  Table of contents

  Chapter 1: Tea, Toad and the Beginning

  Chapter 2: Percy Persecuted

  Chapter 3: Grumbo

  Chapter 4: Rescuing the Presents

  Chapter 5: Fire!

  Chapter 6; Sleigh Rides and Slippers

  Chapter 7: Breakfast

  Chapter 8: Letters and Chimneys

  Chapter 9: Grumbo Engineers a Sticky Situation

  Chapter 10: Practical Jokes

  Chapter 11: What is a Chief Father Christmas Like?

  Chapter 12: Going Back

  Chapter 13: Percy Alone

  Chapter 14: Aunt Lucy

  Chapter 1- Tea, Toad and The Beginning

  Percy dropped the toad (it was a big warty one) carefully into the cake tin and shut the lid hastily. He could hear his mother and Mrs Doggett puffing and wobbling through the hall. Creeping out, he tiptoed round the corner and joined Will, who was sitting on the patio below the window, his watch on his knee.

  “Done it!” mouthed Percy, putting his finger to his lips and passing Will a large, crumbly, but slightly squashed, piece of chocolate cake from the two in his pocket. Will picked off a few bits of fluff and began to eat.

  “We’ll just have a nice cup of tea before we do the beds.” - His mother’s voice floated comfortably out of the open window. “Is there any of your cake left?”

  “There should be a couple of slices in the tin,” replied Mrs Doggett. “I’ll get the plates.”

  Percy and Will glanced at each other and momentarily stopped chewing in gleeful anticipation. There was the clatter of crockery and the rumble of the kettle boiling. Then came the unmistakeable metallic sound of the tin being opened………

  Tinned Toad for Tea?

  “Aaaaaagh!” -Mrs Doggett’s startled scream was lengthy and ear splitting! Will pressed the button on his watch.

  “4.8 seconds – not bad,” he gasped, as they ran, bent double, to the far end of the garden, “-but you haven’t beaten my 5.2 yet!”

  Safely concealed in the shed, they rolled about gasping with mirth.

  “We could rescue it,” suggested Percy, wiping tears of laughter from his eye with one hand and scratching a scab on his knee with the other. “It was a really good toad. It’d be a pity to waste it.”

  “It was,” agreed Will, taking off his sock to examine the progress of his verrucca. “What’ll your mum do with it?”

  “Put it in the outside bin if she catches it, I suppose,” replied Percy thoughtfully.

  “She won’t catch it. It jumps too fast”

  “Bet you!”

  “Bet you she doesn’t.”

  “First go on the computer, she does!” They crept to the door and peered out through the crack. Distant sounds of commotion were still coming from the kitchen window. Then there was a bang, and with a shout of “Out you go you nasty thing!” the edge of a broom shot briefly out beyond the corner of the house.

  “I win!” declared Will triumphantly, but Percy’s mind had moved on:

  “A mouse would be good,” he said reflectively. “I bet she’d shriek longer with a mouse.”

  “The spiders were best. Where’d we get a live mouse anyway?”

  “Well, a dead one then. One of those your Henry brings in – with maggots!”

  “Maggots!” breathed Will with delight. “White and wriggling….”

  “If we keep it warm they won’t take long to hatch.”

  “If he catches one tonight I’ll bring it after school.”

  But the next day everything changed.

  Percy came home from school to find his mother in tears in the living room and his father hurling piles of papers into cardboard boxes with silent venom. Percy took one look and decided that Mrs Doggett’s kitchen was the best place to be…. But Mrs Doggett wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the utility room either. Furthermore there was no smell of cooking and no chocolate biscuits.

  It had been a bad day at school. He’d had to stay in at break because he hadn’t learnt his spellings; Will had caught chicken pox and was away sick, and now this! Percy inspected the kitchen meticulously – there was no sign of tea! That was really bad news. He wandered back into the living room. His mother was sitting by herself on the sofa with a large pink box of tissues. His father had disappeared back into his office.

  “Oh, Percy!” she cried.“What shall we do?” As Percy didn’t know the answer to this question, he asked one himself:

  “Where’s Mrs Doggett?”

  “Oh, Percy!” sobbed his mother again. “Your father’s sent Mrs Doggett away. He says we can’t afford her any longer. We’ve got to move house! He’s lost all his money!”

  “What are we going to have for dinner?” asked Percy, who was hungry. Percy’s mother just sobbed. Percy went back into the kitchen and helped himself to two packets of crisps, a yoghurt, three slices of bread and jam, a glass of milk, a banana, a large bowl of sugar puffs and four satsumas. It didn’t look very much so he added an apple and a slice of Mrs Doggett’s new cake that was lurking at the back of the cupboard. Then he went to his room and switched the computer on gloomily – it wasn’t the same without Will, and there was no custard.

  ****

  The first thing that happened after Percy’s father lost his money; the thing that happened even before Percy’s mother had properly stopped crying all over the sofa; was that Percy’s father started putting everything into a large removal van in the drive. He began with the boxes of paper and then gradually moved on to everything else, glaring at Percy’s mother at intervals as he passed through the living room. Percy watched him from the bedroom window. Grown-ups were very peculiar, he decided. His father looked very cross, but then rather tired too. Percy felt a bit sorry for him, and as he’d finished the last satsuma he thought perhaps he’d try and help. He went downstairs and began to carry things from the pile that had grown in the hall out to the van. Percy’s father stopped for a moment and looked at him. It wasn’t a particularly pleased sort of look. Percy faltered for a moment as he heaved a pile of books over the doorstep, but then carried on. Between them in silence they gradually emptied the house of almost everything but the biggest bits of furniture and the still sobbing Mrs Proudworthy, enthroned on her sofa.

  “Get in the back,” Mr Proudworthy ordered Percy, curtly. “Maria, if you’re coming with us, get in now. I don’t intend to wait.” With that injunction he climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

  “Oh Edwin! Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I’m coming!” - Maria Proudworthy wobbled frantically across the drive clutching her tissues and climbed clumsily into the van, sniffing loudly and dabbing her red-rimmed eyes. Percy, sitting on Mrs Doggett’s favourite kitchen chair pressed up against the upturned coffee table in the gloom of the back, wondered where they were going.

  After what seemed like a very long time indeed Mr Proudworthy brought the van to a bumpy halt outside a long row of terraced houses built of dirty bricks.

  *****

  The new house was a great deal smaller and darker than the old one. It didn’t have a beech tree or a garden pond. It had a dusty prickly sort of hedge that poked out in the wrong places, some concrete flags with a washing line pole stuck in the middle and three broken plant pots.

  Percy’s room was tiny. There was just room for his bed and a chest of drawers. It had a little old fashioned fire place with a black
hood over it in one corner. Percy wasn’t too bothered at first. His mother promised him that when they had got rid of the spare furniture and the papers from the old house that were filling the other bedroom he could have that to use as a playroom.

  Percy’s Room

  What did bother Percy was that he didn’t have any friends. None of the other people who lived in the road had children. They had sticks or zimmer frames, wore a lot of bulky clothes and walked very slowly to stand queues at the Post Office on the corner. Some of them were fat with wobbly bits and some of them were withered with crinkles, but all of them were old. Mostly they edged away a little when they saw him as if he might be dangerous, but the ones who didn’t breathed out extra strong mints and called him “son” or even referred to him as “the wee lad”.

  Because he was lonely, Percy was quite looking forward to starting his new school although he was a bit afraid at the same time.

  Percy’s mother came with him on the first day. They stood there at the front of the classroom and Miss Carbuncle, the teacher, asked his name so that she could write it in the register.

  Miss Carbuncle

  “Percival Piers Paulinus Ponsonby Parminter Proudworthy,” answered his mother, proudly, before Percy could get a word in edgeways. Miss Carbuncle looked at them, slowly, over the top of her spectacles, and a titter ran around the class.

  “Silence!” rapped out Miss Carbuncle. “Percival, you may sit next to Sarah.” She handed him a book. “Page 22, exercise 7, and remember that I do not allow casual conversation in my lessons and visits to the toilet take place strictly at break times.”

  “Oh dear! He’s very delicate…” began Mrs Proudworthy.

  “Indeed?” said Miss Carbuncle, holding open the classroom door. “Then we must harden off this hot-house flower for you. Good morning.”

  Percy moved nervously towards the empty place at the table. He’d never had to sit next to a girl before! Sarah moved her chair as far as possible from him and turned sideways so that she was looking in the other direction. He cheered up a little when he had found exercise 7 which turned out to be multiplication, as he was quite good at that.

  When the bell rang, Miss Carbuncle shut her book with a snap and pointed at the door. The entire class rose and surged forward out of the classroom in a babble of voices. Percy, who was used to forming orderly queues, was taken by surprise. By the time he emerged the corridor was almost empty and there was no-one to tell him where to go or what to do. As he stood there wondering which way to turn, Miss Carbuncle suddenly materialised:

  "Loitering, Percival?"She gave the word a menacing resonance. As she loomed closer to him, Percy experienced the same sense of panic that he once had felt when a wasp landed on his nose. "Loitering is forbidden. However, I shall overlook it, this once, as it is your first day. Now, OUT!" She raised a thin bony finger and pointed. Percy scuttled wildly down the corridor, gasping with relief as he reached a door into the playground.

  Chapter 2- Percy Persecuted

  Percy had barely been in the playground for more than a moment when a voice behind him said "Well if it isn't our Pauline!" He spun round to see three of the boys who had been sitting at the front of Miss Carbuncle's class smirking at him.

  "He's very delicate, you know!" said one of the others. "A little hot-house flower!"

  “I think we ought to see how delicate he is,” said the first.

  “Let’s find out…,” said the second. They advanced towards Percy, spreading out slightly to cut off his escape. Percy backed towards the wall a little. Could he dive between them, he wondered? Maybe if he kept low down like a rugby scrum, he thought desperately. But where would he run to? The wall of the second mobile classroom was hiding them from view. If he could get clear of that maybe it would be safer in the main body of the playground. He was quite certain it wasn’t safe here. He drew in his breath and tensed his muscles for a sudden dash.

  “Pauline’s looking anxious,” said the tallest of the boys. “Mummy’s little flower thinks he’s going to run away.” He drew a step closer, closing the trap. Percy breathed hard. It was now or never.

  “Ahh, I wondered where you three had got to,” said a deep male voice emerging from the rear of the hut. “Damien, the Head wants you, now. Richard, Harry, make yourselves scarce. The new boy doesn’t need your help to break the rules. I’m sure he’ll manage perfectly well to do it for himself. I don’t want to see either of you until the end of break and if there’s any trouble you’ll miss football. Got it? Now, go!“ He watched as the three departed and then turned to Percy. “If you’ve got any sense, though you don’t look as though you have, you’ll keep well away from those three. They’re bad news.”

  “Yes sir,” responded Percy, breathing hard with relief.

  “Hmm,” remarked Mr Melley who took PE, and whose parents, with an unfortunate lack of foresight, had christened him Steven: “Hopelessly unfit- just as I expected,” with which he turned on his heel and left briskly. Percy looked miserably about him.

  Three girls in the far corner were looking at him. One of them was bent almost double with giggles, and the others weren’t much better. Not too distant, a rather under-sized boy with spectacles was standing on his own apparently gazing into space. His clothes looked too big for him, as though they had been bought for someone else much older. Percy looked down at his own jumper and trousers. They fitted, but they still looked out of place. They were too neat. His trousers had creases ironed in, and his jumper was a smart wool one, not a sweatshirt like the other boys. Furthermore, underneath he had a shirt with a tie. No-one else wore a tie. Not even the headmaster seemed to wear a tie. Percy decided he would lose the tie on the way home.

  *****

  The next day was not much better. Percy arrived as close to nine o’clock as possible so as to avoid being too long in the playground. In the classroom his chair bore a large label saying “Pauline’s Place” in bright pink felt tip with huge letters. Great shiny pink bows of ribbon decorated the back of the seat and the legs of his desk. Percy just had time to tear off the label when Miss Carbuncle arrived.

  Miss Carbuncle said nothing at all. She just looked.

  And the class looked.

  And Percy silently shrivelled up inside.

  “English- page 197,” announced Miss Carbuncle. “Today we will study adjectives. Adjectives are describing words. -What are adjectives, Damien?”

  “Describing words, Miss Carbuncle.”

  “What are adjectives, Richard?”

  “Describing words, Miss Carbuncle.”

  “I’m glad to see you’re paying attention. Adjectives describe things. What do adjectives describe, Harold?”

  “Things, Miss Carbuncle.”

  “Good. Today we are going to use adjectives to describe the things we can see in the classroom. Turn to your neighbour and study him or her closely. Then I want you to write a description of what you see using as many varied adjectives as possible. Yes, Sarah? “

  “Please Miss Carbuncle, is ‘pink’ an adjective?”

  “Yes, Sarah, but please don’t stop at ‘pink’ – in Percival you have an excellent subject before you for whom you should be able to find a wealth of adjectives.”

  Sarah smirked and looked across at Percy like a cat watching a trapped mouse.Percy bent his head to his book and tried to shut out the suppressed giggles he could hear coming from behind him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Sarah writing:

  ‘Pauline is fat and pink. He has yucky brown hair and clothes like my granddad and he looks stupid. He is a new boy and he has a lot of silly names. He has a white shirt and lace-up shoes.’On his other side Melanie was scribbling away, glancing at him from time to time and grinning. He could see:

  ‘Pauline is a stuck-up boy with scared eyes and a funny chin….’

  Suddenly Percy decided to fight back. He looked very firmly at Sarah,
and then began to write:

  ‘Sarah is a strange girl with long dark hair and a malicious mouth….’ That’s a good word, ‘malicious’, he thought to himself, proudly. ‘She has hairy arms and ugly jagged fingernails where she chews them. Her face is thin and pointed like a sick cat, and she picks her sharp nose,’ he continued. ‘Her black hair looks greasy and sometimes she twists it round her finger and bites the long ends with her sticky-out front teeth when she is thinking. Her eyes are small and pale but her messy fringe almost hides them which is a good thing as they are not pretty.’

  That’s quite good, he decided. He ruled a line and began again:

  ‘Melanie has floppy yellow hair and a red sore face with fat pongy pimples on it…..’ By the end of the lesson he had covered a whole page and a half and felt quite pleased with himself.

  *****

  Percy’s war with the class continued as the weeks went by. He still felt different. He didn’t look like the rest. He knew there was no money to pay for sweat shirts and trainers like the other kids, so he didn’t ask. Even some of the teachers had started to call him Pauline, especially Smelly the games teacher, though Miss Carbuncle invariably addressed him as Percival. Each day as he arrived at school Percy looked about warily to see what was waiting for him.

  On Monday he was late going to change for football. When he pulled his shorts out of his bag they didn’t look right – he decided they must have got mixed up with someone else’s. They seemed a bit small, but all the rest of the class had already changed and gone outside. There were no other shorts lying about in the cloakroom that might be his, so they would just have to do until he found his own. He could hear Smelly blowing the whistle outside. He was really late! Struggling to put the shorts on, Percy heard muffled giggles, and realised that Richard and Damien were outside the door. Smelly’s whistle shrieked again. Wondering what they had done now, Percy tugged frantically at the waistband and ran outside as though he had heard nothing. Just then there was a terrible ripping noise and a gale of laughter came from behind him….the shorts had split all the way down the back.