Agatha Christie - Giant’s Bread

‘We come from next door,’ said Joe.

‘Do you?’ said the boy. ‘Well, you’d better go back there. My father and mother don’t want you in here.’

He managed to be unbearably offensive as he said this. Vernon, unpleasantly conscious of being in the wrong, flushed angrily.

‘You might manage to speak politely,’ he said.

‘Why should I?’ said the boy.

He turned as a footstep sounded coming through the undergrowth.

‘Is that you, Sam?’ he said. ‘Just turn these trespassing kids off the place, will you?’

The keeper who had stepped out beside him grinned and touched his forehead. The boy strolled away, as though he had lost all interest. The keeper turned to the children and put on a ferocious scowl.

‘Out of it, you young varmints! I’ll turn the dogs loose on you unless you’re out of here in double quick time.’

‘We’re not afraid of dogs,’ said Vernon haughtily, as he turned to depart.

‘Ho, you’re not, h’aren’t you? Well, then, I’ve got a rhinoHoceras here and I’m-a going to loose that this minute.’

He stalked off. Nell gave a terrified pull at Vernon’s arm.

‘He’s gone to get it,’ she cried. ‘Oh! hurry—hurry—’

Her alarm was contagious. So much had been retailed about the Levinnes that the keeper’s threat seemed a perfectly likely one to the children. With one accord they ran for home. They plunged in a bee-line, pushing their way through the undergrowth. Vernon and Joe led. A piteous cry arose from Nell.

‘Vernon—Vernon—Oh! do wait. I’ve got stuck—’

What a nuisance Nell was! She couldn’t run or do anything. He turned back—gave her frock a vigorous pull to free it from the brambles with which it was entangled (a good deal to the frock’s detriment) and hauled her to her feet.

‘Come on, do.’

‘I’m so out of breath. I can’t run any more. Oh! Vernon, I’m so frightened.’

‘Come on .’

Hand in hand he pulled her along. They reached the Park palings, scrambled over …

‘We-ell,’ said Joe, fanning herself with a very dirty linen hat. ‘That was an adventure.’

‘My frock’s all torn,’ said Nell. ‘What shall I do?’

‘I hate that boy,’ said Vernon. ‘He’s a beast.’

‘He’s a beastly beast,’ agreed Joe. ‘We’ll declare war on him. Shall we?’

‘Rather!’

‘What shall I do about my frock?’

‘It’s very awkward their having a rhinoceros,’ said Joe thoughtfully. ‘Do you think Tom Boy would go for it if we trained him to?’

‘I shouldn’t like Tom Boy to be hurt,’ said Vernon.

Tom Boy was the stable dog—a great favourite of his. His mother had always vetoed a dog in the house, so Tom Boy was the nearest Vernon had got to having a dog of his own.

‘I don’t know what Mother will say about my frock.’

‘Oh, bother your frock, Nell. It’s not the sort of frock for playing in the garden, anyway.’

‘I’ll tell your mother it’s my fault,’ said Vernon impatiently. ‘Don’t be so like a girl.’

‘I am a girl,’ said Nell.

‘Well, so is Joe a girl. But she doesn’t go on like you do. She’s as good as a boy any day.’

Nell looked ready to cry, but at that minute they were called from the house.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Vereker,’ said Vernon. ‘I’m afraid I’ve torn Nell’s frock.’

There were reproaches from Myra, civil disclaimers from Mrs Vereker. When Nell and her mother had gone, Myra said:

‘You must not be so rough, Vernon, darling. When a little girl friend comes to tea, you must take great care of her.’

‘Why have we got to have her to tea? We don’t like her. She spoils everything.’

‘Vernon! Nell is such a dear little girl.’

‘She isn’t, Mother. She’s awful.’

‘Vernon!’

‘Well, she is. I don’t like her mother either.’

‘I don’t like Mrs Vereker much,’ said Myra. ‘I always think she’s a very hard woman. But I can’t think why you children don’t like Nell. Mrs Vereker tells me she’s absolutely devoted to you, Vernon.’

‘Well, I don’t want her to be.’

He escaped with Joe.

‘War,’ he said. ‘That’s what it is—war! I daresay that Levinne boy is really a Boer in disguise. We must plan out our campaign. Why should he come and live next door to us, and spoil everything?’

The kind of guerilla warfare that followed occupied Vernon and Joe in a most pleasurable fashion. They invented all kinds of methods of harassing the enemy. Concealed in trees, they pelted him with chestnuts. They stalked him with pea-shooters. They outlined a hand in red paint and crept secretly up to the house one night after dark, and left it on the doorstep with the word ‘Revenge’ printed at the bottom of the sheet of paper.

Sometimes their enemy retaliated in kind. He, too, had a pea-shooter and it was he who laid in wait for them one day with a garden hose.

Hostilities had been going on for nearly ten days when Vernon came upon Joe sitting on a tree stump looking unusually despondent.

‘Hallo, what’s up? I thought you were going to stalk the enemy with those squashy tomatoes Cook gave us.’

‘I was. I mean I did.’

‘What’s the matter, Joe?’

‘I was up a tree and he came right by underneath. I could have got him beautifully.’

‘Do you mean to say you didn’t?’

‘No.’

‘Why ever not?’

Joe’s face became very red, and she began to speak very fast.

‘I couldn’t. You see, he didn’t know I was there, and he looked—oh, Vernon! he looked so awfully lonely —as though he were simply hating things. You know, it must be pretty beastly having no one to do things with.’

‘Yes, but—’

Vernon paused to adjust his ideas.

‘Don’t you remember how we said it was all rotten?’ went on Joe. ‘People being so beastly about the Levinnes, and now we’re being as beastly as anyone.’

‘Yes, but he was beastly to us !’

‘Perhaps he didn’t mean to be.’

‘That’s nonsense.’

‘No, it isn’t. Look at the way dogs bite you if they’re afraid or suspicious. I expect he just expected us to be beastly to him, and wanted to start first. Let’s be friends.’

‘You can’t be in the middle of a war.’

‘Yes, you can. We’ll make a white flag, and then you march with it and demand a parley, and see if you can’t agree upon honourable terms of peace.’

‘Well,’ said Vernon, ‘I don’t mind if we do. It would be a change, anyway. What shall we use for a flag of truce—my handkerchief or your pinafore?’

Marching with the flag of truce was rather exciting. It was not long before they encountered the enemy. He stared in complete surprise.

‘What’s up?’ he said.

‘We want a parley,’ said Vernon.

‘Well, I’m agreeable,’ said the other boy, after a moment’s pause.

‘What we want to say is this,’ said Joe. ‘If you’ll agree, we’d like to be friends.’

They looked from one to the other.

‘Why do you want to be friends?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘It seems a bit silly,’ said Vernon. ‘Living next door and not being friends, doesn’t it?’

‘Which of you thought of that first?’

‘I did,’ said Joe.

She felt those small jet black eyes boring into her. What a queer boy he was. His ears seemed to stick out more than ever.

‘All right,’ said the boy. ‘I’d like to.’

There was a minute’s embarrassed pause.

‘What’s your name?’ said Joe.

‘Sebastian.’

There was just the faintest lisp, so little as hardly to be noticed.

‘What a funny name. Mine’s Joe and this is Vernon. He’s at school. Do you go to school?’