The Worlds We Leave Behind, page 1
Books by A.F. Harrold
The Imaginary
Illustrated by Emily Gravett
The Afterwards
Illustrated by Emily Gravett
The Song from Somewhere Else
Illustrated by Levi Pinfold
The Worlds We Leave Behind
Illustrated by Levi Pinfold
The Book of Not Entirely Useful Advice
Illustrated by Mini Grey
FOR SLIGHTLY YOUNGER READERS
The Greta Zargo books
Illustrated by Joe Todd-Stanton
The Fizzlebert Stump series
Illustrated by Sarah Horne
For Michael Groom, Alex Bell and James Heywood – for the wild woods we knew back then
A.F. HARROLD
For Isaac
LEVI PINFOLD
CONTENTS
Some are Born
MONDAY
MONDAY NIGHT
TUESDAY
TUESDAY NIGHT
WEDNESDAY
WEDNESDAY NIGHT
THURSDAY
THURSDAY NIGHT
FRIDAY
Some Are Born
Some are born to peace and joy
And some are born to sorrow
But only for a day as we
Shall not be here tomorrow.
Stevie Smith
from The Collected Poems
& Drawings of Stevie Smith
(Faber, 2015)
MONDAY
Hex wasn’t entirely sure how the girl had come to be hurt.
That morning he and Tommo had got on their bikes and they’d headed over the level crossing and down the hill, down to the woods.
On a map, the woods were a fat finger pointing away from town.
A brook ran through the middle and the trees formed a strip, a couple of hundred metres wide on either side, but dwindling and narrowing, closing in and petering out the further you went. Beyond them, on the left, was the road that led off to the next town. Beyond them, on the right, were wide, flat farmer’s fields.
It wasn’t big enough to get lost in, but it was big enough to forget yourself in.
The trees towered over you, little specks of blue twinkling high above like stars in the night sky, saying nothing.
As smoke and squeals had poured off Hex and Tommo’s brake pads at the bottom of the last road, they had seen the girl in her front garden.
She was some years younger than they were. Down the bottom of the school, probably still in the infants, while they were up at the top.
She was called Sascha Something-or-Other and had been sat on the lawn of her front garden pretending to read from a book to her toys. (‘Pretending’ only because Hex couldn’t believe the story was actually in the book, which looked like one about tractors.)
‘There was a prince who killed a giant,’ the girl had said, ‘and he got sent to prison because killing is wrong, and when he was in prison he fell in love with the prison boss’s daughter, but she wouldn’t marry him because he had killed a giant and killing is wrong. But he said, “The giant was going to eat the king,” and she said, “The king should be more careful.” And she married an apple and ate it all up and was happily ever after. The end.’
The front door had been open a crack and they’d heard distant voices somewhere inside.
She’d lowered her book and looked at them, squinting at the sun and shading her eyes with a hand.
‘Whatcha doing?’ she’d asked.
‘Nothing,’ they’d said.
But she’d asked again and so they’d told her they were going into the woods. There was a rope-swing set up on the high bank, over the brook. It was a good place to spend a hot day.
‘I’ll come,’ she’d said, putting a plastic horse between the pages of her book and laying it down carefully on the grass.
‘Nah,’ they’d said.
But she’d just stood up and brushed her bottom with both hands.
She’d sniffed her palms and said, ‘Mmmm, don’t you love that fresh smell?’
She’d probably meant the grass, but it was still weird.
Tommo and Hex had looked at one another at that point. A half-chuckle, nervous and uncertain.
‘Nah, you’re OK,’ they’d said, shaking their heads.
Pulling their bikes up they’d walked off, not looking back.
And she had followed them.
They hadn’t invited her, hadn’t forced her, hadn’t encouraged her, hadn’t wanted her to come, but there she was, a little kid suddenly in their care.
And now they were in the woods and it had all gone wrong.
Hex often wondered why adults insisted on there being reasons for things.
That didn’t match the world he saw.
Sometimes he’d stand up in class, in the middle of doing something else, and point at a squirrel out the window or do a little dance or ask a question about something they weren’t studying that day, and the other kids would laugh, and Miss Short, his teacher (or, ten minutes later, Mr Dedman, the head), would look him in the eyes and say, ‘What on earth did you do that for, Hector?’
And he’d shrug and say, ‘I dunno,’ and they’d tell him he was being smart and answering back, but he was simply telling the truth.
As he stood there, in front of the head’s desk, sometimes an answer would come – something like ‘Because I thought the squirrel was about to jump’ – but these reasons, these answers, only ever came to him after the event, only when he was interrogated about it. They were never there in the moment.
And it seemed most of life was like that – you did things and then thought about why you’d done them later on, when someone asked, or when you got caught, or caught out.
Even with Tommo, they’d meet up each morning and just see where they ended up.
Today they’d ended up in the woods, with Sascha at their heels.
They’d walked their bikes down the twittern, the alley that ran between two houses at the end of the close, down to the edge of the woods.
There was a bin for dog owners and a sign that said the local council were being ever so generous by not selling the place off to build more houses. And there was a path in, under the trees. Well-trodden earth, made bare by feet, out of the sunshine, into the shade.
They’d been here a hundred times before, over the years, so they hadn’t hesitated as they’d gone in, turning at all the right places, Tommo panting and rattling his inhaler as they climbed uphill, between trees, heading to the bank above the stream. With, to their almost-amusement, Sascha following, running round their ankles like a puppy, asking questions, laughing, singing.
Her eagerness had been embarrassing, and Hex had felt that embarrassment settle on him like a bird on his shoulder (it had almost looked like worry). It had pecked at his ear and said nothing.
Eventually they’d dumped their bikes on the ground.
There was a big tree, an oak, right on the edge, on the high lip of the riverbank. Its roots stuck out of the mud wall below, like rungs on a ladder.
From one of the high branches someone had tied a rope, a tatty thick blue nylon rope. And at the bottom of the rope was a crossbar, a sturdy stick held in place by a fat knot.
Below that, curling round at the base of the high bank, was the brook, a spotty dark mirror snaking through pale earth.
It hadn’t rained for weeks, a long, dry spring after a sharp, cold winter, and the water was low. Pebbles poked dry heads into the air.
You could scramble down, using roots as footholds, and that’s what Hex had done.
He’d got the crossbar in one hand (it had been at about head height), and had pulled it behind him as he climbed back up the bank.
At the top he’d cocked his leg over the wooden bar and, just as Tommo had shouted, ‘Oi, I was gonna be first!’ had pushed off.
‘Geronimo!’
Sometimes Hex dreamt about flying.
He’d be running along the street or in the school field and he’d jump, just a normal jump, a hop-skip-and-a-jump sort of jump, and he’d stay up.
With a thought, with a push of his will, he’d rise a bit higher.
Not flying like a superhero, arm out in front, cloak flapping behind, but just like a boy who’s jumped and decided not to come down yet.
And he’d steer, turn back and rise up higher, over his friends below, and look down on the black, tarmac-ish school roof, or at the tiled roofs of the houses, and will himself on, light and happy, between television aerials and on, up, out, over the town.
And that was all there was to the dream, that freedom and the feeling of joy, never an adventure, never a drama, never anyone shouting or wanting anything.
If the people below were pointing at him, if they were saying something, he never noticed – it was just him in the air with the wind in his hair, touching his toes on the crests of the roofs as he pushed off to sky-run some more.
But then, always, sooner or later, he’d wake up.
The rope-swing was the closest real life brought him to those dreams.
The freedom at the end of the upswing, as gravity forgot about you for a second or two … before it called you back, and then the acceleration in the mouth of your stomach, fluttering as you zoomed down … and through … and up again … the riverbank calling you back and then … the pause, again, at the top, where you could reach out and step off … but you don’t, and you plunge back down again … The speed, the speed, the joy.
(It was different to th
He’d swung over the stream half a dozen times before Tommo had grabbed him, and they’d swapped places, and he’d watched his best friend close his eyes and grip the rope, and Hex had guessed how Tommo felt and had laughed again.
And then Sascha had said, ‘My turn now.’ And she’d bounced on her toes saying it, a stripped twig in her hands, which she waved like a magic wand, and her words became a command for the boys.
Hex had felt something in the world shift slightly to one side as he’d held the crossbar and Tommo had hoicked her up and helped her hook her legs over. First one, then the other.
They had held her there, in the air, by the great oak, her feet up off the ground, a vast open space before her, the stream below, the far-off trees on the other side, and just space, space, fresh air between here and there.
‘You ready?’ Hex had asked.
And for the first time there’d been something like nervousness in her eyes.
But he’d let go by then, just before Tommo did, and so she’d spun round and round as she’d swung out.
And she’d said nothing.
And the forest had said nothing.
And the brook below had said nothing.
And then Sascha had laughed and the silence went away as she pendulumed and pirouetted high up in the green woods.
She had tried to swing, to move like you do on a swing to go higher, to keep moving, but because she was spinning she sent the whole rope-swing round and round in crazy circles.
And the boys had laughed, because they’d just helped someone have fun and were Good People because of it.
And then … And then it had gone on a bit too long.
The rope-swing was settling down. She was now in control, no longer spinning so much. Swinging backwards and forwards, mostly, but not quite within reach of the bank. Slowing, despite her efforts.
And Hex had climbed down the root-ladder, down to the stream, and had tried to catch her as she went past, to drag her back over to the bank so she could climb off.
But she’d banged into him, by accident, knocking him on to his backside.
Water had soaked the seat of his jeans, giving him sudden, cold, damp underwear.
And up on the bank Tommo had laughed loudly, slapping the tree trunk, getting breathless, pointing down at him.
And Sasha was laughing too, looking down on him as the swing swung slowly back and forth.
It was a real crowd-in-the-playground moment – the world watching and you shrinking.
And Hex had felt microscopic.
Looking up into the canopy above he’d seen a squirrel jump from one high branch to another, free-flying, landing, pausing, turning … its bead-like black eye watching him, deciding if he was a nut to store for winter.
And Hex was small.
Sascha was still swinging above him and she was singing as she swung, oblivious to the harm she’d done.
His heart hammered strange rhythms in his ears.
His cheeks burned.
And then, as he clambered up the low bank on the other side, his hand closed around a dry clod of mud. And as he stood he turned and he threw it.
It whizzed past Sascha, crumbling with a puff of dust on the opposite bank.
Her back was to him. She didn’t see.
But Tommo did, and for whatever reason (for no good reason at all) he replied with a dirt-clod of his own.
The last few weeks had been dry, so the mud crumbled as it left your hands. Smoke trails in the air, explosive puffs as they hit the ground.
And Sascha dodged them all, through luck or chance or wriggling skill.
Until …
Hex’s last mud-clod wasn’t a mud-clod, it was a stone. Fist-sized, flinty-blue.
His jeans dribbled icy cold water down the backs of his legs into his socks.
And, without aiming to, without meaning to, the stone struck Sascha on the shoulder.
Sent her spinning.
And she lost her grip and turned upside down before she fell.
Dangled for a while.
Such a slow fall.
The world paused to watch.
So slow.
Hex saw everything.
And he heard the crack of a stick breaking as she landed in the stony stream.
And then the world let out its breath and Sascha let out a cry.
And Hex turned to clay.
He looked up and saw Tommo clinging to the oak tree’s trunk, suddenly and seriously sick and pale and staring.
He looked down and saw Sascha lying on her back in the stream, wailing.
Her face was red and wet, and her chest was heaving sobs between the wails, and her right arm was … the wrong shape.
It had a second elbow.
And the stream was bleeding, a thin tentacle of red coiling away from her, tangling among the stones.
He looked up again and Tommo had vanished.
It was just him and the girl and the water and the woods.
And he couldn’t move.
His feet wouldn’t lift and he didn’t know where they’d take him if they did.
Was he going to run away, leave the scene, deny all knowledge, or was he going to run over and help?
And if he were to help, what would he do? He didn’t know what you did for crying kids with weird-shaped arms.
He couldn’t move and he couldn’t speak. His whole body had hollowed out to a hole. He’d turned from clay to glass. Had become transparent and fragile. One move and he’d shatter into pieces.
And then, before the spell broke, the biggest dog he’d ever seen came padding on huge grey feet out of the shadows towards him.
Splash, splash, went its feet along the red-running stream-bed, its nose low, its tongue lolling, its eyes gleaming black.
‘Leafy,’ called a voice, a woman’s voice. ‘Leafy! Where’ve you got to?’
And approaching him was a small bright jolly-looking woman, not old old, but older than his mum and dad, a tall walking stick in one hand.
‘What’ve you found there?’ she said.
The dog, Leafy, sniffed around the sobbing Sascha and looked back at its owner, saying nothing.
‘Oh my,’ said the woman, seeing the girl.
She made her way over, slowly half-scrambling down the shallow bank, leaning on the stick as she went.
‘Um,’ said Hex, standing there, unmoving.
The dog was almost as tall as he was. It came up to his shoulder, at least. Grey and fuzzy and dim and wiry. Wet eyes sparkling black like stars.
‘What’s happened?’ the woman said, as her great dog snurfed at Sascha’s face.
Hex didn’t know if she was talking to him or to the girl or to the dog.
‘Um,’ he said again.
Sascha was crying and giggling as the dog stuck its nose in her ear.
The forest looked at him and said nothing.
The woman looked at him and said, ‘What did you do?’
Stupid girl, Hex thought, suddenly, angrily. Why’d she have to let go? It’s all her fault. Stupid, stupid little girl.
But he said, ‘She fell off the rope-swing.’
‘And broke her arm, by the looks,’ the woman said.
‘Um,’ he said, taking a step backwards.
The woman knelt down and touched Sascha’s forehead, lifted her up by the shoulders so she was almost sitting, murmured something to her.
‘What?’ she said, in answer to something Sascha murmured back.
Hex’s hollow insides had filled with sick.
If he moved he would spill.
‘Who are you?’ the woman asked him severely, jolliness having left her.
The dog sat beside her, a hairy grey boulder staring at him with glistening black eyes.
She’s seen you, he thought. You can’t just say nothing. You can’t just leave. Run off. Not like Tommo did. You’re in this. Stuck in the middle. You’re in trouble, now. All the trouble.
