Just William - Richmal Crompton (have you read this book .TXT) 📗

“I’m a bit overtired today, I think,” she went on. “I’m so apt to forget how weak I am and then I overdo it. I’m ready for the cake, William. I just sat out in the sun yesterday afternoon and sat a bit too long and overtired myself. I ought to write letters after tea, but I don’t think I have the strength. Another piece of cake, William. I’ll go upstairs to rest instead, I think. I hope you’ll keep the house quiet. It’s so rarely that I can get a bit of sleep.”

William’s father left the room abruptly. William sat on and watched, with fascinated eyes, the cake disappear, and finally followed the large, portly figure upstairs and sat down in his room to plan the “show” and incidentally listen, with a certain thrilled awe, for the sounds from next door.

The place and time of the “show” presented no little difficulty. To hold it in the old barn would give away to the world the cherished secret of their meeting place. It was William who suggested his bedroom, to be entered, not by way of the front door and staircase, but by the less public way of the garden wall and scullery roof. Ever an optimist, he affirmed that no one would see or hear. The choice of a time was limited to Wednesday afternoon, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday. Sunday at first was ruled out as impossible. But there were difficulties about Wednesday afternoon and Saturday afternoon. On Wednesday afternoon Ginger and Douglas were unwilling and ungraceful pupils at a dancing class. On Saturday afternoon William’s father gardened and would command a view of the garden wall and scullery roof. On these afternoons also Cook and Emma, both of a suspicious turn of mind, would be at large. On Sunday Cook and Emma went out, William’s mother paid a regular weekly visit to an old friend and William’s father spent the afternoon on the sofa, dead to the world.

Moreover, as he pointed out to the Outlaws, the members of the Sunday School could be waylaid and induced to attend the show and they would probably be provided with money for collection. The more William thought over it, the more attractive became the idea of a Sunday afternoon in spite of superficial difficulties; therefore Sunday afternoon was finally chosen.

The day was fortunately a fine one, and William and the other Outlaws were at work early. William had asked his mother, with an expression of meekness and virtue that ought to have warned her of danger, if he might have “jus’ a few friends” in his room for the afternoon. His mother, glad that her husband should be spared his son’s restless company, gave willing permission.

By half-past two the exhibits were ready. In a cage by the window sat a white rat painted in faint alternate stripes of blue and pink. This was Douglas’ contribution, handpainted by himself in water colours. It wore a bewildered expression and occasionally licked its stripes and then obviously wished it hadn’t. Its cage bore a notice printed on cardboard:

Rat from China
Rats are all like
this in China

Next came a cat belonging to William’s sister, Smuts by name, now imprisoned beneath a basket-chair. At the best of times Smuts was short-tempered, and all its life had cherished a bitter hatred of William. Now, enclosed by its enemy in a prison two feet square, its fury knew no bounds. It tore at the basket work, it flew wildly round and round, scratching, spitting, swearing. Its chair bore the simple and appropriate notice:

Wild cat

William watched it with honest pride and prayed fervently that its indignation would not abate during the afternoon.

Next came a giant composed of Douglas upon Ginger’s back, draped in two sheets tied tightly round Douglas’s neck. This was labelled:

Genwin giant

Ginger was already growing restive. His muffled voice was heard from the folds of the sheets informing the other Outlaws that it was a bit thick and he hadn’t known it would be like this or he wouldn’t have done it, and anyway he was going to change with Douglas half time or he’d chuck up the whole thing.

The next exhibit was a black fox fur of William’s mother’s, to which was fortunately attached a head and several feet, and which he had surreptitiously removed from her wardrobe. This had been tied up, stuffed with waste paper and wired by William till it was, in his eyes, remarkably lifelike. As the legs, even with the assistance of wire, refused to support the body and the head would only droop sadly to the ground, it was perforce exhibited in a recumbent attitude. It bore marks of sticky fingers, and of several side slips of the scissors when William was cutting the wire, but on the whole he was justly proud of it. It bore the striking but untruthful legend:⁠—

Bear shot
by outlaws
in Rusher

Next came:

Blue dog

This was Henry’s fox terrier, generally known as Chips. For Chips the world was very black. Henry’s master mind had scorned his paint box and his water colours. Henry had “borrowed” a blue bag and dabbed it liberally over Chips. Chips had, after the first wild frenzied struggle, offered no resistance. He now sat, a picture of black despair, turning every now and then a melancholy eye upon the still enraged Smuts. But for him cats and joy and life and fighting were no more. He was abject, shamed⁠—a blue dog.

William himself, as showman, was an imposing figure. He was robed in a red dressing-gown of his father’s that trailed on the ground behind him and over whose cords in front he stumbled ungracefully as he walked. He had cut a few strands from the fringe of a rug and glued them to his lips to represent moustaches. They fell in two straight lines over his mouth. On his head was a tinsel crown, once worn by his sister as Fairy Queen.

The show had been widely