Greenwitch by Susan Cooper

Author:Susan Cooper [Cooper, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9780689304262
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published: 2010-11-22T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

WHEN SIMON AND JANE ARRIVED BACK AT THE COTTAGE, THEY found Fran Stanton setting out plates on the dining-room table. “Hi,” she said. “Want some lunch? Mrs Penhallow had to leave, but she made some great-looking Cornish pasties.”

“I can smell them,” Simon said hungrily.

“Lovely,” said Jane. “Did you have a good time, where you went?”

“We didn’t go far,” Mrs Stanton said. “St Austell, round there. Clay-pits and factories and that sort of thing.” She wrinkled her friendly face. “Still, after all that’s what Bill came over for. And there’s a real magic about those big white clay pyramids, and the pools so quiet at the bottom of them. Such green water. . . . Are you having fun? What’s everyone doing?”

“Will and Great-Uncle Merry went for a walk. Barney’s over at the Grey House with Captain Toms. We’re supposed to go there too this afternoon, the captain wants us all to stay for supper,” Jane said, boldly improvising. “That is if you don’t mind.”

“Perfect,” Fran Stanton said. “Bill and I shan’t be eating here anyway—I left him seeing some guy near St Austell, and I have to go back tonight to pick him up. This afternoon I came back just to be lazy. Let’s eat—and you can tell me all about that Greenwitch deal I wasn’t allowed to watch, Jane.”

So Jane, with some difficulty, gave a description of the making of the Greenwitch as of a gay all-night party, an outing for the local girls, while Simon wolfed down Cornish pasties and tried not to catch her eye. Mrs Stanton listened happily, shaking her blonde head in admiration.

“It’s just wonderful the way these old customs are kept up,” she said. “And I think it’s great they wouldn’t let a foreigner watch. So many of our Indians back home, they let the white man in to watch their native dances, and before you know it the whole thing’s just a tourist trap.”

“I’m glad you weren’t offended,” Jane said. “We were afraid—”

“Oh no no no,” said Mrs Stanton. “Why, I’ve already got enough material to give a great paper on this trip to my travel group back home. We have this club, you see, it meets once a month and at each meeting someone gives a little talk, with slides, on somewhere she’s been. This is the first time,” she added a trifle wistfully, “I shall have had anywhere unusual to talk about—except Jamaica, and everyone else has been there too.”

Afterwards Jane said to Simon, as they scrambled down towards the harbour, “She’s rather sweet really. I’m glad she’ll have us to talk about to her club.”

“The natives and their quaint old customs,” Simon said.

“Come on, you aren’t even a native. You’re one of they furriners from London.”

“But I’m not so much outside it all as she is. Not her fault. She just comes from such a long way away, she isn’t plugged in. Like all those people who go to the museum and look at the grail and say, oh, how wonderful, without the least idea of what it really is.

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