Back Home by Michelle Magorian

Author:Michelle Magorian
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141907048
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1987-04-02T05:00:00+00:00

21

Rusty pressed herself into the dark shadows of the corner and waited. On the other side of the wall a twig broke. She bit into her knuckles. There was a swishing sound of leaves being disturbed. Quietly she began whistling ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’. Immediately, she heard it being whistled back. She scrambled up the wall, hauled herself over, and dropped in a heap on the other side. As she gazed up at the boy’s surprised face, she grinned.

‘Hi,’ she said.

He burst out laughing and helped her up. ‘Hi.’

They stared at each other’s dressing-gowns. They were almost identical. He was fully dressed underneath his, while she had two pairs of long woolly socks pulled up over her pyjama trousers. Without his school cap, Rusty could see that his cropped hair fell neatly from a side parting.

They smiled foolishly at each other in the dark.

‘Come on,’ said Rusty, ‘follow me. We might be heard out here.’

She brushed past him and ran into the woods, her torch pointing downward.

‘Hey, where are you going?’ he whispered. ‘We’ll get lost if we go too far in.’

‘It’s O.K. I’ve laid a trail. See.’ She pointed to a small stone on a large stone. Beside it on the right lay another stone. ‘That means “turn right”.’

She led him through the woods and into the sheltered copse.

‘Gosh!’ he exclaimed. ‘This is dandy.’

She smiled. ‘Isn’t Dandy supposed to be infra something?’ she remarked.

He looked at her blankly.

‘The comic,’ she said.

‘Oh. You mean infra dig. Oh, sure. That means it’s not good enough for the likes of us.’ He pushed his nose up with his fingers. ‘It’s far too common.’

They walked through damp leaves and rotting twigs towards the large tree.

‘Are all the English snobs?’ said Rusty.

‘You’re English, aren’t you?’

‘I guess so, but I don’t feel like it.’

As he sat beside her, his bare knees stuck out from underneath his shorts.

‘Aren’t you cold?’

‘I’m always cold,’ he said.

‘Uh-huh. Me too! Doesn’t it ever get warm here?’

‘I don’t think so. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was a dry cold, but it’s so damp that –’

‘Say, listen to us. We’re doing what the English do. We’re talking about the weather.’ She paused. ‘You’ve hardly got an accent at all,’ she said. ‘You sound almost English to me.’

‘I came back early this year. My parents sent me to a crammer so I could be ready for the entrance exam to public school. I suppose I must have lost it a bit then.’

‘What’s a crammer?’

‘It’s a place where you get stuffed with as much knowledge as possible. I was way behind when I got back. I had to do heaps of Latin and Greek and French and mathematics and history. I’m still trying to catch up.’

‘Me too!’ said Rusty mournfully. ‘I was a year ahead, back in the States, and I got good grades.’

‘It was the same for me.’

She glanced hesitantly at him. ‘Do you think the American schools are really so awful?’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s just that in England they get to learn a lot of subjects earlier.

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