Unexpected Twist Page 4

  “What!” said the master at length, in a faint voice.

  “Please, sir,” replied Oliver, “I want some more.”

  The master aimed a blow at Oliver’s head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

  The board were sitting in solemn assembly when Mr Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said, “Mr Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!”

  There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every face.

  “For more!” said Mr Limbkins. “Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?”

  “He did, sir,” replied Bumble.

  An animated discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish. In other words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling.

  Chapter 5

  The door to the flat was open, and Shona could see inside that there were cardboard boxes and the bags that Dad had been packing, now all over the floor.

  “I thought you’d be back earlier,” Dad said.

  “So did I,” Shona replied.

  “Why weren’t you?”

  “Buses.”

  He grunted and looked down and into one of the bags, moved first one way, then another, picked something up, and put it down again. Shona looked at his shabby jumper, shabby trousers, shabby shoes. He was Mr Shabby. His face was beginning to take on the look of someone who was still in bed, something about how his cheeks and chin hardly moved when he talked and the skin looked pale and creased.

  Behind this look, his mind was ticking over: he knew that sending her to this school ahead of the move was going to be a bit of a problem: two buses. Once they were in the new place, she’d be able to walk to school.

  “You’d better know now, we haven’t got as much space in the new place,” he said.

  “Why are we going there, then?” Shona asked.

  “Because we’ve got no darned choice in the matter!” he shouted.

  Why not, why not, why not? she said to herself. In one sense, she could answer her own question: it was because Dad couldn’t work any more, couldn’t earn any more, and yet he was losing his benefit – whatever that meant – and so they were moving – or was it they were being moved? – to a smaller place.

  In another sense, she couldn’t answer it: why were they in this fix, when others were not? There was never an answer to that one. Why weren’t they like that relative in New York? Which reminded her of all those American kids on the Disney Channel who lived in great big white houses in the middle of huge gardens. Why did they have moms and dads and dogs and cars and she had, well, just Dad?

  “Don’t blooming just stand there. Go into your room; you’ve got less than half an hour to make up your mind what you’re going to keep and what you’re going to chuck. I’ve made it easy for you; you’ve got one box. Ron is coming over with his van, and we’ve got to fit the lot in there.”

  Shona did as she was told and stood in the middle of her room. Everything she had in the world was here, on the walls, on the shelves, under the bed, on the bed, on the little table, oh – the table itself, didn’t Nan give that to her? Maybe she could ask Ron if they could squeeze that in somehow.

  “Are you getting on with it?” Dad called from the other room. “I’ve got to sit down for a bit,” he added.

  When Shona went over to the “rec”, she used to watch other dads running about kicking footballs and pushing their kids on swings, but Dad hadn’t been able to manage that sort of thing for years. Of course she used to watch the mums too.

  There were always mums. Sitting together on benches, pushing buggies, wiping the corners of the mouths of toddlers, telling their kids to stop making a noise on the bus. What did it feel like to be told by a mum to not make so much noise on the bus? If she was “rattling on”, as Dad put it, he used to just nudge her with his elbow. There were times when she had longed to be really yelled at by a mum. Nan was there when it happened. Just a few days after she was born.

  Shona looked at the picture on the wall of the mum she never knew. There had been times, in the middle of the night, she had woken up and looked at the picture in the dark, and had imagined something so terrible that it made her shake. If it happened because I was born, was it my fault? One day, when she was grown up, would the police turn up and say, Shona, you’re under arrest because, because… Mum dying was her fault. The police would say that she, Shona was a… She couldn’t say the word, couldn’t even think it.

  She would lie in bed, shaking, thinking about it, so terrified of the thought that she couldn’t think, so terrified that she wouldn’t ever tell anyone about it, ever, not even Nan, especially not Nan. After all, Mum was Nan’s daughter. So, the secret that Shona thought, that she had done this terrible thing, she kept deep inside herself. But to keep it in there, she had to be careful and not give away too much.

  “Have you started on that stuff, yet?” Dad called from the other room.

  “Yeah, kind of,” Shona replied and very, very slowly, she picked up an old broken mini-keyboard thing, plonked on one of the notes and put it on the rubbish pile. She had learned to play “She’s Coming Round the Mountain” on that and had played it at her primary-school talent contest. Rubbish or not rubbish? Who cares either way? It’s all rubbish, really.

  She had once been in the house of a girl called Rhiannon at her primary school, and apart from all the lovely food and toys in her house, Shona had noticed that Rhiannon herself was all over the walls. The drawing she did when she was two, photos of her mounted on a big noticeboard: Rhiannon at the seaside, Rhiannon with Granny, Rhiannon with Granddad, Rhiannon with Granny P, Rhiannon with Grandpa, Rhiannon’s swimming certificate. In the cupboard, there were shelves of Rhiannon toys like the shelves at school, and Rhiannon would say, “That’s my Heeby Jeeby I had when I was five”, or “That’s my funny cowboy hat that Granny P brought back from Florida” and on and on and on. I suppose Rhiannon still has all that stuff, Shona thought. And new stuff now, I bet … the mobile, the tablet, the laptop. I bet she talks about box sets. And Netflix. I’ll come away from here with Jimbo the elephant, my Jacqueline Wilson books, yes – maybe that keyboard thing, the photos of Mum, a few of those Playmobil things that aren’t really Playmobil that Nan got me from the market.

  Nan! How ill is she? And that old, cold shaky dread thing started happening as Shona thought of the possibility that Nan was even more ill than she was letting on, so ill that, that – don’t say the word … and maybe Zeynep knew all about it… What will I have, then – apart from Dad? Just me. I’ll have me. Yes, I’ll have me.

  Later, Ron arrived and he trundled to and fro with the stuff they were taking, and the stuff they weren’t taking he just chucked in the skip outside. Someone from the landlord’s came over and said that they would send the bill on.

  Dad said under his breath, “Send it where you like, pal, I’m not paying.”

  “What bill?” Shona asked him.

  “He says I owe him for the damage.”

  “What damage?”

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter. They charge you whether there’s damage or not. One place I was in, they said the cooker was covered in some stuff that they couldn’t get off and it took five women a whole week to get it off, so I was supposed to pay for that. Jokers.”

  Shona took it all in, heard it, understood some of it, didn’t have a clue about some of it, remembered some of it, forgot some of it, while the rest just floated out into the misty evening air.

  As Dad went slowly downstairs with Ron, Shona slipped back into the empty flat, whipped out her pen and kneeled down so that she could write someth
ing on the underside of the window sill: “Shona was here”.

  “What you doing?” Dad called out from down below.

  “Just going to the loo,” Shona called back.

  Ron and Dad sat on the seat at the front of Ron’s van with Shona sitting between them. The lights in the shops were beaming back at them. She thought of the lovely smell in Zeynep’s caff and wondered if there’d be time to slip round to see Nan and get a kebab.

  Ron struggled up the stairs with the stuff, muttering and cursing under his breath, Shona doing all she could to help. Dad stood halfway, apologizing, saying that he really would help if he could.

  Inside, Shona took it all in. There was one room where they would cook and eat, where they would watch TV and where Dad would sleep. There was a little, tiny room for her. And a shower room for them both.

  “One-bedroom flat, they call it, Ron,” Dad said.

  Ron wasn’t up for a chat. He had only come to help because Nan said that he owed it her. He said he didn’t. She said he did. She won.

  Dad started fishing in his pocket to give Ron something for the work, but Ron waved him away. “She’d kill me if I took anything for this,” he said with a grim sort of a laugh.

  Shona looked up sharply.

  Dad laughed too. “Not really, girl,” he said to her. “It’s just a way of saying things.”

  Shona went into her little room and sat on the bed. Very, very slowly she lay down and put her head on the mattress and smelled it as deeply and slowly as she could. Who had been there before?

  “Your bed stuff’s in that green plastic bag over there,” Dad said, and his voice sounded as kind as it ever had. “Hey, come here, girl,” he said.

  “Mm?” said Shona, not wanting any sort of slushy stuff from Dad just now.

  “We’ll manage,” he said to her and went to ruffle her hair.

  She ducked, moving out of his reach. No one touches my hair. Ever! she said to herself.

  A glance of sadness passed between them. He knew that nowadays she had places in her mind and life that he would never know about, never reach. She knew that too, and it was something that she hugged to herself.

  CLASS X10 READING COMPREHENSION

  In great families, when an advantageous place cannot be obtained for a young man who is growing up, it is a custom to send him to sea. The board, in imitation of so wise an example, decided to ship off Oliver Twist in some small trading vessel bound to a good unhealthy port. This was the very best thing that could possibly be done with him: the probability being, that the skipper would flog him to death, in a playful mood some day after dinner, or would knock his brains out with an iron bar; both pastimes being, as is pretty generally known, very favourite and common recreations among gentlemen of that class.

  Mr Bumble had been sent to make various preliminary inquiries, with the view of finding out some captain or other who wanted a cabin boy without any friends; and was returning to the workhouse to communicate the result of his mission when he encountered Mr Sowerberry, the undertaker, at the gate.

  Mr Sowerberry was a tall, gaunt, large-jointed man, attired in a suit of threadbare black, with darned cotton stockings of the same colour, and shoes to match. His features were not naturally intended to wear a smiling aspect, but he was in general rather given to professional lightheartedness. His step was elastic, and his face betokened inward pleasantry, as he advanced to Mr Bumble, and shook him cordially by the hand.

  “I have taken the measurements of the two women that died last night, Mr Bumble,” said the undertaker.

  “You’ll make your fortune, Mr Sowerberry,” said the beadle, as he thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuffbox of the undertaker: which was an ingenious little model of a patent coffin.

  “Think so?” said the undertaker in a tone which half admitted and half disputed the probability of the event. “The prices allowed by the board are very small, Mr Bumble.”

  “So are the coffins,” replied the beadle: with precisely as near an approach to a laugh as a great official ought to indulge in.

  Mr Sowerberry was much tickled at this: as of course he ought to be; and laughed a long time without cessation. “Well, well, Mr Bumble,” he said at length, “there’s no denying that, since the new system of feeding has come in, the coffins are something narrower and more shallow than they used to be; but we must have some profit, Mr Bumble. Well-seasoned timber is an expensive article, sir; and all the iron handles come, by canal, from Birmingham.”

  “By the bye,” said Mr Bumble, “you don’t know anybody who wants a boy, do you?

  A ’prentis, who is at present a dead weight; a millstone, as I may say, round the parish throat? Liberal terms, Mr Sowerberry, liberal terms?” As Mr Bumble spoke, he raised his cane to the bill above him, and gave three distinct raps upon the words “five pounds”: which were printed thereon in Roman capitals of gigantic size.

  “Oh!” replied the undertaker; “why, you know, Mr Bumble, I pay a good deal towards the poor’s rates.”

  “Hem!” said Mr Bumble. “Well?”

  “Well,” replied the undertaker, “I was thinking that if I pay so much towards ’em, I’ve a right to get as much out of ’em as I can, Mr Bumble; and so – I think I’ll take the boy myself.”

  Mr Bumble grasped the undertaker by the arm, and led him into the building. Mr Sowerberry was closeted with the board for five minutes; and it was arranged that Oliver should go to him that evening “upon liking” – a phrase which means, in the case of a parish apprentice, that if the master finds, upon a short trial, that he can get enough work out of a boy without putting too much food into him, he shall have him for a term of years, to do what he likes with.

  Little Oliver was taken before “the gentlemen” that evening and informed that he was to go, that night, as general house lad to a coffin maker’s; and that if he complained of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be drowned, or knocked on the head, as the case might be. He showed so little emotion that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young rascal and ordered Mr Bumble to remove him forthwith.

  He heard the news of his destination in perfect silence, and, having had his luggage put into his hand – which was not very difficult to carry, inasmuch as it was all comprised within the limits of a brown paper parcel, about half a foot square by three inches deep – he pulled his cap over his eyes and, once more attaching himself to Mr Bumble’s coat cuff, was led away by that dignitary to a new scene of suffering.

  The undertaker, who had just put up the shutters of his shop, was making some entries in his daybook by the light of a most appropriate dismal candle when Mr Bumble entered.

  “Aha!” said the undertaker; looking up from the book, and pausing in the middle of a word, “is that you, Bumble?”

  “No one else, Mr Sowerberry,” replied the beadle. “Here! I’ve brought the boy.”

  Oliver made a bow.

  “Oh! That’s the boy, is it?” said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of Oliver. “Mrs Sowerberry, will you have the goodness to come here a moment, my dear?”

  Mrs Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop – a short, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance.

  “My dear,” said Mr Sowerberry, deferentially, “this is the boy from the workhouse that I told you of.”

  Oliver bowed again.

  “Dear me!” said the undertaker’s wife. “He’s very small.”

  “Why, he is rather small,” replied Mr Bumble, looking at Oliver as if it were his fault that he was no bigger. “He is small. There’s no denying it. But he’ll grow, Mrs Sowerberry, he’ll grow.”

  “Ah! I dare say he will,” replied the lady pettishly, “on our food and our drink. I see no saving in parish children, not I; for they always cost more to keep than they’re worth. However, men always think they know best. There! Get downstairs, little bag o’ bones.”

  With
this, the undertaker’s wife opened a side door and pushed Oliver down a steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark: forming the anteroom to the coal cellar, and called the “kitchen”; wherein sat a slatternly girl, in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings very much out of repair.

  “Here, Charlotte,” said Mr Sowerberry, who had followed Oliver down, “give this boy some of the cold bits that were put by for the dog. He hasn’t come home since the morning, so he may go without ’em. I dare say the boy isn’t too dainty to eat ’em – are you, boy?”

  Oliver, whose eyes had glistened at the mention of meat, and who was trembling with eagerness to devour it, replied in the negative; and a plateful of coarse, broken food was set before him.

  “Well,” said the undertaker’s wife, when Oliver had finished his supper: which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful visions of his future appetite: “have you done?”

  There being nothing eatable within his reach, Oliver replied in the affirmative.

  “Then come with me,” said Mrs Sowerberry, taking up a dim and dirty lamp, and leading the way upstairs. “Your bed’s under the counter. You don’t mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose? But it doesn’t much matter whether you do or don’t, for you can’t sleep anywhere else. Come; don’t keep me here all night!”

  Oliver lingered no longer, but meekly followed his new mistress.

  Chapter 6

  Right up to Thursday night, Shona wondered what a D8 would be like. Whoever she asked either thought that the question was some kind of joke, or they just shrugged. The most she got out of anyone was that you sat there and at some time or another a teacher would ask you some stuff.

  She had told Dad that she got a D8, and he took her side in it, saying he would come up to school and tell them that it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t have a lanyard.