HOME IS WHERE THE HURT IS
It was ten o’ clock in the morning, and Grannie’s caravan was filling up with smoke.
“Oh Gran, not again, you know it’s bad for you," Mary coughed.
Mary Maddam, Grannie Maddam’s thirteen-year-old granddaughter, was still not used to her Grandmother’s unhealthy, bad habits, especially her insistence on smoking her morning pipe of baccy.
“I do wish you’d give me a fair warning when you’re going to smoke the place out.”
“Ain’t nothing like a good lung-full of raggedy shag to get your tonsils tickled,” Granny Maddam replied, sweetly smiling at her, as Mary gathered her snack box and flask into her shoulder bag, getting ready for her Saturday morning foray into the nearby woods.
“Raggedy shag, raggedy shag,” cawed their colourful South Amerigan parrot, Jemima, in her badly rendered and raucous echo.
“An’ you can keep yer beak shut, too,'' Mary muttered over her shoulder as she quickly exited the caravan. Jemima was always one to take Grannie’s side, probably because it was Gran that actually fed and watered the talkative, old parrot, as well as the one who taught her all her very colourful language.
“Don’t you be getting into mischief in them woods now, you hear?” Grannie called after Mary, as wisps of tobacco smoke curled out of the open door into the cool morning air.
But Gran could see Mary was already gone and making her way jauntily through the trees. Grannie Maddam smiled, knowing that Mary’s annoyance would quickly turn towards her usual cheerfulness at being out and about in the woods and the wind and the wild.
Grannie Maddam watched her go and heaved a wistful sigh. She sat comfortably in her cosy armchair, contentedly puffing on her pipe and stroking her rather plump tabby cat, Jericho, (whom she called ‘Jerry’ for short).
Lying next to her, on the little table by the chair, lay the crumpled letter she’d just received from the SPS, the Social Police Services.
She’d screwed it up angrily and then flung it down amongst all the assorted detritus of teacups, magazines, half-eaten biscuits, and other bric-a-brac strewn there. Grannie Maddam was not well suited to orderly housework. She tapped her pipe on the over-filled ashtray and looked down upon the letter now with disgust.
“Well, there’s no needs for a causin’ a kerfuffle for the child now, is there?” she muttered to herself. “Those SPs are full of their usual gobbledygook, sending their officious warnings, more like vicious yawnings, if you ask me.” She scratched Jericho’s ear and took another big, relaxing draw on her pipe, then reached down and picked the letter up once more.
There, it clearly and callously stated, in the SPS’s usual bureaucratic monotone:
Dear Sir or Madam,
We have sent you repeated warnings regarding your legal standing, duties, and commitments in the proper upbringing of your Ward and Granddaughter, Miss Mary Maddam (age 13). The Social Police Service under the auspices of the Psychonomy, has noted that as yet, no heed has been paid to these warnings. So, we are herewith issuing this final, official warning letter to you.
You are hereby advised to adhere to the legal requirements as laid down by the Psychonomy of Inglande and the Greater Council for Under Lundun, regarding these aforesaid duties.
If your Ward continues to fail to attend her assigned school and regimen in the new term after the current summer break and/or fails to adhere to the correct dress codes of aforesaid institution, then your Legal Guardianship will be revoked and your Ward taken for placement in a facility for orphans and delinquents. Furthermore, you will be officially charged with all parenting violations that we now have on file.
An Officer of the Social Police Services will be attending your address on Monday the 10th August, at 10.30am, to officially inspect and ascertain your complete adherence and compliance. Please sign the enclosed copy of this letter in due acknowledgment of receipt of this warning.
We hope, forthwith, to find you fully complying with the Psychonomy’s official, ‘Parental Rules & Regulations.’ Your failure to do so will result in immediate action, as outlined above.
Yours Dutifully,
Miss. Abigail T. Watt. Esq. Parenting Psychonomist. SP Class 3. (Under Lundun)
“Load of argle-bargle,” she muttered again, frowning deeply. This was indeed a very worrying bit of argle-bargle. “Well, I’ll have to speak to the girl about this. We’ll ‘ave to be doing something, but I’ll let her have her weekend free of worry for now.”
***
Mary, meanwhile, was making her way through the woods, blissfully ignorant of such mundane but mendacious matters.
Today was Saturday, and this was Mary’s favourite time of the week, the weekend; when it was her and Gran and no one else; when her schooling and her chores had all been done, and she was free to roam wherever she wanted. But this Saturday, she had a particularly important job to do. She was off to find a good remedy to help cure her Gran’s arthritis. As Gran was getting older, her aching joints seemed to be getting worse every year. She wanted to help her Gran get better. She was, after all, all the family she now had left.
Mary had always been a caring and considerate person but at the same time had always been drawn to adventure and maybe a spot of mischief too. She was a pleasant looking girl with dark long hair and inquisitive green eyes.
I’ll head down near the River Quaggy, see if I can find some of that rare White-Willow Bark Grannie was telling me about the other day. Maybe I can get ‘old of some Angelica an’ Eyebright an’ even some Heartsease there as well, she thought hopefully, as she made her way ever deeper into, what she knew as, the Good Wood.
Mary walked happily and directly on towards the tree-lined banks of the River Quaggy, completely oblivious of Grannie Maddam’s worries, and heading for an adventure beyond her wildest dreams. She saw it was indeed a lovely day and the Good Wood felt friendly and familiar to her. This wasn’t at all surprising really, as she had spent nearly all her childhood playing in, exploring and discovering its many natural treasures.
Mary knew a lot about plants, and she was learning more all the time. She loved the wild woods; she loved nature and all the things it was made from; all of the amazing variety and wonder of the living things in it. Her favourite place in the whole Erf was the Good Wood, which luckily for her began just behind her colourful caravan home.
But as she made her way, on this lovely, late summer’s day, she tried to keep her mind on her mission and not be distracted by any other marvels of nature she might come across.
“I just wonder though,” she mused to herself, “I just wonder what it’s really like across the River Quaggy? I just can’t believe all them horror stories they tell us at school about it.”
Mary made her way down the sloping trail she had used many times before, toward the winding river that bordered the south-eastern part of what was, in fact, a very large forest, known as the Great Forest of Lundun.
On the other side of the Quaggy stretched the dark and mysterious part of it which the locals in those parts called the ‘Bad Wood.’ And according to her sketchy geography lessons, this went as far as the old River Tymes. But what was on the North side of the River Tymes, was said to be even weirder and wickeder than anything on the Southern side.
“I bet if I dared crossin’ the Quaggy though, I could find some real rare an’ useful plants,” an’ I juss bet anything, I’d find some o’ that White-Willow Bark over there too.”
The Bad Wood was supposedly bad enough, but this morning, for reasons she couldn’t even begin to understand, she was feeling even more curious than usual about the many dark mysteries that it was rumoured to contain.
“Trouble is, that’s where the so-called ‘bad’ plants an’ animals are all supposed to live,” she sighed, as she trudged along. “An’ people just never go across the River Quaggy now, coz its considered way too dangerous; They says that people disappear if they goes off into them there Bad Woods for too long!”
Even Grannie Maddam had warned Mary to always keep to the paths of the Good Wood, and never to go across the River Quaggy. The Bad Wood had a very bad reputation indeed!
“Some nasty critters an’ even nastier plants,” was all her Gran would say on the matter.
But Mary had heard all the scare stories before; it was just common knowledge as you grew up, there were still some wild areas across the Planet Erf, and even in the more civilized country of Inglande, that Man had yet to fully conquer. The Great Forest of Lundun and its south-eastern part, known as the ‘Bad Wood,’ was but one of them.
Grannie Maddam was of ancient gypsy stock and had taught Mary a lot about all the different plants that grew in the Good Wood. Mary remembered when she was just a wee little girl how her Gran had always taken her out to the Good Wood and told her all about the plants and the animals there. Mary had loved learning and finding out where the different sorts of herbs and flowers grew. She was what her Grannie had called “a Nat’ral Herb’list.”
“But getting hold of some White-Willow Bark right now is my most important and pressing problem. This trip I’m determined to get some, no matter what,” she thought emphatically.
But as she sauntered through the green freshness of the wood, she began to daydream and think about her much-missed mum. She could hardly believe that two whole years had gone by since her mum had become very ill and had been taken away by the Psychonomists.
She loved her Gran, but she still loved and missed her mum very much. She did her very best, though, to keep her feelings about losing her mum to herself, locked up, along with the broken bit of heart inside her; a sad and silent sort of secret.
As she walked along, she remembered hearing how her mum was something called a ‘single-mum,’ which she’d thought at the time a really strange idea.
“How could a mum be anything else, you only had one mum after all, didn’t you?”
Then she’d heard that her mum had some sort of a ‘syndromey’ thing and so had to go away for “full-time care” in a special hospital.
Her Grandma had taken overlooking after her then, so now it was just her and her Gran, and of course Jemima the parrot and Jericho the cat, living all alone, but happily, in their colourful and cosy caravan by the edge of the Good Wood.
The long-awaited summer holidays had arrived, and Mary eagerly looked forward to many days of roaming the woods, without the interference of having to go to school. She knew that her missing lessons and ‘bunking’ off school caused her Gran a lot of trouble.
She also knew, as her legal guardian, her Gran had already been seen by the Social Police Service. Mary had ‘accidentally’ looked at a letter that Grannie had left lying about a month or so ago. The SPS had voiced their grave concerns that her Grannie Maddam may not in fact be suitable as Mary’s Guardian.
The last thing Mary wanted was to be taken away and put in some horrid Psychonomy Institution and so lose her Gran as well as her mum.
But it wasn’t in Mary’s nature to dwell on such things for too long.
“Poor ol’ Grannie, she does suffer from her bone aches and such like,” Mary thought as she walked onward and strengthened her resolve to find the needed White Willow Bark.
“It’s probably juss too much of her home-brew, herb-cordials, and all her smoking too,” she added as an afterthought, shaking her head with a motherly sigh.
Mary’s worry about her Gran’s health and unorthodox ways and so-called ‘bad habits’ were of real concern to her. She did her very best to disguise this and keep cheerful though, but the truth was - Home was definitely where the Hurt was.
***
“And where do you think you’re off to?” boomed Mr. Briggs from his ground floor study, just as Roger, his one and only son and heir, came creeping down the sweeping stairway, doing his level best to evade just such an encounter.
“I thought I’d go out for a b-b-bit, to do scientific field work, Father,” Roger answered.
“Well, have you done your homework? Where are you now on the school class rankings? Are you still the top of your class, eh? Well, you’d better be, my boy. We can’t have a Briggs slacking off now, can we?”
“Yes, S-s-sir; I mean n-n-no, F-f-father; I mean yes, I have d-d-done my homework… and yes, I’m still t-t-top of the class. At l-l-least I was - when we were l-l-last tested, Sir.”
“Harrumph. Well, let’s keep it that way, eh? We have to show the world what the Briggs’s are made of, eh? And I see you still have that silly stammer of yours. Just when are you going to grow up and get rid of it boy, eh? Pure affectation it is, I say, pure affectation.”
“Yes, F-f-father; I mean, s-s-sorry, Father. I’ll try to get rid of it, I p-p-promise.”
“Well, see that you do, my boy, see that you do! Don’t you forget, I am now an elected Councillor of Inglande, serving on the Under Lundun Council.”
“Yes, F-f-father. I mean, no Father.”
“And that I’m standing for election as Prime Councillor this year. So, we all need to be smart and on the ball in the Briggs family right now, now don’t we, Roger?”
“Yes, S-s-sir, of course. I’m sure the f-f-field work helps my school r-r-results too, Sir.”
“Very good, very good; well carry on then, Roger, and no getting into any mischief, right?
“R-r-right Sir. Yes sir.”
“Good. I don’t want you getting mixed up with that riffraff that attends your state school. Really, if it wasn’t for your mother keeping you tied to her apron strings, I’d have boarded you out years ago, no matter the Psychonomy’s policies on such things.”
“Yes, S-s-sir,” agreed Roger meekly, as Mr Briggs indicated he was dismissed.
Then, just as he thought he was free, his mother came bustling in through the front door, carrying a hat box under one arm and a rolled-up newspaper under the other. And she wasn’t in a good mood.
“Brian dear, will you kindly instruct the paper boy to desist from hurling your paper into our front porch? It’s most uncouth and downright dangerous too. This newspaper thingy nearly had me right over. It would have totally ruined my new hat if I’d been tumbled over. It’s really not on, Brian. Brian, do you hear me.”
“Yes dear, I mean no dear, of course, dear, err… not on at all dear.” Mr Briggs replied, suddenly quite meek himself.
He dutifully took the paper Mrs Briggs rammed into his ribs, after depositing her precious hat box onto the hall stand.
Roger could see boldly blazoned across the newspaper’s front page, the startling headline:
THE DAILY BEACON: - Saturday, August 8th. 1951.
‘THE FUTURE IS SAFE! ATOMIC POWER WILL SOON BE OURS!!!
“Government Scientists have now scheduled a series of experiments over the next six months for the production of Atomic Power. The series of experiments will be overseen by a joint team of top scientists from Ameriga and Inglande, headed by Professor Kluxklu of…”
At this point, Roger’s attention was pulled away from the paper as his mother stepped abruptly between him and his father. His father, seeing his opportunity, quietly shrank back into his study with the newspaper and closed the door.
Roger’s rather shrill and excitable mother had now decided to directly address, what she considered, was her somewhat weak and ailing only child by giving him the doubtful benefit of her motherly attention.
“Now, now Roger, whatever are you up to? You know you mustn’t go out without a scarf! And do you have enough hankies with you, dearest?” she demanded, in a burst of effusive and frantic fussing, pulling him to her ample bosom and taking a scarf from the nearby hat stand and wrapping it around his neck several times.
Roger grimaced and showed her his wodge of hankies in his pockets. “Very well, dear, now don’t be late and do keep warm and away from any, er, well you know… bad people.”
With that, Roger finally scuttled across the hall and out the front door as fast as he could.
“Free at last, and its Froghopper Day,” he gasped with great relief as he hurried away from the large and austere Manor-house perched on the outskirts of upmarket Mottington.
Roger Briggs had recently turned 13 years old. He was a smart looking young boy with fair hair and round rim glasses.
He was also what, in olden times (at least as far back as the last century when Queen Victoria was on the throne) was called a “swot.” A swot is someone who likes to read books a lot and study and to do well at school and all that sort of thing.
And Roger did indeed love nothing more than reading, studying, experimenting and learning stuff! His favourite subjects all being scientific ones.
Now you may well ask, “Well, what’s wrong with that, surely, they are all good things, aren’t they? So, therefore, we should all be swots, right?”
And the answer to that of course is yes, you’re quite right. However, the trouble with Roger was that he was only a swot. He thought he just had no time, and definitely no interest, for anything else but his books and his studies, as he was repeatedly taught at School, it was: ‘Science and Law and Nothing More!’
The straight and simple truth though was he really believed that nobody had any time or any interest in him. He would tell you, if you asked him, that his most favourite subject of all was something called ‘entomology.’ This, however, was just the fancy word that he liked to use to either impress, or to put off other people from bugging him about it, ‘entomology’ of course merely being the important sounding name that so-called ‘proper’ scientists had for the Scientific Study of Insects.
What it came down to though, what Roger really liked most of all, was simply, ‘bugs.’
On this particular Saturday morning, near the beginning of the school summer holidays, Roger had planned for a very special field expedition. He had escaped from the unwanted administrations of his over-zealous and too doting mother and was at long last on his way. His school satchel stuffed full of his ‘things of scientific interest.’
And for this trip, he also had his trusty homemade ‘bug-catcher.’ This last item being but a simple net on a pole he’d made from some of his mum’s net-curtains and a bamboo cane he’d ‘borrowed’ from one of his dad’s garden sheds.
His dad really didn’t bother with the Manor’s gardens or the sheds any more these days, that was all left to the gardener, Bob, so Roger had found a shed that was a useful place to use as his own personal laboratory and private retreat.
However, the possession he most prized of all was his Flea Circus that he kept hidden in an old tobacco tin. This was a very big secret indeed. Nobody knew about his Flea Circus, absolutely nobody.
One day I will be famous from publishing my paper on Fleas, Roger thought, proudly, as he made his way steadily onwards, walking through the Good Wood.
Roger knew very well his parents and his teachers would just disapprove and so interfere, and all of his so-called classmates at school would just tease and make fun of him. In fact, he would end up being bullied even more than he already was.
’The Holometabolous Life Cycle of the Common Flea’, now how’s that for a snappy title? he thought, lost in blissful reverie, as he contemplated his many future scientific discoveries.
Or, what about, ‘Mystery of how Fleas actually jump at last resolved by a brilliant, young Entomologist! Research from Professor Roger Briggs of the University of Umbridge, at last sheds light on how Fleas can jump and reach speeds of up to two meters per second.’
Roger warmed with imagined pride and honour as he entered the Good Wood. He was on automatic now, scanning the vegetation all around him, earnestly looking for his desired scientific quarry. His eyes bent down to the leafy vegetation that bordered the Good Wood, scanning the hundreds of stalks for the one particular insect he most craved to discover and so completely oblivious of the wider world around him.
And I’ll keep my Flea Circus a total secret so that no one bothers me about it. Then I’ll be able to do all my researches and experiments and make my discoveries, and then they’ll see! he thought to himself in his innocent daydream, as he continued searching.
When I get the Noble Prize and all the recognition for my exciting and unprecedented research into Ethno-entomology, * that will show them all, I’ll be a real somebody then! Even more important than my Father!
(*Ethno-entomology, of course, as you and just about everyone else knows, simply being the study of the relationship between insects and people.)
Mr. Briggs, Roger’s Father, was in fact, a very important man; well, at least he thought so. After all, he was a local Councillor, and also, Wellingford Wood-Mill’s Senior Accountant.
He was also widely tipped to be the up-and-coming future Prime-Councillor for the whole of the United States of Britannia.
The timber company of Wellingford Wood-Mill was also where many of Roger’s school colleagues’ parents worked, but mostly in their lowlier employ, as laborers and lumbermen, as his Father called them.
Just imagine that! Roger smiled at his own inner vision. Me, Professor Roger Briggs. First Prize Winner and Noble Laureate and esteemed member of R.I.S.K; The Royal Institute of Scientific Knowledge. All from advancing the Knowledge of Mankind – By Bugs.
