LITMIR.BIZ

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silly?” said Frank, and tore himself free. He went to the window and opened it. “Yes?” he said, looking up at the boy and wondering what was so super about him. Nothing, Frank thought, but the boy’s own idea of himself. He was just a freckled boy with red hair and a haughty look.

      “Are you Own Back?” asked the boy.

      “Half of it,” said Frank. “The Limited half’s by the door.”

      That, of course, made the boy bend down and peer into the shed, and brought Jess up beside Frank, very pink and swinging her hair angrily. “He means me,” she said, and gave Frank a sharp kick on the ankle to teach him a lesson.

      “Then I’d like you two to do a job for me,” said the boy.

      “What? Revenge-Difficult-Feat-or-Treasure-anything-to-oblige,” Frank gabbled in a way that was meant to be rude. Jess kicked him again.

      The boy shifted about, as if he could see Frank did not like him. “Vernon told me about you,” he said. “If you must know.”

      Jess glared at Frank, and Frank realised he had better be polite if they were ever to earn that five pence. “What was it?” he asked. “Some kind of Own Back?”

      “Yes,” said the boy. “Actually.” His freckly face screwed into stormy lumps. “I want you to do something about those beastly Adams kids. I can’t stand them. And I don’t know what to do about them.”

      “What?” said Jess. “You mean those two funny girls who live over there?” She pointed to the cheese-coloured house.

      The boy looked. “I don’t know where they live,” he said. “If you’ve got them on your doorstep, I pity you. Frankie and Jenny Adams, they’re called, and one limps. And they drive me mad. They’re always round our house, calling names and saying it’s really their house. As if I could help living there! No matter what I’m doing, one of them bobs up and says it should be hers. And I’m not supposed to hit girls, for some reason, so I can’t stop them.”

      “You want us to try to stop them?” asked Jess.

      “At least go and call them names,” said the boy. “Show them what it feels like.”

      Both Frank and Jess rather thought the Adams girls knew what it felt like, but they did not like to say so. Frank said, “Or something to teach them a lesson?” and the boy nodded. “And I think we’d charge ten pence,” said Frank, because that seemed reasonable.

      The boy shifted again, until his pony stamped irritably. “I was afraid you might,” he said. “I’ll try and get it, but I’m a bit short, actually. I broke a greenhouse last week, and they stopped my pocket money. Couldn’t I give you something else instead? Exchange and barter? I’ve got a watch or a camera you could have.”

      The Piries’ hearts sank. No money again. Not even a fellow feeling for someone else without pocket money prevented Jess from feeling a little cross with the boy.

      “You should really have brought some money,” she said severely. “We don’t do it for goods. And we’ve both got watches.”

      “I’ll try,” said the boy. “Maybe I’ll wangle some money. But I’d got desperate, actually, and when Vernon told me about you, I thought I’d see. Honestly, you don’t know what it’s like. They’re always there.” He did, to do him justice, look desperate, in a fretful sort of way.

      “All right,” said Frank. “We’ll do it. On condition that you get us some money if you possibly can.”

      “I’ll try,” said the boy. “Honestly. Shall I come back tomorrow, or do you need longer?”

      “No. Tomorrow will do,” said Frank.

      “Thanks,” said the boy, and he seemed genuinely grateful.

      They watched him ride away down the path, scattering loose cinders with the pony’s feet, and they felt more than ever perplexed at the difficulties of Own Back.

      “And it ought to have been so profitable!” said Jess. “What’s wrong?”

      “I don’t know,” said Frank, “but I know this lets us off Biddy Iremonger. We can just go and tell those kids that we won’t do it because they shout after Lord Muck. What’s his real name?”

      “Martin Taylor,” said Jess. “No, Frank, that’s not fair. They asked us first, and she does limp terribly. We’ll have to see them about him afterwards.”

      “I can’t think,” said Frank, “why he doesn’t hit them secretly, even if he’s not supposed to. I would. And what’s she got to go and be called Frankie for? It’s so muddling.”

      “Come on,” said Jess. “Let’s get it done before lunch. Then I vote we close.”

      So they put up the AWAY notice once more and let themselves out of the back gate on to the allotment path. There was a strong wind. The sun shone bleak and bright, but not at all warm. Frank shivered. He told himself it was the wind and the old-cabbage smell the wind blew out of the allotments which made him shiver. But it was not. He was dreading Biddy Iremonger. And, to make matters worse, Mr Carter was digging on his allotment and called out to know if they had found the treasure yet.

      “Take no notice,” said Jess, and with her nose stuck haughtily in the air, she pushed open the gate to the path that ran beside the allotments to the river.

      The path took them down to the tangled, rusty fence on the river side of the allotments. It was the kind of fence nobody cared for. The parts of it that were not old, old barbed wire were made of bits of iron bedsteads, and it was held in place just by being overgrown with whitish, wintry grass and brambles. The path dwindled to a muddy rut where the fence met the wall, and squeezed its way up and round a loose piece of old bed. Frank and Jess squeezed with it, into the waste, white grass beside the river.

      It was hot there – airless and smelly – because the big willow trees seemed to keep the wind off, and because it was low-lying. The river spread out secretly under all the white grass. If you walked off the path, you were in squelching, oily marsh. And it was full of rubbish – some of it buried under the grass, some of it thrown on top. There was a heap of tins beside the fence. A few steps further on, there was all that was left of an old bicycle sticking out from under the grass. The path went carefully round its front wheel. When Frank had been younger, he had thought this the most exciting place in the whole world. You never knew what you might find – motor tyres, mousetraps, buckets and bedsprings. But he was now too old to find it interesting. It depressed him instead. He particularly hated the muggy, sweetish smell in the place.

      “Pooh!” said Jess. She marched on ahead, sending up musty smells from under her feet straight to Frank’s nose.

      Biddy Iremonger’s hut was under a big hollow tree beyond a clump of brambles. It looked as if it might have been a boathouse once. It was wooden, and settled slopingly down the river bank. In front of it was a patch of bare earth, and heaped carefully round that were petrol drums and paint tins, to make a sort of wall. The path, as if it were scared at the sight, took a wide bend away from the hut and hurried, twisting, on to the footbridge over the river, just beyond. There was a sort of track leading to the hut, however, and Frank and Jess cautiously took it.

      Biddy Iremonger’s black cockerel flew up to the roof of the hut when it saw them coming. The four black hens ran for shelter in a petrol drum. As soon as Jess set foot in the bare patch, Biddy’s cat leapt up, almost under her feet, and spat. It was a scrawny patchwork cat – ginger, tabby, black and white, all at once – and it seemed scared of everyone except Biddy. It ran away from Frank and Jess, crouching and cringing, to the doorway of the hut. There, it turned and spat again before it ran inside.

      Frank and Jess, their nerve rather shaken by the cat, stood side by side in the bare patch, nearly overwhelmed by the hot, musty smell, which seemed worse than ever near the hut. Before

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