Magic Parcel (17 page)

 

School was almost a relief after the disturbing dreams of the night before. He had tried to share his experiences with his brother, but Tommy had no longer any interest in Omni, and so refused to listen or talk about it. His mind was firmly on other, more important, things like his friends, football, and girls. Jimmy and he were no longer co-adventurers in a dangerous and exciting world.

“Grow up Jimmy. This place ‘Omni' lives only in your imagination,” was Tommy's parting comment, making Jimmy believe that Tommy was in some sort of denial. How could he feel like that, after all they had been through together?

The first faces he encountered on entering the playground at a quarter to nine were, of course, Dwayne and Billy, their sullenness casting a shadow in their ‘skulking corner', as Mr Bolam called it. He was aware, was Mr Bolam, of what they were like but hadn't had any complaints from other children to allow him to do something about them. That had begun to change, Jimmy had seen to that. As soon as he saw them, he began to ‘feel' their animosity towards him. It was a similar feeling to those he had experienced, when he and Tommy were overwhelmed by the Senti in Seth's castle, and when they had almost become stuck in the Foggy Land of Four.

He had had these feelings around Dwayne for a little while, only now were they beginning to become clearer. Although Dwayne was wary about Jimmy, his thoughts betrayed his inner feelings; thoughts that Jimmy could read and understand! Don't ask how he could do it, he just could, and he was even more surprised when he realised that Dwayne's thoughts would suddenly stop when Jimmy anticipated them. He had somehow stumbled on the way to intercept thoughts from other people. He couldn't do it for every thought; just the aggressive ones came through to him. He had developed the ability to redirect or change or interrupt or divert them, making the ‘thinker' lose track of what he was thinking.

“Hello,” came a small voice just behind. He turned sharply to see a raven-haired girl, dressed in a black skirt and bright red cardigan. She was smaller than Jimmy, who had grown somewhat since the summer; all that good food, according to his mum. Her eyes caught his, and dropped him into deep inner pools he had experienced only when he had been in Omni. He had neither seen nor met her before, certainly not here; or had he? He stared at her, trying to place her.

“It's rude to stare and not speak. My dad always says so,” she interrupted his thoughts.

“I'm sorry,” he excused himself, “but I don't think we've met before. Are you new? I'm Jimmy.”

“No,” she returned deliberately. “I've been here a long time. It's just that you've never noticed me before. I'm Ursula.” There was something about Ursula that struck a chord within Jimmy, so that he knew instantly they were going to become friends. Along with many other things, Jimmy seemed to have developed a very sharp instinct when it came to people.

“I like you,” Jimmy said, rather disarmingly. “Can we be friends?”

“I think so,” Ursula replied, seeming to give it an age of thought and consideration, but within that split second, they both knew that their embryo friendship was cemented. They had been, and would be friends forever.

“Are you sure you've been here for a long time?” Jimmy asked simply as they filed into class once the bell had sounded. “It's just that I'm sure I would have noticed you....I think.”

Ursula smiled and inclined her head slightly. “Yes,” she thought, “I am going to enjoy being with you.”

She was the sort of person who could easily be missed in an otherwise busy school. She was small and almost invisible because she didn't put herself out to be noticed. It's not that she lacked confidence because of some learning difficulty – she was incredibly bright with an innate ability to adapt quickly to different learning environments – she just didn't see the need to be ‘noticed' for the sake of it.

Still unsure of the veracity of Ursula's insistence that she had always been part of his class, Jimmy settled in his desk to his morning's work. Despite giving a much more successful impression that he was concentrating closely on his work history was not where his heart lay. The love life of Henry VIII and the lives of the Tudors in general just didn't do it for Jimmy. All that waste of ...

“Just you wait, Jimmy Scoggins,” he felt in his mind. “I'll catch you when you are least expecting it, and ...” Dwayne Davis just didn't understand how uncomfortable his life was about to become by popping into Jimmy's mind in that quasi-kamikaze fashion. Jimmy turned his mind towards the intrusion, and his face towards Dwayne, just in time to see him wince and recoil physically as if warding off a blow, and to hear him screech loudly in pain. Jimmy knew it wasn't him because he had only just caught Dwayne's intent. Then who? What? He noticed a slight movement from the corner of his eye, over by the filing cabinet at the back of the room. Ursula? A slight, almost imperceptible smile played at the edges of her lips, and as Jimmy turned back to his books and the lesson, he was convinced Ursula wasn't of this class, or of
this
world either, for that matter.

Dwayne continued to hold the sides of his head, whilst whimpering pitifully, until Mr Bolam snapped at him, “For goodness sake, Dwayne Davis, either stop being so soft or go home. I'm sure no-one will think any less of you if you do.” The sarcasm lay heavily on the last sentence.

There were several sniggers from the back of the room, which, of course, made his decision for him. He spent the rest of the day sulking silently, as far from the others as he was able to get.

Jimmy couldn't wait for lunchtime to talk to Ursula about what had happened, but she wasn't to be found anywhere. He hadn't seen her leave, and he was sure she didn't have an appointment anywhere. Where had she gone, and, more urgently, where had she come from in the first place? He thought he might have the answer to that one, but he needed to confront her with his suspicions.

At the end of the school day, he hung around the yard for a little while, hoping to catch her on her way home, but to no avail. It was only when he heard the familiar almost inaudible “Hello” that he spun on his heels, to find her behind him.

“Ursula!” he blurted out. “Where've you been this afternoon? I missed you at lunch. Did you have an appointment? I wanted to talk to you.”

“No appointment,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I've been in school all day.”

Jimmy stopped abruptly, a puzzled frown growing on his face as he stared into her eyes, not quite believing what he was hearing.

“Now hang on a bit!” he burst in. “I'm not
that
stupid. You were supposed to be in art this afternoon, and I didn't see you there.”

“Peripatetic violin,” she replied softly.

“OK,” he went on, “I'll give you that, but the last half hour was story, and you weren't there.” At first he was quite anxious to find out where she had been, but found his mind becoming less and less perturbed the more he spoke, until he found what he had wanted to know was no longer urgent.

They walked along in silence for a few moments until they reached her house. Once they had stopped outside her gate, Jimmy realised that either he had never been past this house on his way to or from school before, or he had taken a wrong turning in his eagerness to be with Ursula. Had she somehow taken him out of his way without his noticing it?
This
house was definitely not on
his
street, and he had never seen such countryside out of Omni.

The house and grounds were set apart from the other dwellings hereabouts by an enormous palisade fence which was hugely overgrown by a vast yew hedge; the sort that must have been there for the last hundred years or more. Breached by none except the smallest of animals, it gave the impression of mystery and invulnerability. The gates grew out of the yew and were purely and simply solid oak, constructed in the same style as his Uncle Reuben's fence; allowing that comfortable impenetrability for someone who needed security and seclusion. “Who would wish such a degree of invisibility?” Jimmy pondered.

As for the house itself, over the gate Jimmy could see only the upper floor, with its crenellated and turreted roof, and part of the gable end which was covered by autumnally coloured Virginia Creeper. Dour grey granite blocks, rather reminiscent of ancient Scottish castles, spattered with bilious green lichenous patches anchored this edifice to the bones of the earth. Unimaginably large and old, from where Jimmy stood, it brought back half-hidden memories of his incarceration in Seth's castle, vividly and uncomfortably to his unfortunately overactive consciousness.
That
was something he didn't need to remember, thank you very much.

“This is where I live,” Ursula said, looking into Jimmy's still incredulous eyes. “I know we made a slight detour, but I'm glad you came with me.”

“Slight!?” he thought. “This is the biggest ‘slight'
I've
ever experienced!”

“Something I need to ask you before I go,” Jimmy proffered tentatively. “It
was
you wasn't it when Dwayne began to express his thoughts about me in class?”

“I'm sure I don't know what you mean,” she replied demurely, a slight smile hovering around the corners of her mouth.

Jimmy knew immediately that he need ask no further and that the subject was now closed. This, of course, served to draw him closer to her in shared experience and purpose.

“Would you like to come and stay the weekend and meet my dad?” Ursula asked.

“Certainly would!” he blurted out. “I'm sure my mum would be fine with that, if your dad would be.”

 

Jimmy's mum's approval was a source of excitement for him, not only because he was allowed to stay the weekend at Ursula's, but also because it gave him an excuse to make an unscheduled visit to his Uncle Reuben's to share with him his new friend. Perhaps he might help with understanding her, and where she came from. He had his suspicions, of course, but he felt he would like some sort of confirmation from him.

As it was early autumn, the nights were still light until quite late, and would be so until the clocks went back in late October. Consequently, he would be able to visit Uncle Reuben's by bus and return before dark. The buses remained quite frequent because the winter timetable with its restricted service was still weeks away. Home for four, tea by quarter to five, catch the quarter past five bus, was his goal so that he would be at his uncle's house by a quarter to six. He would then be able to catch the twenty-five past seven bus home so he would be back by eightish, in time for supper and bed. There was another bus back at twenty-five to eight but that took forever because it detoured to another depot to pick up bus company workers on their way home.

The first parts of his plan successfully executed, his bus ride was uneventful if a little nerve-racking, mostly because of what had happened on his last visit. This time he didn't quite know what to expect, although he
hoped
things might have returned to how they were that day he made his first visit to Omni; ‘Parcel Day' as he often referred to it since. He reached Tumbles Row more quickly than he had anticipated; no more inter-galactic adventures, just concerned thought about the issues which were bothering him and about which he desperately needed Reuben's counsel. This was the part of the journey he loved the most; that tingle of anticipation and excitement at seeing his uncle's back fence around the next corner and then Reuben standing on the top step at the front of his house. Only, the expected ‘tingle' was not there, and neither was the fence as he rounded the corner.
That
had been replaced by a hugely unruly privet hedge which hadn't seen shears for many months, and seemingly impenetrable from root to crown. Jimmy stopped, and looked around, scratching his head, profoundly puzzled. This
was
the right street and it
was
Uncle Reuben's house, he was sure. He was used to the garden being different every time he visited, but that was inside. The outer fence boundary had always been the same. He rounded the front of the house, to be stopped in his tracks as if hit by a cricket bat.

In the front garden by the lilac tree in the corner there grew, as if it had been there forever, a large dirty white sign, which deflated him and rocked him back on his heels.

He couldn't believe that his Uncle Reuben's house, that wonderful exciting place which had thrown up so many unexpected things, was now for sale! There was no sign of life. The curtains were closed and there was no smoke coming from the chimney, a sure sign that Reuben was not at home.

 

 

 

“I've already told you, mum,” Jimmy insisted, “that it
was
Uncle Reuben's house,
he
wasn't there, and the house
was
for sale. All you have to do is phone him and then phone the agent.”

“You know as well as I do that he doesn't hold with telephones,” she returned, “and so doesn't have one.”