Mira got up and went for Polly as she came. Polly had just time to realise that the screaming girl was Nina, before battle was joined. It did not go on for long. A dinner lady noticed, in spite of everyone standing round to hide the fight, and the two were pulled apart after only a minute. But in that short time Polly had torn Mira’s skirt off her and made Mira’s nose bleed, and Mira had hit Polly in both eyes. Mira did some expert whining and said it was all Polly’s fault. Polly and her two black eyes were marched to the Headmistress.
All the teachers had noticed the change in Polly this term. The Headmistress thought she knew the reason. So, after the usual telling-off – which Polly stood through as stony as Ivy – she said, “What’s the matter with you at the moment, Polly? You used to be one of our nicest girls. Is there something wrong at home you’d like to tell me about?”
“No,” said Polly. It was something like the way she had deceived Seb. She meant she did not want to tell the Headmistress.
“Then why are you doing it?” said the Headmistress.
This question seemed to call for the truth. Heroes have to be honourable. “I’m training to be a hero,” Polly explained. “The adrenaline has to flow.”
“Does it indeed?” said the Headmistress. “Well, I suppose Nina is your friend. You mustn’t listen to all the silly ideas Nina has, Polly.” And Polly had to listen, in silent indignation, to another lecture, this one about Nina leading her astray. At the end of it the Headmistress said, “I think I’d better talk to your mother, Polly. Will you please give her this letter as soon as you get home.”
This was only the first embarrassment. Polly came away from the Headmistress to find that the rest of the school regarded her as a heroine. This is nothing like being a hero, which is inside you. This was public. People asked for her autograph and wanted to be her friend. She came out of school at the end of the afternoon surrounded by a mob of people all trying to talk to her at once. It made Polly’s head ache. Each of her black eyes was going bump, bump, bump, and swelling in spite of the stuff Miss Green had put on them. And Nina was waiting at the gate. Nina’s eyes looked odd too, because Mira had broken her glasses, but she was beaming with friendship and gratitude.
“Oh Polly, you were so brave! I was so thankful!”
Somehow Polly did not have the heart to explain. It was the first sign of an unheroic soft-heartedness in her which she later learned was part of her, and which no amount of reproaching herself seemed to get rid of. It caused her to go home with Nina, as she used to before, but she was really rather bored. Still, she stayed for tea, because it was rude not to, and came home quite late.
Ivy looked round from the television to see Polly with two black eyes, clutching a bent and dirty letter from school. “Oh, Polly! What have you been up to now!?”
It occurred to Polly, as she handed the letter over, that Mum always seemed to expect her to have been up to something. It annoyed her – not for now, but for all the other times in the past when she had been quite innocent. She was just going to protest about it, when her attention was caught by the programme Ivy was watching – or, rather, sitting in front of.
It was an orchestra, playing furiously, the way they do when the music is shortly going to end. The picture was sliding about, across banks of men in black coats and white bow ties, and one or two ladies in black dresses, picking up rows of stabbing violin bows, somebody’s hands banging a big drum, and the face of a man blowing a pipe sideways. Polly’s heart, and the rings round her eyes, banged like the big drum. She was suddenly absolutely sure that this was Mr Lynn’s orchestra. She held her hair back and leaned forward to see whether the camera would slide over him too.
“Oh Polly!” Ivy wailed, reading the letter. “What got into you?”
“Nothing,” Polly said gruffly, staring at the television. The picture slid to the conductor waving both arms strenuously. Back to violins working like high-speed pistons. To rows of shiny trumpets. To fingers nimbly working keys on an oboe. And back to the drum. It was going to end any second, and they had not shown any cellos at all.
“But the Headmistress says here,” said Ivy, “that she thinks you’re not happy.”
The picture slid sideways, broadening and retreating for the last chords, to show the full orchestra, banked up black and white and all hard at work, and just for an instant the screen was full of men sitting behind cellos. Mr Lynn was there, quite near the front, sawing with the rest. Polly had a full glimpse of him, neat and colourless, the way he had been at the funeral, before he melted into the big view of the whole orchestra playing the last note.
“I’m perfectly happy,” she said. “I’m training to be an assistant hero. I have to fight.”
“Don’t give me your nonsense,” Ivy said wearily.
The screen was showing the audience now, clapping. It was obviously a big occasion. They were in evening dress too. The announcer was saying, “Tremendous applause here from this gala audience for this performance of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, the Eroica, given by the British Philharmonic Orchestra…” The camera dwelt on rows of clapping people, and lingered across two that Polly knew. One was Laurel, wearing a green, gauzy dress. She was turning as she clapped to say something to the man beside her, and this man had bags of dark skin under his eyes, almost as black as Polly’s were at the moment. Mr Leroy.
“It’s not nonsense,” she said. “I think I may have to rescue someone.”
“Oh for goodness’ sake, Polly!” Ivy reached forward, in exasperation, to turn the television off.
“Don’t turn it off yet!” Polly shrieked.
Ivy looked at her in surprise. “But it’s nothing interesting.”
She turned back and switched the set off. But Polly’s interruption had delayed her just long enough for the titles to start rolling up over the audience. THE BRITISH PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA… EUROPEAN TOUR… ONE: HOLLAND… Polly had time to read this far before the picture zoomed away into nothing at the back of the screen. She did not mind. She had seen enough. Mr Lynn was not in England. He had not got her letter. And Laurel and Mr Leroy were not letting him out of their sight. She felt too miserable to care what Ivy said.
“Now, listen, my girl!” said Ivy. “I’m not having this from you. You’re just like your father. He’ll make up a lie and then he’ll make himself believe it – I’ve watched him do it. And I’m not having you grow up that way. I want the truth. What was that fight about?”
Polly shrugged and said the thing Mum was most likely to believe. “Mira Anderton got Nina down and banged her head on the playground.”
“Oh I see,” Ivy said, mollified. “Why didn’t you say so? Well, I’d better go and tell that to your Headmistress, then.”
It made Polly feel an utter liar, but it served to get her out of trouble.
Term went on. Her black eyes got better. She decided she had perhaps been training a bit too hard, and she went at it more cautiously after that. She gave up trying to pick up her bed, but she still played football because she liked it so much. And she remained much more popular at school than she felt she deserved. She had troops of friends. One advantage of this was that she did not have time to go on being close friends with Nina. Another advantage was that Polly did not have time to be as miserable as she knew she felt underneath.
Ivy seemed to be trying to pull herself together. She surprised Polly by getting a job in the office of Middleton Hospital. Polly had to come in and get her own tea and do the shopping on Saturdays. Polly quite enjoyed that, though the house seemed very quiet.
Just before school broke up for Easter, a puffy brown bag of a parcel arrived for Polly. Ivy had left for work when the postman brought it. Polly nearly made herself late for school. It was from Mr Lynn. Inside was a ball of cotton wool, and inside the cotton wool were five rather elderly-looking plastic soldiers. Polly did not mind their old look, because she saw at a glance they had been much loved. Each of them had been carefully painted in the correct colours for the uniforms.
Since two of them were Highlanders with tiny plaid kilts, Polly could see the painting had been very difficult to do. Wrapped round them was one of Mr Lynn’s badly typed letters.
Dear Hero,
Yoru lettter was waiting for me when I got back from Ureoep – sorry! – Preuoe – sorry! – the Contintinent. Im glad you liked the bokos so much, and very sorry about your disaponitment over the dollshouse. I had a front-sorry!-fort once. Iv’e no idea where it went, but I still seem to have these soldiers from it. I hope you will like them. Sorry there are’nt more.
What with caves and other heroes, there is a great deal for us to dsicuss. Can you suggest a day when I can call for you and take you out for the day? I am free the first weeek of April.
By the way, Tan Coul has mananaged to change his horse into something else. You will see what I mean when I see you.
Yrs, T. G. L.
Polly was free the first week in April too. Holidays started then. She sat straight down to write and tell Mr Lynn so. Then she looked at the clock and found she had to go to school instead. The day seemed endless. But she was home at last, and the letter was written and posted. The soldiers were put in a place of honour in Polly’s room. And the day was endless again.
To have something to do, Polly got out her nice dress and tried it on. There was a grease stain in front where she had dripped butter and honey despite all her care, and a muddy patch on the back where she had crouched on the pavement, afraid of the horse.
The dress did not seem as big as it had been. It squeezed her round the chest and nipped her round her forearms, and the skirt came nowhere near her knees. But since it was the only nice dress Polly had, she went and looked at herself in Mum’s big mirror, hoping it would do.
She saw a wild, gawky figure in a dress three sizes too small. Under the wrong-length frill of skirt were two thin legs with a scab on each knobbly knee. Round the scabs the knees were grey. The hands dangling out of the too-short sleeves were grey, too. The wild tails of her hair were not quite grey, but they were drab somehow and rather like snakes, and the face among the snakes had a sulky look, even though the sulky look was just breaking up into tears.
“Oh no!” wailed Polly, and completed bursting into tears as she fled downstairs to the telephone. Tears made white places on her hand as she dialled Granny’s number. “Granny! Granny!”
“What is it, Polly?” Granny’s voice said, sharp and comforting in the receiver.
“Mr Lynn’s asked me out and my nice dress is too small!”
There was a slight pause from the other end. Then Granny said, “Back from Europe, is he?” Polly was surprised and interested to find that Granny had been following Mr Lynn’s movements too. “Well, that’s nothing to take on about,” Granny said.
“But I’ve no good clothes at all!” Polly wailed.
“Polly!” Granny said, sharper still. “Stop howling and answer me one serious question.”
“Yes,” Polly gulped.
“Did Mr Lynn ask you out, or did you ask him?” said Granny.
“He wrote and asked – I never said a word, promise,” said Polly. “And he sent me a parcel with soldiers in—”
“All right,” said Granny. “I’m not sure I like it, Polly, but if he’s free to ask, I suppose he must want to see you. But be wary of what he gives you. Keep that to yourself, understand? Now, are you sure you want a dress? Wouldn’t a pair of jeans and perhaps a nice jacket be better?”
“Well—” Polly remembered Mr Lynn’s old anorak. “Much better. But I haven’t even got any jeans that fit, Granny.”
“I thought that was what you were asking me for,” Granny retorted. “I’ll buy you them for your birthday, Polly. I’m not made of money.”
Polly’s birthday was not till June, but it was worth having no present from Granny then, just to be properly dressed now. She thanked Granny gratefully.
“I don’t do it to be thanked,” Granny said, and rang off.
Polly went upstairs and carefully put the soldiers in her folder along with her paintings. When Ivy came home, she was waiting in the hall. “Mum, my hair needs washing.”
“I suppose it does,” Ivy agreed. Neither of them could remember when Polly’s hair was last washed. They went up to the bathroom, where they both had rather a shock. Polly’s hair hung in snakes because each piece was matted into itself, in a sort of rope, and Polly had head lice. Ivy had to go out for a special shampoo and a fine-tooth comb. But the comb would not go through Polly’s hair. “Don’t you ever brush your hair?” Ivy said, grimly dragging an ordinary comb through it.
The dragging made Polly’s head sore. Her eyes watered. “Not often.”
“Then you should!” said Ivy. “You’re big enough now, in all conscience! I don’t know, Polly – this is such a mess I think I’d better cut it all off. You’d look quite nice with it short, after all.”
“No!” shrieked Polly. She jumped up and dragged her hair away. “Don’t you dare touch it! I like it long!”
“After all I’ve done for you!” Ivy said, losing her temper too.
“You haven’t done anything for me! You let me get lice!” Polly screamed back.
They shouted at one another for quite a while. At length Ivy gave in. “You always did have such a will, Polly. All right. But I thought you wanted it short.”
“I don’t any more,” said Polly.
It took two hours to get Polly’s hair combed, and another hour of washing after that. The water that came out of her hair was dark brown for the first two washes. Ivy washed it yet again, and combed it. Nits floated in the washbasin and had to be rinsed away.
“Let this be a lesson to you,” Ivy said at last.
“Yes,” Polly sighed. Her head ached worse than it had done with two black eyes. But she was rewarded by having a cloud of silver-fair, crackly hair, as clean as it was bright. She saw why Mr Lynn had called it lovely now. She was rather careful about combing it after that.
6
O they rode on, and further on,
The steed went swifter than the wind,
Until they reached a desert wide
And living land was left behind.
THOMAS THE RHYMER
Mr Lynn had a new anorak. It was the first thing Polly saw when she opened the door to him. He had an altogether more prosperous look somehow.
“Won’t you come in?” she said politely.
“No thanks,” Mr Lynn said, smiling all over his face. “I want to show you my horse.”
Polly locked the front door and hid the key for Ivy and went out into the street with Mr Lynn. There was a small cream-yellow car nestling against the kerb, somewhat the shape of a teapot. He pointed to it proudly. “Like it?”
Polly laughed. The car’s number plate was TC 123. “Oh yes! A modern horse. And TC for Tan Coul.”
“Of course,” agreed Mr Lynn. “As soon as I saw the number plate, I knew I had to buy it. Hop in.” He opened the passenger door for her and Polly climbed in, feeling very grand and relaxed in her new jeans and jacket. “I don’t know what I’d have done,” Mr Lynn said, climbing in the other side, “if I’d failed my driving test. I only took it last Thursday, you see. I’d have had to call for you in a taxi. Now. Let’s see. Choke, ignition, handbrake, check mirror. Do you want to know where we’re going?”
“Nowhere, of course,” said Polly. They both laughed, Polly heartily and Mr Lynn in his guilty, cut-off gulp.
Then they tried to set off. At first the car would do nothing but plunge up and down on the spot. Mr Lynn managed to get it moving and they went down the street in a series of jumps, like a kangaroo with hiccups. “Horse very restive,” Mr Lynn apologised. “Feeling its oats.” He was rather pink by this time. He tried moving the gear lever. There was a mighty crashing sound. The car gave another leap, backwards this time, and stopped completely. “Oh dear,” said Mr Lynn, pinker still. “Polly, I’m sorry. I’m very nervous. The car knows.”
“Call it names,” said Polly. “Like
you did the horse.”
“No, you call me names,” said Mr Lynn. “It’s my fault.”
“All right then,” said Polly. “I’ll call you Tan Coul, trainee-hero of the West, and ironmonger and Thomas Piper, axefighter and giant-killer, and horse-tamer and someone who’s going to kill dragons soon.”
This seemed to make Mr Lynn feel better. The car snarled and started with a swoop, and they swept out into the centre of Middleton. There, after a number of interesting wobbles, they raced twice round the main square before Mr Lynn could rein the car in enough to dive down the Gloucester Road. When he did, they howled swiftly out into the countryside, pausing only to miss a bus and skip the Miles Cross traffic lights.
“This car really is that horse, in a way,” Mr Lynn said as they flashed past the last limit sign at sixty miles an hour. “After you’d gone, I went back to that circus to see if it was all right. And apparently that wasn’t the first time it had gone on the rampage. They were saying it would have to be put down.”
“Oh no!” said Polly.
“Just how I felt,” said Mr Lynn. “So I had a rush of blood to the head and said I’d buy it. I couldn’t bear to think of it dead. I knew I was going to get about enough money from the orchestra’s European tour – but they wouldn’t wait that long, however much I argued. In the end I had to sell one of those pictures—”
“Not the Chinese horse!” Polly exclaimed.
“No, no,” Mr Lynn said, as shocked as she was. “That’s too beautiful. No, I sold that picnic picture, which was the one I liked least. Laurel had been more generous than I’d realised – it turns out to have been a genuine Impressionist, and it fetched quite an awesome price. So I could afford to feed the horse once I’d bought it.”
“Where do you keep a horse in London?” Polly asked.
“I don’t,” said Mr Lynn. “The circus people put me in touch with a woman who boards horses out in the country. And she discovered why I’d bought Lorenzo – I’m afraid the horse is called Lorenzo – and offered to buy him off me. That’s how I got the car. I paid for it with the money Mary Fields gave me for the horse. That’s where I thought we’d go first. You’d like to see the horse again, wouldn’t you?”