5 Careful what you wish for
First of all, she got home that day to find a policeman in the
front garden with her mother. Briefly shy but still curious, she sidled up to
them and took her mother's hand.
'Oh, here's
Elisha,' said Mrs Goodman, releasing her hand briefly to rub some of the
stickiness off.
Elisha had had a sherbet
fountain on her way back – delicious but difficult to eat. You sucked the sherbet powder up from a
yellow paper cylinder through a straw made of licorice. But sometimes it made
you choke, which is what had just happened to her. And so she’d coughed some up
into her hand.
'It was her bike.' Elisha's
heart thumped as the policeman gave her a look of sympathy from under his
peculiar hat.
'What, what's
happened?' she asked, fearing the worst, her voice coming out all wobbly.
'I'm afraid your
bike's been stolen, darling. Someone broke into the shed while I was out this
morning.'
'No!' yelled
Elisha and ran to the shed to see, hoping to spy her beloved bike out of sight
in a corner. But it was nowhere to be seen - the sad oblong of old curtain lay
crumpled in the cobwebs on the floor, its once-bright autumn leaves sun-faded
into gentle pastels.
'There's been a
spate of these burglaries in the area,' the policeman was saying as Elisha began
to cry. It really wasn't fair.
Suddenly she
cheered up. It didn't matter really. All she had to do was wish for it back
again. What could be easier?
Her mother put a
comforting arm on her shoulder and was just saying, 'It's not the end of the
world, sweetheart’ when Elisha squirmed out of her grasp and leapt up the
stairs to her room.
Her throat was
hurting from crying but she managed to choke out, 'I wish for my bike back,'
while dropping a 2p piece, one she dug out of her Brownie Guide uniform pocket,
the one you kept for an emergency phone call, into the well.
By the time tea came round she was quite serene in the belief that
the bike was on its way back and tucked into her rissoles and instant Smash.
Sure enough there was a knock on the door and it was the same policeman.
'Mrs Goodman?'
'Yes, hello,
constable. Any news?'
Elisha had come
to stand behind her mother, smiling and confident.
'I'm afraid it's
not good, ma'am. We've got the bike down at the station but it's been run over
and badly damaged.'
'Oh no. My
daughter will be devastated. But thanks for letting us know. Was anyone hurt?'
The adults
continued talking but Elisha didn't want to hear any more. She ran to her room
in tears. Her poor bike. She supposed that her wish had come true, but not as
she'd wanted or expected. Something was going wrong with the wishes. She'd have
to try again.
Peering into the
well, she wondered about Aunt Jessie. What had she wished for when she was
little? It would be so nice to ask her advice about what to ask for and how.
Suddenly she missed the old lady and felt sorry to think there would be no more
Sunday trips to see her; and guilty that she had resented them at the time.
Then she picked
up a penny and held it tight in her right hand. 'I wish for my bike back in
perfect condition,' she said. The coin fell, sank briefly into the depths of
the magic well, emerged golden,. Everything would be all right now, she sighed
to herself.
At school the next day, the boys congregated around Elisha. She
couldn't believe how popular she'd suddenly become. In her excitement and
pleasure, she didn't notice that Jasmine and Stephanie were pushed to one side.
In fact, she was so busy with the boys that she didn't get the chance to say a
word to her friends all day. Philip Evans, in his striped knitted tanktop over
a school shirt, walked home with her and even held her hand. Elisha was walking
on air. All the girls at school would be so jealous.
'Good news,
darling,' said her mother as she came into the kitchen. 'The police had the
wrong bike. They got the forms mixed up. Yours still hasn't turned up but they
think they've got a lead on the gang who stole it.'
Elisha smiled.
Things were definitely looking up again. She had no doubt whatsoever that her
bike would soon be back in mint condition. The well wouldn't let her down.
'Aren't you
playing with Jasmine and Stephanie?' asked her mother.
'Oh, no, not today.' It was only then
that she realised that she'd hardly seen her friends all day. Normally they
went to each other's houses after school – usually Jas’s as she had a colour
telly, whose garish hues made the TV worlds look like another planet, handy for
Star Trek but not so good for Little House on the Prairie. Phil
had gone off once they reached her door. He was playing football at the
recreation ground with some boys from his road. Oh well.
She didn't make a
wish that night as she felt it would be a bit greedy. And she also felt a bit
sorry for the bike that had been damaged and whoever owned it, who now wouldn't
get it back in one piece.
The next day her parents had to go to the police station to pick
up her bike. The police had found a garage full of stolen bikes in north London
and hers was among them. It had survived without a scratch. Elisha was
overjoyed.
In class,
however, there was a nasty shock. Miss Clements decided they should have a
surprise spelling test. This was one kind of surprise Elisha could do without.
The teacher would choose a word and then pick on a pupil to stand up and spell
it.
'Of course the
champion spellers will get the more difficult words,' said the teacher, nodding
toward Elisha and smiling.
Elisha tried to
smile back but went suddenly cold all over. Her grin kind of froze on her face.
She hadn't had a chance to wish to do well in this - and she was going to be
given extra hard words because the teacher believed she was good at spelling.
Elisha looked
down at her hands, hoping Miss Clements would forget to call on her.
Occasionally that happened. To begin with, it seemed to work, as other pupils
stood up to spell out words. Elisha stole a glance at the big classroom clock
on the wall. She couldn't read the time all that well though. She wished all
the clocks could be digital like her alarm one. Surely the lesson must be
nearly over. And then it would be time to hear Miss Quigley read some more of
the storybook.
'Elisha.' She
turned her head sharply at the voice and got a sharp pain in her neck. This was
because the message hadn't got through to her brain fast enough, her mum used to
say.
'Yes, miss.' Her
mouth and throat felt dry and her voice sounded cracked like an old woman's.
'Now, this is
quite a short word but it's a bit tricky so think carefully,' the teacher
warned. 'It's aisle, as in cinema aisle or supermarket aisle.'
'Or walking down
the aisle at your wedding, Miss,' added Veronica Atkins, smirking like she was
already in her bridal gown.
'Exactly,
Veronica.' Elisha shot her a sharp look. She was always sucking up to the
teachers.
Standing up,
Elisha felt giddy and unreal somehow, paper-thin, like she might get blown
over. She cleared her throat noisily and some boys giggled. 'Aisle,' she
repeated. '... I - s -l - e ... .' She knew from the teacher's frown she was
wrong.
'No, Elisha,
that's isle as in island...'
'Like in the
British Isles, miss,' trilled Veronica smugly, eagerly thrusting her hand into
the air to be called on.
Miss Clements
nodded at her a bit peremptorily and she got to her feet as Elisha sank down
again at her desk, her cheeks pink and hot.
'Aisle - a - i -
s - l - e,' Veronica pronounced triumphantly. As she flicked a sleek strand of
hair over her shoulder, she couldn't help looking at Elisha in a ‘neer, neer,
neer neer, neer’ way.
'That's right,
Veronica. Well done. Now, all of you who got words right can bring your books
up for a silver star. And Veronica, you get a gold one.'
A small queue of
excited children formed by the teacher's desk, comparing the stars in their
books so far. Elisha wished she could climb inside her desk and curl up very small.
The bell rang
after a few minutes and the children trooped out. It was normally the best time
of day, when they could sit on the floor in a group round Miss Quigley, as she
read the next chapter of the storybook, but Elisha couldn't work up any enthusiasm
for it today. Even when Philip Evans and Neil Savage squabbled over which one
got to sit next to her, it didn't cheer her up. She found herself wishing that
Jasmine and Stephanie were next to her instead - but they'd sat together on the
opposite side of the group. Their heads were close together and they were
suppressing giggles. She wondered if it was a joke about her. Being pretty had
made her all puffed up like a meringue but now she felt hollow inside like one
too. She needed someone to talk to and you couldn't talk to boys ...
6 Daydreams
Elisha fell asleep on the couch that Sunday afternoon. Her dad was
mowing the lawn in the back garden and her mum was on the phone to a friend
she'd met at her Spanish evening class. The lawnmower's repetitive drone mixed
with her mum's voice in her head. Oddly, rather than keeping her awake, the
noise made her feel sleepy and, although she was trying to read a book, she
could feel her eyelids getting heavy.
The book was Five on a Secret Trail by Enid Blyton.
She'd got it in the Red Cross shop in the High Street on Saturday, while her
mum tried on a pair of brown trousers. The kids' paperbacks were all 10p. This
one had a colourful front-cover and was numbered 15. The author's signature was
printed in white on the front. She liked secondhand books. They smelt different
and their readers had left a mark on them in some way. She didn't like it when
she found a crushed fly stuck to the page or bits of old food in the inside
margins though. And things her mum called ‘unmentionables’. Yuck.
It had blue ink
stains on the first page and a scrap of exercise-book paper Sellotaped to the
inside of the cover. On this someone had written dates in red felt tip, with
initials, as if they'd tried to copy the author's signature a bit. Some of it
was just squiggles. And the dates were written inside blue, fountain-pen ring
marks, that looked like the imprint of the bottom of something.
Further on in the
book she found a postcard of something called 'the Lincoln Imp', sent to a Miss
Emma Phillips.
The postcard told
`The Legend of the Lincoln Imp', under a picture of a stone imp, apparently a
young demon turned into stone by one of God's angels for mucking about in
Lincoln Cathedral. Elisha thought that seemed a bit harsh - the imp was only
having fun and he didn't look really evil.
She takes the book upstairs, yawning cavernously, entering her
room to find the actual Lincoln Imp jumping up and down on her bed, making
everything else on the tartan bedspread bounce around dangerously. Her
schoolbag is being thrown up so that it flops down and stuff starts to spill
out - felt-tips and snack box and her workbook with its stickers and stars and
popstars' names in fluorescent colours ...
The imp meanwhile is baring its teeth to snarl and making a hideous
gurgling sound. Suddenly she sees the well, perilously close to the edge of the
bed, knocked on its side, the bucket hanging over the top of the roof. She
tries to get round to it but as soon as she moves, the imp leaps in front of
her.
She tries to call
out for her mum but can't get the words out - her voice is sticking in her
throat. She tries several times without managing to make any sound at all. At
last she squeezes out a croaky 'Mu--um', so quiet that it's almost inaudible.
She feels like she’s trapped in a particularly scary episode of Doctor Who.
Suddenly, the imp
turns away from her and takes hold of the well. Released from his gaze, Elisha
realises what she must do and reaches for her money box, opening the back to
take out a penny. The demon seems entranced by the well, which he has taken
hold of with both hands, staring into it and shaking it violently about,
grunting with his exertions.
Elisha pulls her
hand back behind her head and throws the coin towards the well. It looks like
it's going to miss but somehow it swerves in midair, correcting itself, and
drops into the well. 'I wish the imp gone,' she says aloud, amazed that the
words actually come out.
There's the sound
of water rushing down the plughole, only louder, much louder. It sounds like
Niagara Falls or something. The whole room rocks with the noise. And all at
once the imp's head is pulled towards the well opening, then his body - the
whole of him seems to become fluid and lose its form as he's sucked down into
the well and is gone. It's immediately silent, almost eerily so.
Elisha woke up to find herself
still on the old couch and her parents in the back garden, inspecting a
rosebush together. She sighed and relaxed but her calmness only lasted a minute
before she panicked that something might really have happened to the well.
Running up the stairs to her
bedroom two at a time, the heavy thump of her feet echoed the loud beating of
her heart. She knew it was just a dream but she couldn't help being worried. As
she bounded through the door, it flew back and hit her clothes cupboard with a
sickening crunch. She didn't stop to look at the damage she'd done, but chucked
the Famous Five book on the bed and stooped to look in the bottom of her
wardrobe, where she'd stowed the well for safekeeping. Her mouth fell open – it
wasn't there. She rummaged desperately among old shoes and sandals and trews
that had got too small and had an elasticated band you put round the bottom of your
feet and the school projects on fashion and nature that you did at the end of
each term. It wasn't there! It hadn't got buried or pushed aside. She flung
both wardrobe doors wide open to let in more light. A sprig of pussy willow and
a sycamore wing-pod thing tumbled out of the blue nature folder. But there was
no sign of the little wishing well.
Back she ran down
the stairs - one at a time as it was harder to skip steps on the way down, but
still as fast as she could, shouting 'Mum! Mum!' as she landed in the hall and
careered round the banister. Her mother was stepping through the French
windows, a plastic green watering can in one hand and grass darts in her hair.
'What is it,
darling?' She paused to water some houseplants on the coffee table, spider
plants whose long striped fronds brushed the floor, taking the shower-type
attachment off the spout and replacing it afterwards.
'It's Aunt
Jessie's well! It's gone! It was in the bottom of my wardrobe and it's gone!'
Elisha jumped around her mother, making dust bounce up and swirl in the
sunlight.
Her mother
sneezed. 'Oh, the well. I've moved it to the display cabinet in the other room,
darling. I thought it was getting a bit dusty down there in your wardrobe.'
'But, Mummy, it's
mine. I want to keep it in my room.'
'Well, I know,
darling. But I thought it might be safer in the cabinet.'
'Why? I'm looking
after it, aren't I?'
'Go out and help
your dad with the grass clippings and we'll see.'
'Oh, Mum.' Her
tone was the protest.
She stepped down
onto the pink and grey crazy paving and a grass dart immediately landed on her
sleeve. Her father was grinning at her mischievously, standing by the climbing
frame with a lot of grass darts ready in one hand. He threw another one and it
stuck in her hair. For an instant she just looked at him grumpily but then
another one landed in her sock. Unable to help herself, she leapt up the steps
to the lawn and ran towards him, yelling, and launching herself at his stomach.
He grunted as she hit him and dropped the darts, which she quickly grabbed at
and started to throw at him. In a minute they were both rolling around on the
grass, laughing.
Suddenly her mum
was standing over them with the watering can. 'That's enough larking about, you
two,' she smiled; and then tipped the can so that water sprinkled down on top
of them. Elisha screamed and her dad went, 'Right, that's it!' before grabbing
her mum round the knees so that she ended up down on the grass too. And pretty
soon they were all red in the face and puffed out and Elisha's sides hurt from
laughing. She had grass clippings plastered to her face with the water and soil
in her hands from falling in the flowerbed.
Her parents
helped each other to their feet. 'I think you'd better have your bath before
tea today,' suggested her father, considering Elisha's mucky face and hands and
tossing his slightly long hair back over his sideburns (sometimes he took
longer doing his hair than her mum did).
'What about you
two? You're just as bad as me.'
'I think she's getting a bit cheeky,
don't you? Obviously we're not disciplining her enough.' Her dad lifted her
upright and pretended to smack her. She squealed and ran inside the house and
up the stairs, for the moment forgetting all about the magic well.
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