With a backward glance that took in the whole scene one last time – poor Moggit hanged and bobbing with the motion of the elder branch, the hedgehog finally exhausted, gasping its life out where it lay, and the dead, mutilated birds strung up in a row – she turned away and fled for home. And bursting through the tunnel of undergrowth out of the ruins, she knew that Johnny was right behind her.
And he would have been; except he knew that if she got home first, she would bring someone to see. And he mustn’t let anyone see.
Quickly he cut down Moggit and the birds, and yanked the hedgehog’s stake from the ground. Panting from the furious pace of his exertions, and from his fury in general, he tossed the lot into a deep, stagnant well which he’d discovered on the site, whose battened cover had long since rotted away in one corner. He hated to see his dead and dying things go down into the dark like that, making splashes in the deep, black, unseen water below. Wasted, all of them, and so much ‘life’ still left in them! It was all Carol’s fault. Yes, and there’d be a lot more to blame her for if she got home first.
He set out after her, following her wailing and the wild, zig-zag, trail she left through the long grass.
A half-mile across rough, open countryside is a long way when you’re a heartbroken child with your eyes full of tears. Carol’s heart hammered in her breast and her breath was ragged and panting; but to drive her on there was always that picture burning on her mind’s eye, of Moggit dangling and jerking in the wire noose, with his guts hanging out like a small bag of crushed fruits when her mother made jam in the kitchen. And to drive her even faster was Johnny’s voice crying after her: ‘Caaarol! Carol – wait for me!’
She did no such thing; the garden wall was just ahead, at the end of the hedgerow; behind her, panting – and yet growling too, like some savage dog – Johnny was catching up. His groping hand missed her ankle by inches as she half-climbed, half-fell over the wall. But on the garden side she just lay there, too terrified, tearful, too exhausted to go on.
And Johnny jumping down after her, his eyes mad and glaring, small fists tightening and slackening where he held them to his sides. She looked toward the house but it was hidden behind fruit trees and the misted dome of the pool. Would her parents be up yet? She didn’t even have the wind for yelling.
Johnny snarled as he bunched her hair in a strong fist and commenced dragging her towards the pool. ‘Swimming!’ he said, the word bursting from his lips like a bubble of slime. ‘You’re going swimming, Carol. You’re going to like it, I know. And so am I. Especially afterwards!’
For the last week or so, David Prescott had also taken to getting up early. Alice didn’t complain or ask why, because he was always so quiet and considerate and invariably brought her a cup of coffee. It must be the summer, the light mornings, the old ‘early bird’ syndrome. But in fact it was the mail.
Out this way the mail deliveries were always early, the very crack of dawn, and David was expecting a letter. From the orphanage. Not that it would contain anything of any significance – he was sure it wouldn’t – but still he’d like to get to it before Alice. If she saw it first . . . well, she’d only say he was paranoid. About Johnny. And certainly it would look as though he was, else why would he write to the orphanage about him?
The thing was, David was desperate that things should work out all right; he really did want to love the poor kid. But at the same time he’d always been more receptive of mood than Alice – more aware of the aura of people, especially kids – and he knew that Johnny’s aura just wasn’t right. If it was something out of his past (but what past? He was just a child), something the orphanage would know about, then David believed that he and his wife should be told. For he suspected Alice was right to complain about the attitude of the orphanage; they had seemed too eager to wash their hands of Johnny, or rather: ‘To place him in the care of a normal, loving family, where he can grow into a healthy person. Healthy in mind, as well as in body . . .’