Johnny Swanson (3 page)

Inside the shop, Hutch was standing behind the counter, sorting out the morning papers.

‘Early today, I see,’ he grunted, parking his pencil behind his ear. ‘Makes up for last night, I suppose.’

Buoyed up by the joy of the bike ride, Johnny found the courage to ask a favour. He needed Hutch’s help if he was to reply to the advert for the Secret of Instant Height. ‘Hutch,’ he said, ‘I want to buy a postal order and some stamps. Would you mind opening the post office so I can get them now?’

‘That would be most irregular,’ said Hutch, severely. ‘The post office mustn’t open till nine o’clock.’

‘But I’ll be at school then,’ said Johnny. He didn’t mean to sound desperate, but it did the trick. For once, Hutch contemplated bending the rules.

‘What’s so special about this postal order?’ he asked. ‘What’s the rush?’

Johnny thought quickly, and his words tumbled out. ‘It’s for my mother,’ he said, making up a story as he spoke. ‘She needs to send it to my auntie, who’s ill. It’s to buy her a train ticket so she can visit us. Mum wants me to catch the first post. She told me to get an envelope too. And an extra envelope and stamp so Auntie Ada can write back.’

He realized that he was getting himself into trouble. In a few seconds he had invented a sick aunt and invited her to Stambleton. He could already see that this deception was going to be quite hard to manage, and he also thought that it didn’t sound very believable. But Hutch seemed convinced.

‘Well,’ he said, fishing for the keys in his pocket, ‘since it’s a medical matter, I think I can bend the rules just this once.’ Hutch took off his brown overall, rolled down his shirt sleeves, put on his black jacket and straightened his tie, as he always did when working in the ‘post office’ part of the shop. He unlocked the safe and got out a large book, a cash box, his official rubber stamps and a big ink pad. ‘Very well, Johnny,’ he said, peering through the grille that separated the post office from the rest of the shop. ‘How much is this postal order for?’

*

And so Johnny left for his paper round with everything he needed to send off for the Secret of Instant Height. He stopped at the cemetery and laid it all out along the top of the wall. He took the newspaper cutting from his pocket and copied out the address of Box 23 onto one of the envelopes. Then he addressed the other to himself, stuck on a stamp and folded it so that it would fit inside the first. He wondered whether he should have written a letter to go with the postal order, but decided that the newspaper cutting would tell the people at Box 23 why he was contacting them, so he tucked that inside as well. He checked twice to make sure that everything was correct. Then he licked the glue on the outer envelope and stuck it down hard.

The church clock chimed the half-hour. He was running late. He decided to reverse the usual order of his deliveries, so that Miss Dangerfield would get her paper first. He didn’t want to be in trouble with her again. There were too many other things to worry about. Suppose his mother discovered that the money was missing? Suppose Hutch found out that he didn’t really have an aunt? He wanted to tell someone all about it: someone who wouldn’t tell on him; who would sympathize, and reassure him that he had done
the right thing. He sensed that Olwen would understand. If he really hurried he might find her in the playground before lessons began. He posted the letter and started to run.

J
ohnny delivered all the papers before the school bell rang, but he couldn’t find Olwen in the playground then, or at morning break, or at lunch time.

The last lesson of the day was Religious Knowledge. Johnny had been dreading it, because he hadn’t learned Genesis, Chapter 46, verses 8 to 24: a long list of names which the teacher, old Mr Wilson, had set as a punishment for the whole class after a mass fit of the giggles the week before. Johnny had tried. He’d got as far as Reuben, Jacob’s first born, and the sons of Reuben: Hanoch, and Phallu, and Hezron, and Carmi. But the sight of about thirty weird names looming ahead had driven him outside to kick an empty can around, and then he’d forgotten all about it. Now he was preparing himself for the thwack of a ruler against his leg, or a belt across his backside as a punishment.

Suddenly he believed in miracles. A big boy came into the classroom with a message for the teacher.
The lesson was cancelled. Everyone was to go to the school hall at once for a special assembly. There was a great scraping of chairs as the children jumped up, full of boisterous relief. It seemed that quite a few hadn’t learned that fearsome list.

‘No talking!’ shouted Mr Wilson, who looked as surprised by the change of plan as the rest of them. ‘Line up in alphabetical order and follow me.’

All the other classes were filing into the hall. The headmaster was on the edge of the stage, telling everyone to hurry up and to sit cross-legged on the floor so that the whole school could get in. It was only after Johnny had taken his place, crammed in between Albert Taylor and Ernest Roberts, that he noticed two people sitting on chairs behind the headmaster. It was the school nurse, and Dr Langford, with a stethoscope round his neck.

The headmaster called for silence and stillness. ‘As you can see, we have a visitor. Many of you may already know Dr Langford.’

There was an outbreak of chatter as the children compared notes on visits to the doctor. Johnny started telling Ernest how he’d had a ride on Dr Langford’s bike only that morning. The teachers, who were sitting on chairs all round the edge of the hall,
shushed everyone quiet. Mr Wilson leaned forward and slapped Johnny on the head to shut him up.

The headmaster continued, ‘Dr Langford has informed me that the family of one of our pupils has become infected with a serious illness.’

There was another buzz of talking, quickly stopped by the staff.

‘Silence,’ barked the headmaster. ‘This is a most important matter. We have no reason to suppose that any of you are ill, but it is necessary for you to be checked straight away. You must all strip down to your underwear and make your way to the stage. Fold your clothes neatly, and leave them to mark your place.’

Johnny was horrified. He hadn’t expected to have to undress today. He was wearing his oldest pants and vest. They were full of holes, and badly needed a wash. He knew he’d be teased by the other boys, especially Albert Taylor who, because of the alphabet, was right next to him. He expected Ernest Roberts on his other side to have a go at him too. Ernest lived a few doors down from the Swansons. He had been Johnny’s friend and playmate until that term, when Mrs Roberts had taken him to the optician and he’d been prescribed thick spectacles. The boys at school were no kinder to Ernest than the girls had been to
Olwen. Constant jokes about Ernest’s glasses had made him crack. Now he did Albert Taylor’s bidding in return for his protection. He’d become Taylor’s shadow, doing his homework and doling out insults and menace on command. If that meant persecuting his old friend, Johnny, for being short and poor, it was a price Ernest felt he had to pay.

Shivering with fear rather than cold, Johnny slowly pulled off his jumper and shirt. He saw Mr Wilson advancing again, ready to strike. Johnny winced, but Wilson reached across him and wrenched at Albert Taylor’s arm instead, revealing an inky trail that ran from his wrist to his elbow.

‘What’s this, boy?’ shouted Mr Wilson. ‘See me after school.’ He gave Taylor’s arm a quick twist as he flung it down again, and Albert huddled into himself, trying to hide the list of biblical names he’d written on his skin: Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, Shaul, and many more. From the stage, the headmaster sent one of his nasty stares across to the group of boys around Taylor. It promised trouble in the future.

But the head had more pressing business. ‘Right,’ he said when everyone was undressed. ‘Now come up, class by class, one by one, to see the doctor. Then go back to your places and get dressed again.’

Another murmur ran through the hall. ‘Silence!’ cried the headmaster. ‘The doctor needs quiet. He has to listen to your chests.’ Everyone except Taylor obeyed. He was whispering threats into Johnny’s ear, blaming him for Mr Wilson’s attack. ‘If you weren’t so small, he’d never have been able to see me,’ he said, while Ernest Roberts surreptitiously ground his heel onto Johnny’s foot as they stood in line. Johnny looked round the hall to see if Olwen was being taunted too. He spotted Mrs Palmer’s class, but she wasn’t among them.

Dr Langford came to the front of the stage and explained what he was going to do. ‘Now, children, I am going to listen to your lungs, but you’re also going to have a special test, which will show us very soon whether you have been infected. All I have to do is make a little scratch on your wrist …’

There was a mass cry of ‘
Urggh!
’

‘… No, really, you will hardly notice it, and in two or three days I’ll be able to tell whether any of you might need treatment. But don’t worry. That’s very unlikely indeed.’

The doctor briskly examined each child. Occasionally he asked the school nurse to make a note of something, or had a little chat with a child he
knew well. When Johnny’s turn came he smiled. ‘Well, I never thought I’d be doing all this when I saw you this morning,’ he said.

‘What are you checking for?’ asked Johnny.

‘TB, I’m afraid,’ said Dr Langford, scraping Johnny’s wrist while he was distracted. He lifted Johnny’s vest and listened to his stethoscope. ‘But I’m sure you’ve got nothing to worry about, my boy. Your chest is nice and clear.’ The school nurse put a tick against Johnny’s name, and moved the line on.

When everyone had been dealt with, the headmaster had a quick conversation with the doctor while the last of the children got back into their clothes. Then he called for quiet again and addressed the school. ‘I’m sure we’re all very grateful to Dr Langford for giving up his time to come here today. Now, there’s no more time for lessons, so we’ll stay here in the hall until home-time. Mr Wilson, perhaps you would like to lead us in some prayers.’

Mr Wilson stepped forward and prayed for the safe recovery of sick people everywhere. As the bell went to mark the end of the day, everyone burst into the same question: who was the child whose family illness had caused all this fuss?

In the playground, Albert Taylor’s sister rushed up,
flushed with pride at being able to tell her big brother the news. ‘It’s that new girl,’ she said. ‘The one I told you about. The Owl. Mrs Palmer says she’s gone back to Wales. Good riddance to bad rubbish, that’s what I say.’

‘What’s wrong with her?’ asked Taylor.

‘It’s TB,’ said Johnny, glad to have inside information, and hoping it would earn him some credit with Taylor. ‘The doctor told me.’

‘And what’s that, then?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Johnny. ‘But Olwen told me her family were ill.’

Taylor sneered, ‘Yes. You were talking to The Owl last night, weren’t you, Quacky?’ He pulled his sister away from Johnny. ‘Better keep away from you. You might have it too. We all might catch it.’

‘But the doctor says I’m all right,’ said Johnny as the crowd of children ran off.

Mr Wilson approached. He was trying in vain to catch Albert Taylor before he dodged his punishment for trying to cheat in the scripture test. Johnny plucked up the courage to ask him what TB was.

Mr Wilson shook his head. ‘It’s a very grave disease. A very grave disease indeed. It attacks the
lungs. It can be deadly. We’ve had it here once before – a bad outbreak during the war. Several families were affected. We lost some pupils. That’s why they built the big sanatorium at Emberley. But there hasn’t been a case in this school since. Let’s hope this is just a false alarm.’

Johnny ran to pick up his bag of newspapers at the shop. He took a detour through the graveyard towards the end of his paper round. This time he looked at the dates on some of the gravestones. There were a lot from 1916. He noticed some family groups. Three of the Roberts family were buried in one plot, and there were four Dangerfields, all children, who had died within months of each other. Could they be relatives of Miss Dangerfield up on the hill?

A voice started shouting: ‘Hey! You boy! You boy. Get out of there!’

Johnny spun round. Through the branches of a holly bush he could see a black hat on the other side of the graveyard wall. A netting veil covered the face of the short, dumpy woman who was wearing it, but he knew at once that it was Miss Dangerfield herself. She was angry. ‘Get away from those graves,’ she cried. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

‘I was only looking,’ said Johnny. ‘I was just wondering if they were your family – if it was TB.’

‘That’s none of your business,’ snapped Miss Dangerfield, raising her walking stick.

‘But I just wanted to ask—’

‘How dare you? You nasty little squirt. They were worth a hundred of you. Be off with you.’

Johnny ran away to finish his deliveries, wanting to know more about the bodies under the slabs, but too frightened to ask again.

J
ohnny asked his mother about Miss Dangerfield and the TB, but Winnie had not lived in Stambleton in 1916, and knew less about the epidemic than Johnny did. She reassured him about the disease. If Dr Langford said Johnny was healthy, she was sure he was right. But other children had been told more lurid stories, and for the next few days the talk in the playground was all about TB, with graphic descriptions of victims gasping for breath, coughing up blood, and wasting away or just dropping down dead. Everyone was watching their wrists for signs of a reaction to the test. Dr Langford had said he’d be looking for a red bump at the point where a tiny trace of bacteria had been introduced. In art class, Ernest Roberts dabbed on some paint to make it look as if his scratch had flared up into a livid inflammation, but in fact everyone was boringly clear.

Johnny was still worried about Olwen. But when he asked at school whether anyone had heard
anything about her they just teased him, so he kept quiet. He wondered in secret what had happened to Olwen’s family. This disease was so bad that she had been sent away, and yet everyone said there was no cause for concern. Johnny was confused. But he was excited as well, hoping every day that he would get a reply from Box 23 containing the Secret of Instant Height. He met the postman in the street, and asked if he had seen an envelope addressed to John Swanson Esq. No, said the postman, there hadn’t been any letters for Johnny’s house that week. Even Hutch was concerned. He could see that Johnny was unusually anxious.