WHAT PETER DID, AFTER SETTING out with his grandfather’s binoculars and his wonderful new manners, was buy a shilling ticket for the branch line train that ran through the valley at the bottom of the grandparents’ garden, and step off it as it rattled and puffed its way across the moor.
Nobody knew this for ages and ages, not until the return train went past, and someone happened to notice him lying by the track.
“I thought he was dead until he raised his arm,” said the passenger, explaining afterward. “Lying there, half buried in the bracken, white as a sheet. Whatever happened?”
No one could answer that. Peter was retrieved by stretcher, transported to the nearest town by train, hurried to the local hospital, diagnosed with bruises, shock, and multiple fractures of the left leg, knocked out with chloroform, woken (screaming), dosed with morphine, and very luckily identified by his grandfather’s name inside the binocular case. When he finally came round and was well enough to talk, he said he couldn’t remember anything after leaving the house.
Two days afterward he recalled getting on the train, and as the days passed, more of the journey came back to him.
“I remember standing up,” he said cautiously. “And then I think I opened a door to look at something.”
He was home now, after nearly a week in hospital, propped up in bed with his leg in plaster from heel to hip and his bruises as purple as plums.
“You might have died,” said Clarry. “Then what?”
“Died!” said Peter scornfully. “I didn’t even break the binoculars!”
“And you hate trains! Why did you go on one when you didn’t have to do?”
“I found a shilling in my pocket and I thought I might as well.”
“Oh, Peter!” wailed Clarry.
“What?”
“I put it there! After church, that first Sunday.”
“Well, then, stop blaming me for everything! It’s half your fault!”
Rupert, who was leaning against the doorframe, looking thoughtfully at Peter, said, “Oi!”
“Why did you have to open the train door?” persisted Clarry. “Couldn’t you have just opened the window if you weren’t feeling well?”
“Look!” snapped Peter, for since he had so illogically opened the door of a moving train, his perpetual irritation with the world had returned as if it had never been lost. “Who said I wasn’t feeling well? I was on a train! I got off a train! The end!”
“But the train was going!”
“Not very fast.”
“And you just stepped off on purpose?”
“It was much higher above the track than I realized.”
“What was it you saw, anyway?”
Peter did not reply, and Clarry saw that his eyes were closed. He had turned his face toward his bedroom wall and she noticed how shabby his old striped pajamas looked, how limp the thin brown hair. “Are you hot?” she asked, reaching out a hand to check his forehead. The doctors had told them that he mustn’t be hot; it meant infection from the broken bones.
“No!” Peter pushed her hand away. “I’m just tired. Clear off, and leave me alone. I’m supposed to be resting. I didn’t get much sleep last night.” He yawned a large fake yawn, and closed his eyes.
“You’re an awful actor,” said Rupert, grinning.
“Just get out!” howled Peter, sitting up furiously. “Aaaaah, no! I’ve yanked it again! Clear off with your rotten questions! It’s your fault! It’s all your blasted fault! Hell.”
He pulled a pillow over his face, but not before Clarry had glimpsed a glitter of tears.
“Peter . . . ,” she began, but from under the pillow came a tremendous angry growl.
“Pete, we’re going,” said Rupert, reaching out for Clarry and steering her toward the door. “Leaving you in peace. I’ll be back in a while in case you need anything. Come on, Clarry!”
“But . . .”
“Let him rest.”
Out in the garden, Clarry said, “Poor, poor Peter. I don’t believe he saw anything special from the train. I expect he was just sick, like always, and couldn’t get the window down, and then he must have fallen.”
“Yes, perhaps,” agreed Rupert.
“And now he’s miserable and his whole summer is spoiled.”
“Do you always worry about him this much?” asked Rupert, amused.
“Well, don’t. He’ll soon be able to get around a bit, and then he’ll cheer up. Stop fussing him, though. No more questions! We’ll find something ordinary to talk about. What does he like to do at home? Does he paint things, like you do?”
“No.” Clarry shook her head. “He likes looking things up in books,” she added, after some thought.
“We’ll find him some things to look up, then. We’ll go foraging for mysteries! Now then, I’ll fetch my bike and you can ride on the crossbar and we’ll whiz into town for ice cream!”
“And bring some back for Peter?” asked Clarry.
“It would melt,” said Rupert, and then, seeing her disappointed face, added, “We’ll bring lemons, to make him lemonade,” and watched it shine again.
Clarry took the lemons to the kitchen and was shooed away while the lemonade was made. To pass the time she went hunting outside. Very soon she found a great number of things that could be looked up in books, including a two-headed dandelion, a crystal of pink quartz, a miniature wasp’s nest, light as a paper shell, and a metallic blue feather, barred with black.
“I found something too!” said Rupert, and held up a yellowing sheep’s skull with gray teeth still intact.
“Nonsense, he’ll love it! The teeth are loose. He can pull them out and stare into the holes!”
“It’s horrible,” said Clarry, but Rupert was right and Peter did love it, so much that he inspired Rupert to search for more excitements.
“We could start a museum,” Rupert said, emptying a pocketful of stones and seashells onto Peter’s bed, and Peter, who liked nothing better than organizing things into straight lines and lists, began cataloging at once.
This was how Peter’s recovery began, although the doctors explained that he would be on crutches for months. Even after that, they told him, his left leg would never straighten properly at his knee, and would be at least an inch shorter than his right.
“I don’t suppose that will matter much,” said Clarry hopefully, when she heard this news. “Nobody will notice.”
“They say I’ll need to wear a special shoe,” said Peter. “Built up. And do exercises. They said they nearly took it off!”
“Peter!”
“So I suppose I’ve been lucky.”
He was so calm about it that his grandfather said gruffly, “Good lad.” The grandparents treated the whole affair in much the same way as they had the misadventures of the past. Clarry had learned to leave field gates closed, and Rupert no longer picked up snakes. Mushrooms were gathered with caution. In future Peter would be more careful with train doors.
Peter did not complain very much. The pain became less, until it was just an uncomfortable stiffness and a mostly ignorable ache. Quite early on in the summer it was decided that he could not be sent to boarding school with Rupert that September.
“What a pity,” said Rupert blandly.
“Yes,” agreed Peter.