Although Lanthorne was happy to wear shorts in “Dikembra”, Edwin was not. If it was this cold inside the house, then, outside, it must be like Alaska. He insisted on wearing the warmest pair of Lanthorne’s brother’s trousers they could find. The trouble was, every pair looked as if it had been made by someone unfashionable, on the day they sat on their glasses and broke them. Eventually, Edwin chose a pair which he tried to convince himself resembled a set of tracksuit bottoms fastened with a length of rough string. The colour was no colour at all and the cloth was heavy and chafed him. It was still better than walking around in his underwear.
Next, Lanthorne said, “Your shirt’s too bright. No one here wears a white shirt with writing on.”
In the circumstances, the slogan on Edwin’s T shirt, Stop staring, I know I’m SPECIAL, was an unfunny joke. They decided to cover it with a short-sleeved grey shirt and a long top garment that Lanthorne called a coat. Edwin didn’t really know what it was. It was knitted in thick, dark (possibly blue) wool and had an opening halfway down the front that was fastened with large wooden buttons. The sleeves were long and floppy, and it sported a hood. Edwin gave it a thorough shake before he agreed to put it on. It looked like prime beetle territory.
“You’ll need to keep your head down when we go out,” said Lanthorne. “Wear the hood like this.” He pulled it down to the level of Edwin’s nose. “And put these gloves on. Swarme must be sorry he left them behind.”
“I don’t suppose you have central heating in your house?” Edwin asked. Despite wearing the universe’s most shapeless and outlandish suit of clothes, he was beginning to shiver.
Lanthorne looked puzzled. “Heating in the centre of what?” So the answer was no.
The biggest problem was shoes. Lanthorne had a spare pair which were several sizes too small. They looked like pixie shoes or the sort you might come up with after an unsuccessful afternoon in a handicraft class. They were not much more than leather bags tied tightly around the ankle.
“My father made them,” explained Lanthorne. “He’s not very good.”
“Likewise.”
“Like what?”
“I mean, like my dad. He’s rubbish at making things. One of his favourite words is ‘likewise’.”
“My father’s favourite word is ‘pestofawoman’.”
“Meaning your Auntie Necra?”
“Yes. She’s always inviting herself to stay. Because Necra’s her older sister, Mum feels she can’t say no. Dad and me would say no every time.”
“You should tell her to clear off and give her the bus fare home,” Edwin suggested.
There were words here that Lanthorne didn’t understand, but there wasn’t time to ask questions. They had to concentrate on finding something Edwin could put on his feet.
“My mother bought my brother some expensive shoes for his Naming Day,” Lanthorne said. “She still keeps them in her bedroom. I’ll get them for you.”
Edwin wondered what had happened to this older brother Lanthorne “used” to have. Did it mean he was dead? Perhaps something worse had happened to him. Better not to ask.
“I’m getting really hungry.”
Even as he said it, Edwin imagined a dish of steaming—but still wriggling—beetles.
Stop it! They had to have bread and cheese, at least, or apples.
“You might not like our food, Edwin.”
That was enough. “I’ll wait till I get home, then.”
Somehow, saying that made him feel more positive. Yes, he would return home, and, what’s more, he would eat three complete meals in one go when he got there: roast chicken and chips, curry, burgers, trifle, apple crumble and custard, lemon meringue pie; the lot.
“In our house, you can smell when Mum’s cooking lunch,” he said.
“I’ve heard about cooking. My mother’s never done it. It doesn’t seem right to put burnt food into your mouth. We just let our food ripen.”
Edwin was confused. You let tomatoes and bananas ripen, so why did Lanthorne warn him? Did they just live on fruit or salads, like some of his mum’s friends? And if so, what was the problem? If I don’t get home today, I’m sure I’ll starve, he thought. His fragment of optimism faded.
“I’m going to leave you for a while,” said Lanthorne.
Edwin panicked. “I don’t want to be here on my own.” There was a snarghe in the cupboard, a tribe of beetles in the bed and a pinching aunt on the prowl. He couldn’t possibly be safe.
“You need the shoes and I’m going to smear your face with dirt. Even with the hood pulled down, you’re shining too much. There’s some good mud by the privye. You can get into my bed, if you like, while I’m gone.”
There was no chance of that. And Edwin was about to have his face daubed with… No, don’t think about it.
“And remember—”
“I know. Don’t make the slightest noise.”
“My mother and Auntie Necra like to sit in the living room, chatting, in the afternoon. Well, Auntie Necra does most of the talking. Dad’s at the stoneyarde, so I shouldn’t have a problem getting the shoes unless Mum’s hidden them. If it all goes wrong, I’ll shout out your name and you must run away as far as you can go.”
Edwin felt crushed. Where could he run safely in this alien world, in his socks? It would be simpler to go into the cupboard, give the snarghe a hefty kick and let the creature end it all.
Lanthorne left the bedroom, and Edwin sat down on the chair, feeling colder by the minute. He hadn’t dared look out of the small window and didn’t do so now. The glass was a swirly yellow that reminded him of wee, which was somehow predictable. Not much light came in, and it was growing less, a winter afternoon drawing towards its end.
When the shivers began to rattle his teeth, and snuggling into the hoodie did no good at all, Edwin looked across the room at Lanthorne’s bed. Burrow into it he certainly wouldn’t, but he might be able to relieve it of one of its blankets. On tiptoe, he went over to the bed and slapped one corner of the blankets very hard. He hoped any nearby beetles would think they were under attack and scurry away to the farthest corner of the bed. It was a dull sort of slap, not a sharp one, because the thickness of the covers absorbed the sound. All the same, he stood absolutely still, his ears pricked. There was no hint of dreadful Auntie Necra’s footsteps on the stairs, but, in its cupboard, the snarghe sneezed twice. The sneezes were squeaky rather than loud, but they blew out so much air the cupboard door rattled. Edwin was afraid it would fly open.
These might be the last moments of my life, he thought. Fearing that razor-like teeth and claws were about to sink deeply into him, he turned slowly round. The cupboard was still shut. He was safe. After peeling the top blanket off the bed, he gave it a thorough shake and carried it back to his chair, where he wrapped it around him. It reduced the shivers to an acceptable level.
But Edwin’s worries weren’t so easily dealt with. He couldn’t stop thinking about the snarghe, so few feet away. Had he heard two heads sneezing one after the other, or one head with an uncomfortable amount of dust in its single nose? Either way, the snarghe was a creature Edwin intended never to meet again.
By the time Lanthorne returned, only twenty minutes later, Edwin was thoroughly sick of his dismal thoughts. He tried to be enthusiastic about the giant pair of sandals Lanthorne claimed he’d retrieved at great risk. They slid about on Edwin’s feet when he experimented with walking in them. A drawstring fastened them rather than buckles, and no amount of tugging on it could make the sandals seem any narrower. He knew he would never be able to run in them if danger threatened, and how far could he get trying to sprint in his socks?
“Your brother had enormous feet.”
“He was fifteen when…”
“And I’m not smearing that on my face. It stinks.”
Lanthorne was holding out a small wooden cup containing a dark and sticky substance.
“Edwin, this is the best dirt. We grow things in it.”
“It’s a cup of poo. Why don’t you admit it?”
“It’s from the garden, not from someone’s bottom. I promise.”
“I’m still not putting it on my face till we get outside. Our garden doesn’t smell like that and my dad says his tomatoes are still fantastic.”
“There won’t be time when we get outside. Now please stand still.”
Edwin submitted to having his face plastered thickly with what Lanthorne kept promising was ordinary garden dirt. When a line of gunge is spread under your nose like the world’s vilest moustache, Edwin discovered that you can’t close your nostrils against the smell. He had to keep telling himself, It’s for my own good. Complaining wasn’t any help because he ran the risk of letting it into his mouth. He remembered a bird-poo-in-the-hair bullying incident at school last year and now knew exactly what the victim felt. He regretted having laughed.
“I’ve brought you something else,” said Lanthorne. “Something very special to me. Think of my name and then guess what I’m hiding behind my back.”
Edwin was not in the mood for a guessing game. Condemned men about to face execution don’t play I spy and, right now, he wasn’t going to play a childish game either. “I give up,” he said immediately.
Lanthorne looked crestfallen. “Have just one guess.”
“Chicken curry with poppadoms.”
These words were a completely foreign language to Lanthorne. “Look,” he said proudly, holding up a tiny lantern, a square, old-fashioned one with shutters made of a brownish material. “This is how I got my name.”
“From a lantern?”
“No, a lanthorne.” He opened one of the shutters, revealing a stub of candle. “The sides are made of slices of a cow’s horn. But you’ll have to light it when the time comes. I’m still a little frightened of flames.”
“Why do you have the same name as a lantern? I mean, lanthorne?”
“It’s like this…” Happy to be able to tell his guest a story, Lanthorne made himself comfortable on the floor in front of Edwin, who sat on a chair. “Your parents chose your name, didn’t they?”
“Of course,” said Edwin.
“And where did they get that name from?”
“It’s a Robbins family name. My grandfather and his father were both called Edwin. Lots of people name babies after someone famous on the telly, or footballers.”
Lanthorne looked puzzled. More strange words. “Here, a father gives his new baby the name of the first thing he sees after the baby is born.”
“I’m surprised every baby isn’t called Lady’sfrontbottom, then,” said Edwin.
They both rocked with laughter but made as little noise as they could, because it might bring Auntie Necra snooping again.
“Your father wasn’t in the room when you were born, was he?” Lanthorne asked in disbelief.
“And when my sister Mandoline was born. He said he felt faint for a week afterwards.”
“Our fathers wait outside. Then, when they’re told the baby has been born, they choose its name from the last thing they were looking at. I was born at night and my father was carrying a lanthorne.”
“If he was outside, he could have been looking at a worm or some dog mess on the pavement.”
“Like the father of poor Uncle Tarde.”
Edwin thought about this name for a moment. “Oh, I get it,” he said. “Uncle Turd. He must have hated his dad.”
They started laughing again.
“I’d choose the name beforehand and then pretend I’d seen it.”
“You mustn’t lie about it,” said Lanthorne firmly. “The trick is to make sure you only look at nice things. My friend’s name is Jugge because his father had just gone into the kitchen, and they called my brother Swarme.”
“As in, a swarm of bees?”
“No, a swarme of blow flies. He was born in the month of Angist.”
Edwin inspected his watch again. It was rude to cut across Lanthorne’s story, but he was feeling desperate. “Is it time to leave yet?” he asked.
“I think so,” said Lanthorne. “It must be dark enough by now, but not too dark. I had to tell my mum I want to visit my friend Jugge. She was in the middle of an argument with Auntie Necra, so it’s a good thing we’re leaving the house. They both ask me to side with them when they quarrel, and I get pulled about a lot.”
“Don’t your parents stand up for you?”
Lanthorne didn’t answer. He took a step towards the door and slipped on a hooded top similar to the one so unwillingly sported by Edwin, who took this as a sign for him to follow.
“Wait!” said Lanthorne, turning and catching his arm. “We’ll need this.” He handed Edwin the lanthorne and a large, crude match, together with a stone which he took out of his pocket.
Edwin set the lanthorne down on top of the chest of drawers and opened the shutter. As he struck the blob of a match head against the piece of stone, he knew he needed to light the miserable little piece of candle very carefully if he wanted to be sure they had some light at least. Lanthorne had turned his back while this was going on, but he still flinched when the match flared into life.
“If you hate flames so much, how could you bear to send me those letters up a chimney?” Edwin asked him.
“It’s only the smoke you need, not the flames,” said Lanthorne. “Jugge posted the letters for me anyway. Come on. Let’s get going. I’ll have a look out on the stairs first. You can never tell with my auntie. She heard me asking my mother if I could go out at this time of day. If it’s safe, you wait outside the door while I let the snarghe out. If it has to stay in the cupboard much longer, it’ll begin to howl.”
There was no sign of Lanthorne’s mother or Auntie Necra, who were presumably still at loggerheads, so Edwin was able to tiptoe out onto the landing, which had no windows and was completely dark. The lanthorne didn’t so much light up the landing and the top stairs as create a series of unsettling shadows. Edwin felt he might have been better off without it. He could tell that Lanthorne had opened the door of the cupboard in his bedroom, because there was a sound of clawed feet scampering across the floor. This was followed by alternate sniffing and grunting sounds—made by separate mouths taking it in turns, perhaps.
Lanthorne could be heard scolding the animal and then Edwin recognized the teeth-on-edge screech of claws being dragged reluctantly away from the door. He moved as far across the landing as he could, hoping to take every trace of his scent with him. He was still very concerned about what Lanthorne meant when he said the snarghe was “identifying” him “for later”. That later hadn’t better be now.
“If you know what to say to a snarghe, it’ll do anything you want,” said Lanthorne, when he finally appeared. “But it can’t abide sarcasm. Auntie Necra is in for a horrible shock if she sneaks into my room uninvited. This one has a taste for fingers and toes.” He sniggered.
The two boys made their way carefully down the staircase, Edwin following closely behind his friend, who carried the lanthorne. Its faint circle of light hardly managed to include the pair of them.