Stig of the Dump Read online

  ‘It’s all right Albert,’ called the eldest Snarget again. ‘It’s no use you ‘idin’ yerself up there. We’re comin’ up to get yer.’ But this didn’t worry Barney either. By the time they got to the top, he could be well away. The Snargets must have thought this too, because they didn’t make a move. They retired inside their rickety shack instead. Barney scored another direct hit on it and a near miss. Heads popped out each time and looked round fiercely, but he was too well hidden and they failed to spot him. But there seemed to be a lot of whispering going on in the shack, and then all three Snargets came out and started walking towards the way out. The eldest called over his shoulder in a casual voice: ‘Goodbye Albert!’ and the other two repeated it.

  ‘We’re goin’ ‘ome now Albert,’ called the eldest. ‘It’s our dinner time. But listen ‘ere Albert, we know you’re up there. Just keep your ‘ands off of our shack, see! We got something in there that’s valuable. We just dare you to meddle with it, that’s all!’

  The Snargets walked off towards the way out of the pit, whistling loudly and banging tins with sticks. Barney waited until he could hear their feet on the lane, dying away.

  Funny, he thought. They’ve gone. Still, perhaps it is their dinner time.

  He came out from behind his tree and went round the edge of the pit to the low side, and walked along the bottom to the shack the Snargets had built. He wondered what the valuable thing was they had left in it. There didn’t seem to be anything except a paper bag full of chestnut conkers.

  ‘Pooh! Silly old conkers,’ said Barney aloud. ‘They’re not valuable.’

  Perhaps they’d buried something. He dug around in the mossy floor and unearthed a very rusty tin box. It had writing on the outside, he could just make out the letters: ‘GOLD BLOCK’, it said! It felt heavy. Ought he to open it or not? He decided he would. There was no harm in just looking.

  The hinged lid was rusted to the bottom and wouldn’t move. He banged at it with a stone. Out fell a rusty mass of screws, nuts, bolts, and curtain rings. Inside the lid of the box was more writing which said that Gold Block was the Finest Pipe Tobacco, Made from Choice Virginia Leaf… Barney threw the tin away in disgust, and a voice said: ‘All right mister, come out, we got you covered!’

  It was the Snargets! They’d played a trick on him and crept back.

  He came out of the shack and faced the Snargets. One had a broken-down old airgun, and the others were pointing sticks.

  ‘Cor! It ain’t Albert!’ exclaimed the youngest Snarget.

  ‘We can see that!’ said the oldest roughly. ‘What’s yer name?’ he said to Barney in the same voice.

  ‘Barney,’ said Barney. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘I’m the Lone Ranger and ‘e’s Robin Hood and ‘e’s William Tell,’ snapped the eldest Snarget.

  ‘Golly!’ exclaimed Barney.

  ‘Quiet!’ snapped the first Snarget. ‘What was you doin’ in our shack?’

  ‘Yes, and watcher mean by chuckin’ dirt at us?’ asked the second Snarget.

  ‘Yes, and watcher doin’ in our dump anyway?’ piped the youngest fiercely.

  ‘Can if I want to,’ replied Barney, pretending not to mind. But he was not really feeling very comfortable. He was not sure just how rough these Snargets could get.

  ‘“Can if ‘e wants to”, ‘e says!’ exclaimed the Lone Ranger as if he couldn’t believe his ears. ‘What shall we do wiv ‘im, fellers?’

  ‘Tie ‘im to a tree and shoot ‘im full of arrers,’ suggested Robin Hood.

  ‘Put ‘im in a dungeon and leave ‘im to rot,’ said William Tell.

  ‘No, I reckon we ought to lynch ‘im on the spot. String ‘im up!’ said the Lone Ranger masterfully.

  ‘We ain’t got no rope,’ said Robin Hood.

  ‘Well, we ain’t got no bowsanarrers,’ pointed out William Tell.

  ‘Well, there certainly ain’t no dungeon for miles around,’ said the Lone Ranger. ‘Let’s just give ‘im a bit of Slow Torture.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare!’ said Barney. But he didn’t feel too sure.

  Oh, wouldn’t we!’ sneered the Lone Ranger. ‘That’s what you think. We often do, don’t we fellers? Do it all the time, don’t we, give people the Slow Torture?’

  ‘Yes. And shoot ‘em full of arrers,’ agreed Robin Hood.

  ‘And put ‘em in dungeons,’ added William Tell.

  ‘I’d tell a policeman,’ said Barney stoutly.

  The eldest Snarget looked carefully around the pit. ‘Can’t see no policeman ‘ere,’ he said scornfully.

  ‘I’d tell my Granny, and she lives just up there,’ said Barney. The Snargets collapsed in howls of laughter.

  “E’d tell ‘is Granny, ‘e says! ‘Ear that, fellers! ‘E’d tell ‘is Granny!’ they cackled. Barney felt his face going red and tears coming into his eyes. Then he thought of something.

  ‘I’m going to tell Stig,’ he said calmly.

  The laughter went on. “E’s going to tell ‘is Stig!’ cackled the Snargets, but Barney just stood there and smiled, and the laughter gradually died down.

  “Oo’s Stig?’ the eldest Snarget asked suspiciously.

  ‘Oh, a friend of mine,’ replied Barney airily.

  ‘Garn, there ain’t no such person,’ said the second, doubtfully.

  ‘Yes there is. And he’s my friend,’ said Barney.

  ‘Where’s ‘e live?’ squeaked the smallest Snarget.

  ‘Here,’ said Barney.

  “Ere!’ chorused the Snargets scornfully. ‘What, in the dump?’ jeered the eldest Snarget, and they all laughed as if he had made a joke.

  ‘Yes,’ said Barney. ‘Didn’t you know?’

  ‘Go on! You can’t ‘alf tell ‘em!’ said the second. ‘What’s ‘e do? Tell us that then!’

  ‘He makes bows out of television aerials and arrows out of bits of flint,’ replied Barney. The Snargets gaped at him with open mouths.

  ‘Look ‘ere,’ said the eldest at last. ‘This ‘ere Stig of yourn, what is ‘e then? A boy or a man?’

  Barney had to think a little before he answered. Then: ‘He’s a cave man,’ he said.

  At once the Snargets burst into jeers and laughter again.

  ‘Yah, soppy old cave man!’ “E’s got it out of a school book!’ “E’s pullin’ our legs. Makin’ out he knows a cave man!’ ‘Come on fellers, let’s do ‘im!’ ‘Slow torture!’ they cried.

  But Barney leapt off the pile of rubble he was standing on and set off at a run towards the other end of the pit. The Snargets were after him with shrill cries.

  “E’s off!’

  ‘Get ‘im, fellers!’

  ‘Yah! Chicken! Run away, will yer?’

  Barney jumped fallen tree-trunks and burst through banks of nettles without caring for the stings. He knew the bottom of the pit better than the Snargets, and he seemed to be leaving them behind. Then he heard the voice of the eldest: ‘Take it easy, fellers. ‘E can’t get out this end of the pit. Spread out so ‘e don’t double back!’

  But Barney did not mean to double back. As quietly as he could, so that his pursuers could not hear him through the nettle banks and elder trees, he made for the entrance to Stig’s den, flung himself through the low doorway, and collapsed, puffing, blowing, and pleased with himself, on the floor of the cave.

  Stig was there, busy making himself a really horrible-looking club out of a tree root into which he was fixing bits of flint, broken glass, and rusty nails.

  ‘Hallo Stig!’ panted Barney. ‘I’m jolly glad to see you.’ But when he saw the horrible club he began to feel almost sorry for the Snargets. He couldn’t set this monster on to three little boys who hadn’t really done anything to him yet. It may have been only a game, after all. You never could tell with the Snargets. Barney just smiled uncertainly at Stig, and Stig returned him a friendly grin.

  Then from outside came the sound of the Snargets calling to each other: “As ‘e gorn back your way Ted?’ ‘No. I ain’t see
n ‘im.’ ‘Must be ‘idin’ round about ‘ere somewheres.’ There were sounds of the undergrowth being beaten and stones being flung into bramble patches. Stig listened and looked at Barney suspiciously, but Barney made signs to be quiet.

  ‘Cor, wait till I get my ‘ands on you, Mister Barney, wherever you are!’ came the voice of the eldest Snarget. ‘I’m all nettle stings one side of me face. We’ll roll ‘im in the nettles when we get ‘im, that’s what we’ll do.’ He sounded as if he meant it, and Barney felt he was not quite so sorry for the Snargets.

  Footsteps crackling on dry twigs sounded quite close to the den. Barney moved further back into the cave and made signs to Stig to do the same, but Stig stayed near the entrance, bristling. Suddenly the voice of the youngest Snarget piped up excitedly: ‘There’s a nole ‘ere, a nole! Come out of it!’ And a large lump of chalk came flying in through the entrance and hit Stig smack on the side of the head.

  Stig gave one roar and charged out of his doorway. Barney threw himself after him to see what would happen. The youngest Snarget gave one pop-eyed disbelieving look at Stig and turned and fled, sobbing and screaming.

  ‘Aaaaaaoooower! It’s a kye – it’s a kye – it’s a kye – it’s a kye – it’s a KYVE man!’

  The other Snargets, who had been closing in when they heard the youngest’s cry of discovery, saw Stig and turned and ran too.

  ‘Wait for me! Wait, wait, don’t leave me!’ wailed the youngest, and then uttered a shrill scream of terror as he put his foot through the bottom of a rusty enamel basin and fell headlong, ‘ELP-ELP-ELP – ’e’s-got-me-’e’s-got-me-’e’s-GOT-ME!!!’

  Almost as alarmed as the young Snarget, Barney ran up to where Stig was standing over the boy, who was shivering and moaning with fright and looked as if he expected to be eaten on the spot.

  But Stig was standing there looking down at the fallen William Tell Snarget with an almost fatherly look in his eyes. He bent down to help the boy to his feet, and the Snarget moaned feebly: ‘Don’t, don’t.’ Then, seeing Barney approaching, he turned his eyes pitifully towards Barney and wailed: ‘Don’t let ‘im ‘urt me! Don’t let ‘im ‘urt me! I wasn’t doing no ‘arm.’ But Stig kept hold of him and led him firmly but gently towards his den.

  The Snarget gang, trouble-makers though they were, were not as black as they were painted. Anyway, they weren’t the men to abandon one of their number to his fate. And perhaps too they had an idea that violence was not always the way to get things done. Stig, Barney, and their captive had not been long inside the den before there came the sound of hesitant footsteps from nearby. Barney looked out, and there were the two other Snargets standing meekly together, unarmed, and holding paper packets in their hands. The middle brother also had a handkerchief, which might have been supposed to be white, tied to a stick.

  ‘We got gifts,’ said the one with the white flag.

  ‘Yes,’ said the other. ‘We come for the little ‘un.’

  Barney hesitated. ‘You better come in,’ he said. ‘But no tricks!’

  ‘Not likely!’ said the middle Snarget. ‘Not with that there pal o’ yourn about.’

  They came in through the doorway, saw Stig for the first time close to, and stopped, their eyes growing rounder and rounder. Then the second of them took a step forward, gingerly, holding out his hand with a paper bag on it.

  ‘For you,’ he said in a shaky voice. ‘It’s jelly-babies.’

  Stig took the little bag in a puzzled manner, squeezed it, smelt it, turned it about in his hands. Barney realized that though he was clever at a lot of things he was sometimes surprisingly ignorant about such things as paper bags. Then as he turned the bag in his hairy hands, one jelly-baby fell out on to the floor. Stig’s eyes widened and he stooped to pick it up, and held it to the light of the lamp which was flaming in the back of the cave, with a pleased expression on his face. Then he reverently stood the little sweetmeat in a niche in the chalk and stood and looked at it.

  ‘You’re supposed to eat it, Stig,’ said Barney, getting rather tired of this pantomime. ‘It’s delicious.’ He went across to the jelly-baby’s little niche and popped it into his own mouth. Stig looked horrified, and Barney was afraid for a moment he was going to hit him.

  ‘There’s more in the bag, Stig,’ he said hurriedly, and he took the bag from Stig and opened it and showed him the other little jelly figures. ‘Go on, eat one!’ he urged.

  Stig took one between his finger and thumb, put it slowly in his mouth, and chewed slowly. Barney and the Snargets watched anxiously. Then a smile slowly began to spread over his face. The Snargets, who had been standing there strained and tense, sighed with relief and smiled too. Somehow everyone felt as though some very solemn ceremony had been performed.

  Barney handed round the bag and all five of them solemnly ate jelly-babies. Then the middle Snarget produced his second gift, which was little bags of fizzy sherbet with hollow sticks of liquorice stuck in them to suck it through.

  They sat down to this. After a little instruction, Stig got the idea of how to suck the fizzy powder up through the little tube, but as soon as he got a mouthful and felt the unusual sensation on his tongue he jumped up with an alarmed expression on his face and began coughing and spluttering, and the Snargets weren’t sure whether to laugh or be alarmed too. But Barney banged Stig on the back, which impressed the Snargets even more, and managed to soothe him down again.

  Finally, with a flourish, the eldest Snarget produced a packet of Woodbine cigarettes and handed them round. All three Snargets took one as if it was quite a usual thing, but this time it was Barney’s turn to hesitate and wonder whether he should. As if he wished to show they were all friends now, Stig took one, beaming, and without even looking to see what the others were doing with theirs, put it in his mouth. The smallest Snarget suddenly exclaimed: “Ere, ‘e’s eatin’ it!’ and before they could do anything, Stig had chewed up the little tube of tobacco and swallowed it with great satisfaction.

  The Snargets and Barney lit their cigarettes at the lamp. Barney immediately choked on his and threw it away and decided he didn’t like smoking, the smallest Snarget puffed away and turned first white and then green, the other two smoked away quite happily, but Stig, though he ate another one, could not be persuaded to send up in smoke what he considered to be nourishing food.

  The Snargets began to feel at home.

  “E’s all right, your pal Stig,’ said the eldest Snarget to Barney “E don’t say much though, do ‘e? Don’t ‘e speak English?’

  ‘Smashin’ place ‘e’s got ‘ere an’ all,’ said the second. ‘Cor, look at them old spears!’

  ‘I weren’t reely feared of ‘im,’ piped up the youngest. ‘I was just makin’ out I was.’

  ‘Yes, nor we wasn’t reely goin’ to do no ‘arm to old Barney ‘ere, was we fellers? It were all just make believe, weren’t it? Reckon old Barney and ‘is pal Stig are all right, eh fellers?’

  The others agreed in chorus. Barney felt a warm feeling inside now that the Snargets reckoned he and his friend Stig were all right.

  ‘I tell you what,’ went on the eldest Snarget. ‘Stig an’ Barney’ll be part of our gang from now on. And we’ll all swear an oath we won’t none of us tell no one about this ‘ere den.’

  Barney was going to agree, and then he thought, well, it was his secret first anyway, so why should he swear about it with anybody?

  But the Snargets swore a horrible oath among themselves over the body of the last jelly-baby in the bag, which they then cut the head off and buried to show what would happen to any of them who broke their oath. Barney felt fairly sure that his secret would not spread around the village now, and he felt somehow that Stig and the Snargets would get along very well together.

  Barney was quite surprised when he got back to his Grandmother’s house to find that he was in good time for lunch and Granny was just dishing up dumplings.

  ‘Did you find something to do outside, dear?’ asked his Grandmothe
r. ‘Not a very nice day!’

  ‘I had super fun with the Snargets, Granny. First I bombed them and then they were going to lynch me or torture me or something but I got away to Stig’s den and they thought Stig was going to eat one of them but we ate babies instead, you know, jelly ones.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Granny. ‘Aren’t the Snargets rather rough boys for you to play with?’

  ‘Yes, but they’re not nearly as rough as Stig. I reckon they’re all right,’ said Barney.

  Chapter Six

  Skinned and Buried

  Barney was up the elm tree. It was the one that grew very close to Grandmother’s house. It had a swing on one of the lower branches and near the top there was a hole where the jackdaws usually made a nest each year. Barney had climbed up to see how they were getting on this spring, and they had already laid one egg. He climbed higher, among the springy branches at the top, and clung there and let the wind blow him to and fro. He could see the house almost below him, and the garden with a few daffodils and crocuses showing, and the wood and copses where the trees still showed their bones but were beginning to cover them with new green leaves.

  He heard Lou’s voice somewhere about the house calling for him but he didn’t answer. ‘I bet she can’t find me,’ he thought, and grinned to himself. Then he saw his Grandmother and Lou in the yard, going out to the car with shopping-baskets. Grandmother called: ‘Barney, where are you?’

  Barney chuckled to himself. He could see them, so they could see him if they really looked. But Grandmother and Lou got into the car and drove off, and he could see it going away along the lanes towards the village.

  They’d gone off shopping and left him! It wasn’t fair! He was so cross he nearly fell off his branch. Then he thought it was no good trying to stamp your feet when they are wedged in the fork of a branch, and anyhow he might as well stay up here instead of going shopping. He’d really rather be up a tree in the wind than go shopping.