Danny the Champion of the World Read online

  From somewhere nearby I heard another fearful swish-crack! and I knew that poor Sidney had just got it as well.

  But, oh, that fearful searing burning pain across my hand! Why didn't it go away? I glanced at Sidney. He was doing just the same as me, squeezing his hand between his legs and making the most awful face.

  'Go and sit down, both of you!' Captain Lancaster ordered.

  We stumbled back to our desks and sat down.

  'Now get on with your work!' the dreaded voice said. 'And let us have no more cheating! No more insolence, either!'

  The class bent their heads over their books like people in church saying their prayers.

  I looked at my hand. There was a long ugly mark about half an inch wide running right across the palm just where the fingers joined the hand. It was raised up in the middle and the raised part was pure white, with red on both sides. I moved the fingers. They moved all right, but it hurt to move them. I looked at Sidney. He gave me a quick apologetic glance under his eyelids, then went back to his sums.

  When I got home from school that afternoon, my father was in the workshop. 'I've bought the raisins,' he said. 'We will now put them in to soak. Fetch me a bowl of water, Danny.'

  I went over to the caravan and got a bowl and half-filled it with water. I carried it to the workshop and put it on the bench.

  'Open up the packets and tip them all in,' my father said. This was one of the really nice things about my father. He didn't take over and want to do everything himself. Whether it was a difficult job like adjusting a carburettor in a big engine, or whether it was simply tipping some raisins into a basin, he always let me go ahead and do it myself while he watched and stood ready to help. He was watching me now as I opened the first packet of raisins.

  'Hey!' he cried, grabbing my left wrist. 'What's happened to your hand?'

  'It's nothing,' I said, clenching the fist.

  He made me open it up. The long scarlet mark lay across my palm like a burn.

  'Who did it?' he shouted. 'Was it Captain Lancaster?'

  'Yes, Dad, but it's nothing.'

  'What happened?' He was gripping my wrist so hard it almost hurt. 'Tell me exactly what happened!'

  I told him everything. He stood there holding my wrist, his face going whiter and whiter, and I could see the fury beginning to boil up dangerously inside him.

  'I'll kill him! he softly whispered when I had finished. 'I swear I'll kill him!" His eyes were blazing, and all the colour had gone from his face. I had never seen him look like that before.

  'Forget it, Dad.'

  'I will not forget it!' he said. 'You did nothing wrong and he had absolutely no right to do this to you. So he called you a cheat, did he?'

  I nodded.

  He had taken his jacket from the peg on the wall and was putting it on.

  'Where are you going?' I asked.

  'I am going straight to Captain Lancaster's house and I'm going to beat the daylights out of him.'

  'No!' I cried, catching hold of his arm. 'Don't do it, Dad, please! It won't do any good! Please don't do it!'

  'I've got to,' he said.

  'No!' I cried, tugging at his arm. 'It'll ruin everything! It'll only make it worse! Please forget it!'

  He hesitated then. I held on to his arm. He was silent, and I could see the rush of anger slowly draining out of his face.

  'It's revolting,' he said.

  'I'll bet they did it to you when you were at school,' I said.

  'Of course they did.'

  'And I'll bet your dad didn't go rushing off to beat the daylights out of the teacher who did it.'

  He looked at me but kept quiet.

  'He didn't, did he, Dad?'

  'No, Danny, he didn't,' he answered softly.

  I let go of his arm and helped him off with his jacket and hung it back on the peg.

  'I'm going to put the raisins in now,' I said. 'And don't forget that tomorrow I have a nasty cold and I won't be going to school.'

  'Yes,' he said. 'That's right.'

  'We've got two hundred raisins to fill,' I said.

  Ah,' he said. 'So we have.'

  'I hope we'll get them done in time,' I said.

  'Does it still hurt?' he asked. 'That hand.'

  'No,' I said. 'Not one bit.'

  I think that satisfied him. And although I saw him glancing occasionally at my palm during the rest of the afternoon and evening, he never mentioned the subject again.

  That night he didn't tell me a story. He sat on the edge of my bunk and we talked about what was going to happen the next day up in Hazell's Wood. He got me so steamed up and excited about it, I couldn't get to sleep. I think he must have got himself steamed up almost as much because after he had undressed and climbed into his own bunk, I heard him twisting and turning all over the place. He couldn't get to sleep either.

  At about ten-thirty, he climbed out of his bunk and put the kettle on.

  'What's the matter, Dad?'

  'Nothing,' he said. 'Shall we have a midnight feast?'

  'Yes, let's do that.'

  He lit the lamp in the ceiling and opened a tin of tuna and made a delicious sandwich for each of us. Also hot chocolate for me, and tea for him. Then we started talking about the pheasants and about Hazell's Wood all over again.

  It was pretty late before we got to sleep.

  13

  Friday

  When my father woke me at six o'clock next morning, I knew at once that this was the day of days. It was the day I longed for and the day I dreaded. It was also the day of butterflies in the stomach except that they were worse than butterflies. They were snakes. I had snakes in the stomach the moment I opened my eyes on that Friday morning.

  The first thing I did after I had got dressed was to hang the SORRY CLOSED notice on one of the pumps. We had a quick breakfast, then the two of us sat down together at the table in the caravan to prepare the raisins. They were plump and soft and swollen from being soaked in water, and when you nicked them with a razor-blade the skin sprang open and the jelly stuff inside squeezed out as easily as you could wish.

  I slit the raisins while my father opened the capsules. He opened only one at a time and poured the white powder on to a piece of paper. Then he divided it into four tiny piles with the blade of a knife. Each pile was carefully scooped up and put into a single raisin. A needle and black cotton finished the job. The sewing up was the hardest part, and my father did most of that. It took about two minutes to do one raisin from start to finish. I enjoyed it. It was fun.

  'Your mother was wonderful at sewing things,' my father said. 'She'd have had these raisins done in no time.'

  I didn't say anything. I never knew quite what to say when he talked about my mother.

  'Did you know she used to make all my clothes herself, Danny? Everything I wore.'

  'Even socks and sweaters?' I asked.

  'Yes,' he said. 'But those were knitted. And so quickly! When she was knitting, the needles flew so fast in her fingers you couldn't see them. They were just a blur. I would sit here in the evening watching her and she used to talk about the children she was going to have. "I shall have three children," she used to say. "A boy for you, a girl for me and one for good measure." '

  There was a short silence after that. Then I said, 'When Mum was here, Dad, did you go out very often at night or was it only now and then?'

  'You mean poaching?'

  'Yes.'

  'Often,' he said. 'At least twice a week.'

  'Didn't she mind?'

  'Mind? Of course she didn't mind. She came with me.'

  'She didn't!'

  'She certainly did. She came with me every single time until just before you were born. She had to stop then. She said she couldn't run fast enough.'

  I thought about this extraordinary piece of news for a little while. Then I said, 'Was the only reason she went because she loved you, Dad, and because she wanted to be with you? Or did she go because she loved poaching?'