Whirl of the Wheel
by Catherine Condie
Three children whirl back in time through an enchanted potter’s wheel into the reality of evacuation in 1940s Britain. Only two return . . . Whirl of the Wheel pulls feisty Connie, her brother Charlie-Mouse, and school pest Malcolm into dangers on the homefront and towards a military operations secret that will save their home. This ebook includes hyperlinked chapters.
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Whirl of the Wheel
Copyright 2009 Catherine Condie
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Whirl of the Wheel Hyperlinked Contents
Chapter One: An unwelcome encounter
Chapter Two: The next move
Chapter Three: Packing cases, pots and purple tea
Chapter Four: Of magic and history
Chapter Five: Rewind 1939
Chapter Six: In Dracula's Castle
Chapter Seven: The kitchen front
Chapter Eight: Summer 1940 - 'Spitfire Summer'
Chapter Nine: Summer 1940 - Secrets abound
Chapter Ten: Missing you
Chapter Eleven: Back to earth
Chapter Twelve: Gathering pace
Chapter Thirteen: Christmas is coming
Chapter Fourteen: Winter 1940 - Winter arrival
Chapter Fifteen: Winter 1940 - The unexpected visitor
Chapter Sixteen: Winter 1940 - At the far end of the house
Chapter Seventeen: Winter 1940 - From one desk to another
Chapter Eighteen: Winter 1940 - Wish me luck
Chapter Nineteen: Winter 1940 - Caught in the danger zone
Chapter Twenty: Winter 1940 - A lucky escape
Chapter Twenty One: Where is Malcolm?
Chapter Twenty Two: In the quiet of the night
Chapter Twenty Three: Make do and mend
Chapter Twenty Four: Spring 1941 - The stranger
Chapter Twenty Five: Spring 1941 - The tower revisited
Chapter Twenty Six: Spring 1941 - Dreams do come true
Chapter Twenty Seven: Welcome home
Chapter Twenty Eight: New hope
Chapter Twenty Nine: Their finest hour?
Chapter Thirty: Flashes of the past
Chapter Thirty One: The shoot
Chapter Thirty Two: A place in time
Epilogue: Summer 1941 - Malcolm's deliverance
Chapter One An unwelcome encounter
Connie stretched her arms, her gaze meeting with the plume of white-grey smoke curling from their kitchen chimney.
‘Race you home!’ she yelled into the wind.
Charlie-Mouse tore away towards the old house, whipping up a whirl of grass cuttings, twigs and leaves, and without even a glance behind.
‘Run around the tree!’ Connie shouted.
Charlie-Mouse reached out, grabbing the trunk of an apple tree. ‘I’ll make it . . . at least three . . . times round,’ he called.
Connie brought her jazzy coloured wheelchair to a halt.
Her brother grinned, chest heaving. ‘Beat you . . . by miles,' he said. 'Don’t tell me . . . grass too . . . bumpy?’
Connie smoothed her shock of golden hair and rolled her rainbow bracelet back in place.
‘You’re so sad and immature, Charlie. You always say that. Anyway, you were ahead from the start!’
Charlie-Mouse leaned over, resting his knobbly elbows on her shoulders and bending to her ear. ‘Then you should always be prepared!’ he whispered, and jumped away.
Straight into the path of the gangliest boy in class.
Connie’s insides crawled as the boy Malcolm Mollet lurched past them to hook a yellow notice onto the swirls of their back gate. He forced his sneeze all over it as if to cement it there, then turned round and smirked. ‘Mister Charlie Boring Mouse wants to know what this says?’ he crowed.
‘Not particularly,’ muttered Charlie-Mouse.
‘Betcha do.’
Malcolm Mollet faced him square, taunting with a crooked smile. ‘I’m gonna tell ya anyway. We’re gonna smash it all up!’
‘Smash all what up?’ demanded Connie.
He spun with a menace in his eyes. ‘Your house.’
She followed his finger in disbelief. Claybridge leaned out to them, its peg-tiled roof climbing and falling along the length of the dwelling. She laughed. ‘Don’t be mad!’
‘Suit yourself,’ said Malcolm, twisting his nose away.
‘You are joking aren’t you?’ she said. ‘They’d never allow it! It’s over 300 years old. It’s got history and it’s . . .’ She pulled at the pendant around her neck. ‘You are so wrong!’
‘We can, and we are. So there!’ Malcolm struggled with an asthmatic cough, swinging his body back and forth on the pillar of the Victorian lamp post. ‘And your stupid treehouse, Dracula’s Castle or whatever you call it – that’s coming down too.’
‘You idiot!’ said Charlie-Mouse, pinning one of his solid stares straight into Malcolm Mollet’s small eyes. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Read it yourself, Boring, and wait and see,’ threatened Malcolm. ‘My old man’s got the bulldozers lined up to flatten the lot. Then he’s going to put stacks of new houses all over the top.’
Flicking over and over at his ash-blonde fringe, the boy turned to go. He spat in the direction of the house and stalked off along the ruts on the muddy side of the path.
‘You’re disgusting!’ Connie shouted after him.
Corberley City Council
Notice of Receipt of Planning Application
Provision of new housing on the site known as Claybridge Farm
Demolition of the aforementioned house and outbuildings . . .
As she read further, panic burned in the pit of her stomach, firing up to launch an attack on every strand of her twelve-year-old body. This is a mistake. No, don’t cry – whatever you do, don’t cry. She tensed up to fight it off and, breathing hard, held onto her tears and clenched her teeth. She tucked her hair firmly behind her ears and flashed her brother a determinedly explosive look.
‘This time the stick insect has gone too far,’ she said. ‘It’s the meanest trick of all.’
Chapter Two The next move
Connie’s mum flustered around the kitchen, her soft olive complexion blotched with pink. ‘There’s been a mix-up with the lease of the house – something to do with the sale of the farmland, the war . . . and the church no longer has control,’ she said, bending to open a bottom cupboard. ‘The solicitors tried to help but things were messy . . . and we’ve decided the house is far too grand for us anyway.’
‘That can’t be the reason,’ Connie snapped. ‘We belong here. Dad’s work is here. We can’t let those creeps get the better of us!’ Her staccato breaths shortened with increasing desperation, her bright blue eyes clouding. She stopped. The silence bit into her anger and the words spilled out – ‘We’re not leaving the village are we?’
‘No, we’re not leaving the village that’s the blessing at least,’ sighed her mum. And she began to talk at greater speed, as if her words protected her. ‘The vicarage can g
o anywhere, as long as your father goes with it. The good news is we have the keys to Number 25, on the corner. It’s nice enough – plenty of space. We’ll start moving as and when.’ She turned her face and started to sort kitchen utensils into large plastic boxes.
As and when! She meant right away by the looks of it.
Connie left her wheelchair and moved to a kitchen chair. Her mum’s face crinkled. A hand whisk clattered to the floor as they held each other tight.
‘Hey, hey.’ Her mum spoke softly into her shoulder. ‘This isn’t my strong, courageous girl is it?’
Charlie-Mouse fixed his eyes downward as he stood flexing his calf muscle and kicking his foot to dent the leg of the kitchen table. ‘Unbelievable,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t mind so much if it were a case of someone else moving in. But this is mega bad.’
‘Jim,’ Connie’s mum called out. ‘Do come and see the children.’
A flurry of sound, like that of distant voices, nestled with the creaks and murmurings of the old house, and the solid beat of her dad’s footsteps echoed on the stone floor of the hall corridor.
Dad pushed open the door. His face matched the grey of his beard, his forehead fixed in furrows from trained and concentrative thought.
‘Ah.’ As he stretched out his hands towards her, the furrows relaxed a little. ‘You know, you two – it’s not all bad. At least they can’t knock down head office,’ he said, motioning at the church.
‘But it is all bad,’ answered Connie. ‘It’s a total disaster. I can’t believe they’re allowed . . .’ She rapped her knuckles on the tabletop, giving a glare that demanded some sort of resolution from her dad’s tired eyes.
It didn’t come.
‘I know, Darling. It’s difficult to understand – even for me. I’ve asked for divine intervention, left a fair few messages, but no one’s come back to me yet,’ he joked.
She couldn’t utter a sound in return. She picked at the stitching on her pink-and-white-striped shorts, and glared watery-eyed at the quarry tiles on the floor until they submitted to double vision.
A sharp knock at the back door threw her thoughts back together.
‘Oh, Wendy, so good of you to come,’ said her mum, brushing her hands over her eyelids and lashes to greet her friend and neighbour with a polite kiss on the cheek.
‘Not at all,’ said Wendy. ‘Afternoon Vicar sorry if it’s a bad time. Hello Connie. Hello Charlie. I had to come . . . Mollet’s plans are the talk of the village.’
‘Sadly,’ said her mum. ‘So very sadly.’ She gestured for Wendy to take a seat and started to fill the kettle. ‘Tea?’
‘Please,’ said Wendy. ‘Blueberry, if you have some.’
The water on the bottom of the stainless steel kettle sizzled on the Aga.
‘I’ve a special supply, especially for you,’ answered her mum. ‘You know that.’
Wendy twirled her layered skirt over the empty chair seat next to Connie and sank on top of it. The skirt drifted down after her like a silk parachute, throwing up a powerful aroma of blueberry burst body lotion that swelled in Connie’s nose.
Don’t get too close to the Wendlewitch or she might turn you into a purple frog.
Connie gave half a secret smile. At school they called her Wendy the Wendlewitch. It suited her.
Connie looked upon the Wendlewitch’s shining, moon-shaped face and her sympathetic (almost purple) eyes. The woman’s chestnut hair jumbled out from a tie-dyed cotton hairband that matched the deepest purple hue in her clothing. She had a good aura about her . . . if she were a witch.
‘Anything I can do to help,’ said their guest, reaching one of her clay-spattered hands to Connie’s forearm and sparking a static shock. ‘You only have to ask.’
Connie shook her head but willed her to turn Malcolm Mollet and his dad into a pair of frogs.
‘How about helping us to pack?’ said her mum, with a wry smile.
‘No dear, that’s not the spirit,’ said the Wendlewitch, raising her hands in some sort of a mini-trance. ‘There are some great vibes about.’ She swirled her head wildly before whipping open her eyes. ‘Mind you, I do have a good supply of cases back at the pottery.’
Her mum almost laughed. ‘I suppose we could do with some more. I’ll send the children over after six.’
‘It’s not a defeat just yet. We’re not going to let Mollet win this, are we?’ The Wendlewitch leaned in closer. ‘Not with the history of this place.’
Her mum pursed her lips.
‘My dear – things are never as bad . . .’
Connie lost track of their conversation as it drifted to the subjects of objections and planning committees. Wishing for a miracle, she fell deeper and deeper into a daydream, savouring the wonderfully satisfying image of Malcolm Mollet transforming from a human stick insect into a plump purple frog.
Chapter Three Packing cases, pots and purple tea
Six o’clock had come and gone when they arrived at the pottery to collect the cases.
Connie's eyes jumped from the window display of jugs, bowls and the scattering of stilled moths and dead flies, to the Wendlewitch leaning out above with her purple mobile against one ear and her hair harassed by the afternoon breeze.
‘The door’s open – I’ll be right down,’ the Wendlewitch called, closing up with a flash of purple-painted nails.
‘Come on, Charlie-Mouse,’ encouraged Connie. ‘Push me in.’
Her nervousness tugged inside her chest, much as it did when she came here as a small child, clinging to her parents’ sides and feeling their chat thud back and forth across the scary witch’s cavern.
She shuddered. The room hummed with the same mystic curiosity – from the crouching blue and gold spotted china cats eyeing her from a top shelf, to the odd crowd of old and dented copper kettles and the collection of dusty antique fire screens cluttering the chimney breast at the far end of the room.
And so many pots old pots crammed full of tools, new pots to be painted, pots waiting to be fired, and pots ready to sell. Pots of all shapes and sizes, in peculiar passions of purple and blue, teetering expectantly on every available surface.
‘You wait here while I search for those cases,’ said the Wendlewitch, stooping to the floorboards and shuffling a gathering of pencils, pens and brushes into her skirt. She delivered them onto a thick spread of sun-curled notes and scraped a heavy wooden stool with carved lion’s feet away from her potter’s wheel to make way for Connie’s chair. ‘You can give her a whirl—’ she said, idly twisting the wheel to-and-fro. ‘She won’t bite.’
When the Wendlewitch let it go, the old wheel inched its way to a stop in its battered wood frame. Connie saw how it slotted into a modern construction of pinewood and metal. Wires trailed beneath, and disappeared into a switchbox at knee level, then to a floor pedal like the treddle her mum used on her electric sewing machine.
Persuasion sparkled from the Wendlewitch’s eyes, and she proceeded to drop a ball-sized lump of wet brown clay into Connie’s open hands.
The soft mass glooped as Connie passed it palm-to-palm. Sort of clammy. Sort of slimy. She curbed a serious urge to squeeze, to see the stickiness worm through the gaps. Reluctantly she cupped it into a firm ball, cradling it with her slender fingers, not wanting to let go.
‘Cool,’ said Charlie-Mouse. Sitting with his chin balanced in his hands at the adjoining worktable, he had that look, as if he were about to set off one of his badly staged throat-clearing fits to put her off.
Connie narrowed her eyes, ‘Don’t you dare,’ she mouthed, sensing the bite of clay in her mouth. But there was something else, and the feeling surprised her. It hit her with all the thrill of a fairground ride – the excitement and the fear pulling her chest tighter still.
The Wendlewitch gave the potter’s wheel a helpful and determined spin using the tips of her ring-clad fingers. ‘Ready?’ she asked.
Connie nodded. Throwing down her clay, she dipped her fingers int
o the water bowl. But as she drew them back to the wheel, a rush of air swirled out from its centre and around her body. She forced her eyes from the mesmerising spin to fix upon the mystical outline of the Wendlewitch’s face. Scattered particles of light teased the air about her into a haze.
In an instant of purple confusion, the Wendlewitch whirled out of view and her pottery workshop went with her.
A new atmosphere pervaded.
The musty smell of wood and chalk dust hit Connie’s nostrils. She fell forward onto a sloped wooden desk, knocking hard into her funny bone.
‘What on earth . . ?’ exclaimed Charlie-Mouse, his voice echoing around the empty room. He slid off the back wall and into a seat behind her, scraping hard at her combats. But she didn’t move a muscle. She couldn’t – even though her elbow ached madly and she wanted to shake away the pain ricocheting through her body. Neither could she make a sound her mouth was sealed tight and her tongue glued to the back of her teeth. She moved only her eyes. Hanging portraits of kings, queens and prime ministers glowered back. The background scream of the overhead gas lighting, the whipping of the wind and the shrieks from outside added their challenges to her senses.
Stay calm, breathe, and relax. Everything’s fine.
Someone came into the room. Startled, she nodded and smiled politely, clicking her heels in perfect time across the polished floor. The outside noise built to crescendo as the lady opened the door and blew sharply on her whistle. At once the shrieks fell and the playing children – with small boxes dutifully strung across their bodies – hurried into line. ‘Be quick about it,’ the lady instructed.
The room filled – they moved along the lines of desks – shoes plain and practical, laced and buttoned, and polished in black or brown. Two to a bench seat – their backs a combination of coloured cardigans, pinafores, pullovers, shirts and tanktops.
‘Settle down please.’ The lady cleaned the blackboard with a damp cloth and swung it over to the dry side. She took up a chalk and headed, Monday, 18th September, 1939.
A half-breath warmed at Connie’s neck as Charlie-Mouse stifled another gasp. He clenched his grip on her hair.
‘Be calm and considered in your writing – your parents will expect it.’