The Secret Five and the Stunt Nun Legacy (23 page)

Daniel blushed and looked down at his feet. ‘I might have. If Ricky can do it then so can I! Anyway, I couldn’t help it, it just came over me. I’m rarely left alone and I felt the need, that’s all. And I enjoyed it, so there. Nothing wrong with enjoying something, is there? Hmmm?’

‘I suppose not,’ she sighed. ‘It’s very un-Secret Five, and against our written constitution. Boys! Huh! To be honest, I prefer your silly street-talk. Now, listen, I need to tell you at this stage that I landed over there, by that funny looking man.’ She pointed over there at a funny looking man who was standing sheltering in the entrance to the church. He was certainly dressed rather peculiarly, in a long black coat and black top hat and black gloves. Black was obviously the new black. And so was grey, because he had a big grey beard on his chin, with big bushy whiskers to match. He was leaning on a walking cane and looking up at the sky.

‘He’s dressed really strangely,’ said Betty. ‘Is that what they wore in 1980, do you think? He asked me if we’d fallen from a balloon. Let’s go and talk to him. He might know where Sampson’s school is. Come on, hurry!’

‘But shouldn’t we wait around here for the others?’ asked Daniel.

‘There’s no time,’ said Betty. ‘It’s up to you and me to save the world! We need to find Sampson’s school!’

‘Woof woof woof?’ said Whatshisname. Bravely, and eager to help, he trotted after them as they went up to the strange man.
Maybe saving the world wasn’t a bad idea after all. He, Whatshisname, could be a hero. His name could resound in mythology as the Great Dog Benefactor of Mankind! He could be the Re-creator of the World! And yet his name might be an issue.
Whatshisname
doesn’t sound mythical or romantic in the slightest. Not like Prometheus, or Zeus, or Persephone. The Great Dog Benefactor Whatshisname? Hmmm. Now he’d completely lost interest in saving the world. He paused on the path. What to do? Hold on, in the grass down there, is that a maturing doggy poo? He trotted over and lowered his head and, by necessity, his nose. He sniffed. It was! This was more like it. He sniffed again, inhaling deeply, taking in the essence of . . . Labrador maybe? At the moment, there were more important things than saving the world and becoming The Great Dog Benefactor. That could wait. Yes, definitely Labrador.
Sniff
. Their silly adventure and the strange man could also wait. This –
sniiiiiiff
– was much more important.

‘Well, I’m blessed, there are now
two
Urchins!’ said the strange man as Betty and Daniel approached him. ‘Twas a great surprise to see the girl appear so. You are obviously not fowls of the air, especially that sniffing dog over there – nice collar, by the way – but I could not for the life of me see one of those confounded dirigibles that you must have fallen from. Are you hurt?’

‘We’re okay,’ said Daniel.

‘Oh-kay?’ said the man, frowning deeply. ‘What in heaven’s name does
oh-kay
mean?’

‘It means we’re . . . okay,’ said Betty, ‘but without an aitch. And we didn’t fall from a balloon. We travelled in a time machine. It’s a very reliable form of transport, we find, unaffected by leaves on the line and congestion charges.’

‘Well, I never,’ said the man, who had obviously forgotten that he had. ‘I’ve travelled on those highly life-threatening Iron Horse railways, but never in a time machine. What is the world coming to, yea verily. Before we know it there will be hybrid horseless
carriages with catalytic converters. Anyway, young lady Urchin, can I just say that, with infant mortality the way it is, and the inclemency of the weather, you coming out without your woollen vest and your elbow-length gloves is asking for a dose of scarlet fever or even the pox. Would I not wish upon you such a tragedy. That curious dog, yes, but not you. And what or whom is this McFly on your strange blouse? A Scottish poet, by any chance?’

Daniel and Betty glanced a short economical glance at each other and frowned.

‘Are you all right?’ Betty asked the man.

‘I am,’ said the alright man. ‘And I am also concerned for your health, young lady, as I would for any daughter of mine. If I had one, that is. Impotency is a terrible curse, believe me. But your clothing doth seem uncommonly unseemly, that is all.’

Daniel nodded. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘as a caring brother, I’ve been worrying a lot about her unseemliness as well.’

Betty clasped her arms to her chest. ‘Just leave them out of it,’ she said, quite moodily. ‘Look, I’m of voting age
plus some
, and well old enough for a McFly T-shirt, and we’re on an important mission to save the world, and all you can think of is my . . . my . . .’

‘Bosom?’ said Daniel, helpfully.

The man staggered backwards, almost losing his top hat in the process of the stagger. He managed to stop himself mid-stagger, and staggered forwards again.

‘Children!’ he said. ‘Is it the righteous thing where you come from, for a child to address someone so forthrightly? This is the talk of raggedy children and ruffians! I beseech you, as the Moral Shepherd of this parish’s flock, I will not tolerate such behaviour! And you should only spoke when you’re speaken to! Where are your parents or guardians? I must have words with them about you. All this vulgar workhouse talk is most unbecoming. Of course, I blame our monarch, that Queen Victoria, for this degradation of morals.’

‘Quee . . . ?’ said Daniel.

‘Vict . . . ?’ said Betty.

‘Woof woof wo . . . ?’ said Whatshisname, who had rejoined them after his short but joyful sensory encounter with the Labrador poo.

‘Excuse me,’ said Betty. ‘But don’t you mean Queen Elizabeth?’

The man looked quite aghast. ‘Do you learn nothing at week-school?’ he asked. ‘Queen Elizabeth was our monarch some, er, three hundred years ago, give or take! Nice ankles, by all accounts. No, our queen is Victoria. The
hussy
!’

Betty frowned and looked around her. The houses around the churchyard, with their mullioned windows and decorative bargeboards, all looked really old but really new at the same time, and she was slightly bewildered when a horse and trap came clip-clopping and trap-trapping along the lane the other side of the churchyard wall.

‘Erm . . .’ ermed Betty. ‘If I may speak, sir? The Revivalist Architectural features on those houses and the clip-clopping and trap-trapping do worry me just a little. Tell me, is this really nineteen-eighty?’

The strange man looked aghast yet again, but then his aghastness cleverly turned into a rather quizzical expression. ‘
Nineteen
-eighty? This is
Eighteen
-eighty, my girl. I must speak to your parents about your schooling, and the need for extra Arithmetic lessons, yea verily.’

‘Eighteen-eighty!’ Betty stammered and spluttered, so it sounded more like ‘ay-ay-huh-tin-tin-ay-ay-huh-splut-tee-tee-huh?’ She was utterly shocked! They had been time-machined to the wrong year!

But we knew that didn’t we? So, as a mini-cliffhanger, it’s somewhat lacking, if not total rubbish, and one wonders if her utter shock might have been avoided if she had been paying more attention, for goodness’ sake.

In which sulforaphanes, dithiolthiones and glucosinolates are again mentioned, of course; there is some impromptu smiling; an apple makes a guest appearance; the sighting of a familiar house is interrupted by an unexpected chapter break.

The strange man frowned silently at Betty’s outburst, the authorial whining, and the unnerving experience of being flung headlong into a new chapter without warning. He pointed his silent frown at Daniel so that he wouldn’t feel left out.

Betty leaned towards Daniel. ‘Erm, Daniel,’ she whispered, ‘I think we need an urgent meeting.’

‘A meeting?’ Daniel whispered back. ‘With just the two of us?’

‘Woof woof woof?’ whispered Whatshisname.

‘He said it’s
eighteen-
eighty,’ Betty said in a whispery voice. ‘Apparently, we’re in the nineteenth century, and we’ve lost Ricky and Amy who might be stranded forever in Salzburg, near Austria, in another time. I think that’s enough reason for an extraordinarily-convened meeting, don’t you?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Daniel in a mournful yet pathetic whisper. ‘But I am a bit hungry now. I think I’ve caught something from Ricky. Some wasting disease. Can you ask him if there’s anything to nibble around here?’

Betty spoke to the man. ‘Excuse me, kindly sir, but we think that we are quite seriously lost, and we need to have a private meeting of our secret club,
and
we have to find a nineteenth century teashop quite urgently. My brother here has developed a condition that appears to run in the family, you see.’

The man seemed quite taken aback. ‘My word!’ he said. He leant forward towards them, so it was difficult to continue being taken aback. ‘This secret club, is it open to new members? And what do you call it, dear strange children?’

‘It’s The Secret Five,’ said Daniel. ‘Highly exclusive, very secret. Although to be honest, at the last count we are probably up to The Secret Five Hundred by now.’

‘Aaaah,’ aaaahed the man knowingly. ‘Highly exclusive, very secret? Rather like my very own secret club, The Fraternal Order of Puritan Sadists. Do you want to know our secret FOPS password? And I can demonstrate our secret FOPS handshake if you so desire. It doesn’t hurt. Much.’

Eagerly, he began to remove a glove.

Betty and Daniel said they’d rather not, under the circumstances, and carefully tried to explain that they’d arrived in the wrong year and had he a portal and a digital alarm clock that he might lend to them.

‘Stop all this nonsensical talk!’ boomed the man. ‘I cannot tolerate you two lost Urchins running loose and roaming the lanes of my parish frightening my pathetic flock with all this tittle-tattle about porters! Come! You need shelter and warmth and lots of porridge, if I am not mistaken. The vicarage these days is out of Victorian bounds for Mere Urchins unless accompanied by an adult of sane mind, so I will take you along to The Big House. Perhaps Mrs Wells the Housekeeper can do something with you until you are both well enough to walk.’

‘‘But we can walk, look!’ said Daniel, demonstrating how he could walk on the spot. The strange man frowned at Daniel’s even stranger behaviour and shook his head firmly from side to side.

‘You are obviously delirious,’ the man said. ‘And quite ugly, too. Come. Follow me. This can be my Good Turn, then I am done for this week, apart from a bit of symbolic pastoral care.’ And with that, he strode off down the path and towards the lane.

Betty and Daniel looked at each other, then at Whatshisname,
who shrugged an attempted shrug that seemed to say, ‘I don’t know what to do either so stop looking at me and while you’re at it get this stupid pink fluffy collar from around my neck’.

As their options were quite limited, Betty suggested to Daniel that they had a mobile meeting while they followed the strange man in the top hat, who was now waving his walking cane in the air in an effort to encourage them onwards.

‘Hurry, Urchins,’ he called. ‘And the curious deformed animal. This way.’

‘Right,’ said Betty to Daniel as they followed the man, ‘let’s go along with it. They might have a handy portal up at this Big House. We’ve got the Brussels sprouts, so all we’d need then is a digital alarm clock and we’re done.’

‘Woof woof woof?’ said Whatshisname.

Suddenly, Daniel stopped walking and started to rummage deep in his pockets.

‘What’s the matter now?’ asked Betty. ‘What are you doing, Daniel? Boys, honestly! There’s no time for that now!’

‘I’m only rummaging deep in my pockets. I don’t think I’ve got any sprouts left,’ he moaned. ‘I must have eaten them all while I sat on that gravestone. Waiting for you!’

‘You ate all the sprouts?’ exclaimed Betty. ‘I don’t believe
you
, Daniel! It’s bad enough Ricky eating everything in sight without you getting in on the act! Are you sure that you’re not just intensely jealous of his character’s traits? Isn’t it enough to have been given spectacles? Hmmm?’

Daniel looked embarrassed. ‘Don’t blame me!’ he whispered. ‘It’s out of my control!’

Betty shook her head in disbelief. ‘You’re always blaming You-Know-Who. Despite that, you’re so tiresome! Without those sprouts, where are we going to get the sulforaphanes, dithiolthiones and glucosinolates which, apparently, overcome the quantum object’s timeline resistance and help us get back home?’

Daniel still looked embarrassed, and Betty was lost for words.

‘Really, Daniel!’ she scolded.

Again she was lost for words.

‘Can’t you be trusted with anything?’

‘I thought you were lost for words,’ observed Daniel.

‘I am supposed to be!’ she snapped. ‘In fact, I have never
ever
been so lost for words . . .
ever!
And, to illustrate that fact, I’m now going to be sullen and silent for a while, if you don’t mind. Boys!’

Sullenly and silently, lost for words, they followed the strange man. At one point, Daniel stopped to pick up an apple that had fallen from an apple tree that overhung the lane, but he didn’t offer Betty a bite as she had been so nasty to him. That would teach her.

Eventually they rounded a convenient bend in the lane, where the strange man stopped and pointed ahead with his walking cane.

‘Children, or whatever you are, do you see that house with the chimneys? It almost looks like a castle, does it not? That is where the Squire lives. Mrs Wells is his housekeeper and maid and does other menial skivvying duties. They often take in random Urchins off the street. Lord only knows what becomes of them after that.’

Betty and Daniel stopped alongside the strange man.

‘It’s stopped raining,’ said Daniel.

Betty looked at him. ‘Well?’ she said. ‘So what?’

Daniel shrugged. ‘I just thought I’d say it. People have to know.’

‘That’s true,’ said Betty. ‘I would have said it in a more subtle way, more sub-textual. But well done for thinking of it.’

Daniel smiled at Betty, who smiled back. They were pals again. Whatshisname looked up at them both and tried desperately to join in all the smiling activities, but it could easily have been mistaken for a severe bout of canine indigestion.