The Tale of Angelino Brown

  She laughs, and puts her hands into the box and gently lifts him out. He’s so light it’s like he’s hardly there at all.

  “Can’t just lie there all day, you know,” she whispers.

  Bert comes down the stairs. “Little rascal!” he says.

  They giggle as Angelino wakes up and rubs his eyes and looks at them.

  “Peepo!” says Betty.

  Angelino stares at her.

  “Good morning, son!” she says.

  “He’s still in Dreamland, pet,” says Bert.

  Betty wets a tissue with some water then gently dabs his little face with it. Angelino wriggles and squirms and Betty smiles.

  “Can’t have you going to school with all that sleepy in your eyes, can we?” she says. “There, all done! And you look lovely!”

  Angelino has three cornflakes and a splash of milk and a tiny bit of Bert’s bacon sandwich for his breakfast.

  “Good lad,” says Bert.

  “You’ve got to grow up healthy and strong for us,” says Betty.

  They gaze at him for a while.

  Angelino gazes back.

  They go on gazing for a long, long time.

  “Whoops!” says Bert at last. “Time to go! There’s a bus to drive and passengers and bus stops and tons of bloomin’ kids.”

  Betty polishes his bus driver’s badge with her handkerchief, as she does every morning. She tells him not to be so grumpy with the passengers, as she does every morning.

  “Me? Grumpy?” Bert says, as he does every morning.

  He kisses her on the cheek.

  “Bye-bye, pet. Bye-bye, little’n.”

  “Bye-bye, Bert,” says Betty.

  She lifts Angelino’s hand and waves with it.

  “Say ‘Bye-bye, Bert’,” she tells the angel.

  She laughs.

  “He didn’t say it but I know he means it. Bye-bye, lovely Bert.”

  Bert strides down the path in the sunshine. He turns back at the gate – and just look at him.

  There’s a big grin on Bert’s face.

  Angelino is waving, all by himself.

  Now Betty’s walking through the streets towards St Mungo’s School. She passes Sally Simpkin’s Sweet Shop and the Particularly Perfect Pie Shop. She’s carrying her red flowery shopping bag. People wave at her through windows and doorways and she pauses and has a natter with them about the weather or the Prime Minister’s wife or those dreadful wars that are happening all around the world.

  Betty’s very popular and they’re all nice friendly folk, as most folk are.

  “She did look pretty in that frock,” they say, and “What on earth’ll we do when the sea gets as high as the bedroom windows?” and “Why can’t they just stop their silly bombing? That’s what I want to know!”

  Betty’s particular friend is Doreen McTavish, who runs the coffee shop in Blister Square. They sit down together at the little table outside it, under an apple tree, and share a pot of coffee and a toasted teacake.

  “I’ve got something to show you,” says Betty. “Close your eyes.”

  Doreen closes her eyes. Betty opens her shopping bag and lifts out Angelino and places him on the table. Angelino blinks in the sunlight and puts his hands behind his back and stares up at Doreen.

  “Open up,” says Betty.

  Doreen looks. She blinks. She goggles.

  “It’s an angel!” she says at last.

  “I know,” says Betty.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Bert found him,” says Betty. “In his pocket.”

  “In his pocket?”

  “Aye. When he was driving the bus.”

  “Ee, wonders never cease.”

  “He’s called Angelino.”

  “That’s a nice name,” says Doreen. “Very pleased to meet you, lad.”

  She puts her hand out as if to shake Angelino’s hand. The little angel just looks at it.

  “He doesn’t speak,” explains Betty. “Or we don’t think he does. This is my friend Doreen, Angelino.”

  Doreen nibbles the teacake.

  “I saw an angel once,” she says.

  “Did you?”

  “Well, a statue of one, but very lifelike. In the church. I think he’s still in there. He’s got a spear and he’s killing some kind of horrible monster.”

  Betty frowns.

  “I don’t think our Angelino gets up to that kind of thing. Do you, pet?”

  Angelino stares up at her.

  “Do you kill horrible monsters, Angelino?” says Doreen.

  Betty laughs.

  “The very idea!” she says. “Give him a raisin, Betty. He seems to have a sweet tooth.”

  Doreen puts a raisin on her fingertip and lets Angelino lick it off. She giggles at the feeling of the angel’s little tongue.

  “You’re very lucky, Betty,” she says. “What does Bert think?”

  “Bert? He thinks he’s nice.”

  “That’s nice.”

  They both gaze at Angelino.

  Doreen leans across and kisses her friend’s cheek.

  “I’m so happy for you both,” she says.

  Then she starts telling Betty about her daughter who’s backpacking in Australia and her son who’s put a new electric fence around his house in Kent. They sigh and close their eyes and let the lovely sunlight fall on them. Angelino spreads his wings and leans back against a milk jug.

  “The only bad thing he seems to do is to let fly occasionally,” says Betty.

  “Let fly?”

  “You know. Fart.”

  “Well, that’s nothing, is it? Not in the great scheme of things.”

  After she’s said goodbye to Doreen, Betty carries Angelino in the shopping bag towards school. They have to pass St Mungo’s Church. Betty hesitates.

  “I wonder…” she murmurs to herself.

  She goes inside.

  There’s just one old lady kneeling in the front row saying her prayers to a statue of Jesus. Candles are burning under another statue, one of some saint with an arrow in his leg.

  Betty lifts Angelino out of the bag. She lets him stand on her hand. He looks around as if there’s nothing special about the place. Betty carries him over to the statue that Doreen was talking about. True enough, this angel’s massive and he’s got a great big spear in his hand. There’s an ugly snake squirming under his feet and you can see that the angel’s furious and is just about to kill it.

  Betty holds Angelino up high so he can see the angel and its wings.

  “That’s an angel too,” she says. “Just like you are.”

  But there’s hardly any similarity at all. Angelino’s far too small and gentle. He farts, and the sound of it echoes through the nearly empty church.

  “Little devil!” whispers Betty.

  She hears footsteps and tucks Angelino back into the bag. She finds a priest at her side. It’s Father Coogan from Connemara.

  “Good morning,” he says. “Mrs Brown, isn’t it?”

  “Betty.”

  “May I be of help, Betty?”

  “I was just admiring your angel.”

  “Ha! A splendid specimen, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, he’s lovely. Very grand. Are all angels like that?”

  The priest stares at the statue of the angel as if he’s never seen it before.

  “Who can tell?” he says. “It’s said they come in many forms. The Devil himself was said to have been an angel, way, way back.”

  “The Devil himself?”

  “Yes, Betty.” The priest tugs at the white collar around his neck. He lowers his voice. “To be honest, Betty, we aren’t really believing in things like angels and monsters. Not these days.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. We’re more into the modern type of thing.”

  “The modern type of thing?”

  “Yes, Betty. Like getting the guitars out, and the church website, that kind of thing.”

  A farting noise comes
from the shopping bag.

  Betty coughs. Father Coogan frowns, then shrugs.

  “Well, I could stand here nattering all day,” he says, “but parish business calls, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s OK.”

  “Would you like me to pray for you, Betty?”

  “Pray for what?”

  “For your health,” he says. “Your contentment. Your happiness.”

  She laughs.

  “What an idea!” she says. “I’m fit as a flea, content as a cow and happy as a horse!”

  “Excellent!” he says. “Then I’ll say farewell.”

  “That was the priest,” Betty whispers to the shopping bag when he has left. “He’s Father Coogan from Connemara.”

  The lady praying to Jesus turns round to stare at her.

  Betty smiles and waves.

  The lady turns back and prays louder and faster.

  Betty goes out into the sunshine and continues her walk to school.

  Bert passes by, driving his bus. Betty waves and points down to the shopping bag. Bert waves back and toots the bus’s horn three times.

  “What a bloke!” Betty says to the shopping bag. “I’ve never known him do that before!”

  She giggles, and wanders on past the War Memorial and the Green Man pub. She doesn’t see the skinny bloke in the black suit and the sunglasses standing in the dark alleyway next to Boggins, Best Of Butchers. Hang on. Is that the bloke who was the last to get off Bert’s bus last night? Yes, it’s the same bloke. And he’s watching. And he’s writing something down in a notebook. And he’s taking a phone out of his pocket, and he’s making a call.

  Imagine this. You’re in your school yard at playtime and somebody yells, “Come and have a look at this!”

  So you run with everybody else to the school kitchen window. And you look in and you see an angel sitting on a shelf while the cook stirs the gravy and whisks the custard and mashes the spuds. You might think he’s just a little ornament. You might think he’s a little doll that the cook’s brought in with her. But then you see him walking back and forth on the shelf. You see him leaning over the custard to smell it, and then the cook puts a tiny bit on her finger and lets him lick it, and she does the same with the gravy and he twists his face and spits it out.

  What do you do? You goggle and gape and gasp with everybody else. You don’t believe your own eyes but you have to. It’s real.

  There’s an angel, licking custard, in the school kitchen!

  That’s what happens in the yard at St Mungo’s School that morning. Everybody runs to the window. Betty waves at all the faces. She holds little Angelino up so everybody can see him. The small kids squeeze past the big kids to get a better view. Angelino stares back at all those goggling eyes.

  Then somebody cries out in delight. “That’s Bert Brown’s little boy!”

  It’s Nancy Miller, the girl from the bus.

  “I saw him yesterday!” she says. “I gave him a midget gem! Hello! Hello, little angel!” She pushes her face right against the window. “Hello!”

  Does he recognize her? Yes, he does! He stares for a few seconds, then he lifts his hand and waves, just like he did to Bert. Nancy can’t contain herself. She does a little skip, a little dance, a little—

  “Now then, children, what is going on here?”

  It’s Mrs Mole, the Acting Head Teacher. She’s a stocky, round-faced lady with round steel spectacles and a green overcoat. She’s standing in for the Real Head Teacher, Mr Donkin, who has been off school with his nerves since the last School Inspection.

  “It’s an angel, señorita!” cries a small, dark-haired boy wearing a Barcelona strip and orange football boots.

  “Don’t fantasize, Jack Fox. Step aside, children, and let me see.”

  The children step aside. Mrs Mole comes to the window. She looks hard at Angelino. He looks back at her.

  She polishes her spectacles, puts them back on and looks again.

  She closes her eyes, opens them and looks again.

  “It’s an angel,” she says.

  “Yes, Miss,” says Nancy.

  “How did it get here?”

  “Betty brought him, Miss!” says Nancy. “I seen him yesterday and—”

  “It is Mrs Brown to you,” says Mrs Mole. “And it is saw not seen. And…”

  She pauses. What should an Acting Head Teacher do in such circumstances?

  “And you must all disperse to your classrooms right now, and I shall … investigate.”

  Nobody moves.

  She takes off her spectacles and glares.

  “Disperse!” she says in a Very Stern and Head Teacherly voice. And they disperse, while she heads for the kitchen to speak to Betty.

  “Bert found him, Miss,” says Betty when Mrs Mole arrives in the kitchen.

  “Found him?”

  “In his pocket. On the bus.”

  Betty’s trembling slightly – she’s rather nervous in the company of the Acting Head Teacher.

  “And is your husband used to finding such things?”

  “Oh no, Miss. It’s usually umbrellas. And gloves. And once somebody forgot a false leg…”

  Betty bites her lip. Mrs Mole is staring down at Angelino, who is now on the worktop. Angelino grips the handle of a custard jug and leans right back so that he can return the gaze of the Acting Head Teacher. There’s a drop of custard on his lip. He licks it off.

  “And what,” says Mrs Mole to little Angelino, “do you have to say about yourself?”

  “Oh, nothing,” says Betty nervously. “He can’t talk, Miss.”

  “Can’t talk?”

  “No, Miss.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “No, Miss.”

  “And what else cannot he do?”

  “We don’t know, Miss. But he likes eating custard and midget gems.”

  Mrs Mole flinches.

  “Speak up,” she says to Angelino. “I repeat, what do you have to say? Where are you from? What is your name?”

  “He’s called Angelino,” says Betty.

  “Angelino? How do you know?”

  “We wrote it on his box.”

  “On his box?”

  “Yes, Miss. With Bert’s magic marker. Angelino.”

  Mrs Mole casts her eye around the kitchen. She frowns. There is nothing in the Acting Head Teacher’s manual that has prepared her for this.

  “I shall take some time to contemplate the matter,” she says. “In the meantime, there is a school lunch to prepare, and we have a creature who has much to learn about himself and his world. He must attend lessons.”

  “Angelino?” says Betty.

  “Yes, if that really is his name.”

  “But he’s just—”

  “He looks like a child: a child who has much to learn. And as our Secretary of State for Education, Mr Narcissus Spleen, so rightly said, any child who is not in a classroom is a child who is not learning. He will spend the rest of the morning with 5K studying English with Professor Smellie.”

  She takes a deep breath. She is very pleased with herself. Yes, this is how an Acting Head Teacher should behave.

  “Bring Nancy Miller,” she says. “She claims to know this silly thing. She can take the angel to the Professor.”

  Professor Smellie is a Very Clever Man. He is on secondment to St Mungo’s from the University of Blithering-on-the-Fen. He is helping the school to Improve. He works with Clever Children to make them even cleverer so that they can attend his university and become cleverer still and then become Professors like him and teach the children of the future to become Professors themselves.

  He has red curly hair, a crumpled black suit and a rather puzzled expression, as if he has lost something, or as if he can sense a deep dark hole somewhere near by. Right now, he is staring at the ceiling. The class is silent. The Professor is talking slowly and clearly. He doesn’t notice Nancy slipping in through the door with Angelino standing on her outstretched palm.

  “Bey
ond the simple sentence,” he says, “is the compound sentence. This is where two clauses are joined together using a connective.”

  He turns his eyes to the class.

  “Who,” he enquires, “can tell me what a connective is?”

  “It’s the angel, señor!” calls out Jack Fox.

  “The what?” demands the Professor.

  Then he sees Nancy standing shyly there. He flinches, he blinks.

  “You’re late, girl,” he says.

  “Mrs Mole sent for me, sir,” says Nancy. “I was told to bring Angelino to you, sir.”

  He looks at the thing standing on Nancy’s hand. His face becomes even more puzzled than usual. The eyes of the children all shine with delight.

  The Professor approaches. He stares. He closes his eyes tight then opens them again. Yes, the thing is still there, looking back at him.

  “It’s an angel, sir,” says Nancy.

  She wipes a drop of custard from Angelino’s cheek.

  “Mrs Mole says he has to learn, sir.”

  “Sensible woman,” says the Professor. “Find it a seat.”

  “He’s rather little for that, sir,” says Nancy.

  The Professor seems bemused by the problem.

  “He could sit on my desk, sir,” suggests Nancy. “There’s plenty of room for him, sir.”

  “This is true. Sit him there, girl, and let us get on.”

  Angelino does a little skip and a dance as Nancy places him on her desk.

  “Enough tomfoolery,” declares the Professor. “We must concentrate. Time wasted in the classroom can never be recovered. I was explaining about connectives. Listen closely. There are simple connectives such as but and so and and.” He stares at the ceiling again. “But there is also a broader and more complex range of possibilities. Alternatively. Consequently. Therefore. Otherwise…”

  He continues with his list. The children of 5K grin and wave at Angelino. He grins and waves back. He farts and the children try to stifle their giggles.

  “That’ll be the custard,” whispers Nancy.

  “So,” demands the Professor suddenly, “can anyone give me a sentence which contains an interesting and relevant connective?”

  Jack Fox raises his hand.

  “Si, señor!” he calls.