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

though, true to his Resolution, he added softly with dogged determination, “if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”

“I’ll set the police on you,” his late customer shouted angrily back across the street. “You wicked, blasphemous boy!”

William put out his tongue at her, then returned to the shop and closed the door.

Here he discovered that the door, when opened, rang a bell, and, after filling his mouth with Liquorice All Sorts, he spent the next five minutes vigorously opening and shutting the door till something went wrong with the mechanism of the bell. At this he fortified himself with a course of Nutty Footballs and, standing on a chair, began ruthlessly to dismember the bell. He was disturbed by the entry of another customer. Swallowing a Nutty Football whole, he hastened to his post behind the counter.

The newcomer was a little girl of about nine⁠—a very dainty little girl, dressed in a white fur coat and cap and long white gaiters. Her hair fell in golden curls over her white fur shoulders. Her eyes were blue. Her cheeks were velvety and rosy. Her mouth was like a baby’s. William had seen this vision on various occasions in the town, but had never yet addressed it. Whenever he had seen it, his heart in the midst of his body had been even as melting wax. He smiled⁠—a self-conscious, sheepish smile. His freckled face blushed to the roots of his short stubby hair. She seemed to find nothing odd in the fact of a small boy being in charge of a sweet-shop. She came up to the counter.

“Please, I want two twopenny bars of chocolate.”

Her voice was very clear and silvery.

Ecstasy rendered William speechless. His smile grew wider and more foolish. Seeing his two half-sucked Pineapple Crisps exposed upon the scales, he hastily put them into his mouth.

She laid four pennies on the counter.

William found his voice.

“You can have lots for that,” he said huskily. “They’ve gone cheap. They’ve gone ever so cheap. You can take all the boxful for that,” he went on recklessly. He pressed the box into her reluctant hands. “An’⁠—what else would you like? You jus’ tell me that. Tell me what else you’d like?”

“Please, I haven’t any more money,” gasped a small, bewildered voice.

“Money don’t matter,” said William. “Things is cheap today. Things is awful cheap today. Awful cheap! You can have⁠—anythin’ you like for that fourpence. Anythin’ you like.”

“ ’Cause it’s New Year’s Day?” said the vision, with a gleam of understanding.

“Yes,” said William, “ ’cause it’s that.”

“Is it your shop?”

“Yes,” said William with an air of importance. “It’s all my shop.”

She gazed at him in admiration and envy.

“I’d love to have a sweet-shop,” she said wistfully.

“Well, you take anythin’ you like,” said William generously.

She collected as much as she could carry and started towards the door. “Sank you! Sank you ever so!” she said gratefully.

William stood leaning against the door in the easy attitude of the good-natured, all-providing male.

“It’s all right,” he said with an indulgent smile. “Quite all right. Quite all right.” Then, with an inspiration born of memories of his father earlier in the day. “Not at all. Don’t menshun it. Not at all. Quite all right.”

He stopped, simply for lack of further expressions, and bowed with would-be gracefulness as she went through the doorway.

As she passed the window she was rewarded by a spreading effusive smile in a flushed face.

She stopped and kissed her hand.

William blinked with pure emotion.

He continued his smile long after its recipient had disappeared. Then absentmindedly he crammed his mouth with a handful of Mixed Dew Drops and sat down behind the counter.

As he crunched Mixed Dew Drops he indulged in a day dream in which he rescued the little girl in the white fur coat from robbers and pirates and a burning house. He was just leaping nimbly from the roof of the burning house, holding the little girl in the white fur coat in his arms, when he caught sight of two of his friends flattening their noses at the window. He rose from his seat and went to the door.

“ ’Ullo, Ginger! ’Ullo, Henry!” he said with an unsuccessful effort to appear void of self-consciousness.

They gazed at him in wonder.

“I’ve gotta shop,” he went on casually. “Come on in an’ look at it.”

They peeped round the doorway cautiously and, reassured by the sight of William obviously in sole possession, they entered, openmouthed. They gazed at the boxes and bottles of sweets. Aladdin’s Cave was nothing to this.

“Howd’ you get it, William?” gasped Ginger.

“Someone gave it me,” said William. “I took one of them things to be p’lite an’ someone gave it me. Go on,” he said kindly. “Jus’ help yourselves. Not at all. Jus’ help yourselves an’ don’t menshun it.”

They needed no second bidding. With the unerring instinct of childhood (not unsupported by experience) that at any minute their Eden might be invaded by the avenging angel in the shape of a grownup, they made full use of their time. They went from box to box, putting handfuls of sweets and chocolates into their mouths. They said nothing, simply because speech was, under the circumstances, a physical impossibility. Showing a foresight for the future, worthy of the noble ant itself, so often held up as a model to childhood, they filled pockets in the intervals of cramming their mouths.

A close observer might have noticed that William now ate little. William himself had been conscious for some time of a curious and inexplicable feeling of coldness towards the tempting dainties around him. He was, however, loth to give in to the weakness, and every now and then he nonchalantly put into his mouth a Toasted Square or a Fruity Bit.

It happened that a loutish boy of about fourteen was passing the shop. At the sight of three small boys rapidly consuming the contents, he became interested.

“What yer doin’ of?” he said indignantly, standing in the doorway.

“You get out of my shop,” said William valiantly.

“Yer shop?” said the boy. “Yer bloomin’