The Ickabog(48)

A week after Bert and Roderick arrived at the orphanage, Daisy and her best friend, Martha, held a secret birthday party for Hetty Hopkins’s twins. Many of the youngest children didn’t know when their birthdays were, so Daisy picked a date for them, and always made sure it was celebrated, if only with a double portion of cabbage soup. She and Martha always encouraged the little ones to remember their real names too, although they taught them to call one another John and Jane in front of Basher John.

Daisy had a special treat for the twins. She’d actually managed to steal two real Chouxville pastries from a delivery for Ma Grunter several days before, and saved them for the twins’ birthday, even though the smell of the pastries had tortured Daisy and it had been hard to resist eating them herself.

“Oh, it’s lovely,” sighed the little girl through tears of joy.

“Lovely,” echoed her brother.

“Those came from Chouxville, which is the capital,” Daisy told them. She tried to teach the smaller children the things she remembered from her own interrupted schooldays, and often described the cities they’d never seen. Martha liked hearing about Kurdsburg, Baronstown, and Chouxville too, because she’d never lived anywhere but the Marshlands and Ma Grunter’s orphanage.

The twins had just swallowed the last crumbs of their pastries, when Basher John came bursting into the room. Daisy tried to hide the plate, on which was a trace of cream, but Basher John had spotted it.

“You,” he bellowed, approaching Daisy with the cane held up over his head, “have been stealing again, Ugly Jane!” He was about to bring it down on her when he suddenly found it caught in midair. Bert had heard the shouting and gone to find out what was going on. Seeing that Basher John had cornered a skinny girl in much-patched coveralls, Bert grabbed and held the cane on the way down.

“Don’t you dare,” Bert told Basher John in a low growl. For the first time, Daisy heard the new boy’s Chouxville accent, but he looked so different to the Bert she’d once known, so much older, so much harder faced, that she didn’t recognize him. As for Bert, who remembered Daisy as a little olive-skinned girl with brown pigtails, he had no idea he’d ever met the girl with the burning eyes before.

Basher John tried to pull his cane free of Bert’s grip, but Roderick came to Bert’s aid. There was a short fight, and for the first time in any of the children’s memories, Basher John lost. Finally, vowing revenge, he left the room with a cut lip, and word spread in whispers around the orphanage that the two new boys had rescued Daisy and the twins, and that Basher John had slunk off looking stupid.

Later that evening, when all the orphanage children were settling down for bed, Bert and Daisy passed each other on an upstairs landing, and they paused, a little awkwardly, to talk to each other.

“Thank you very much,” said Daisy, “for earlier.”

“You’re welcome,” said Bert. “Does he often behave like that?”

“Quite often,” said Daisy, with a little shrug. “But the twins got their pastries. I’m very grateful.”

Bert now thought he saw something familiar in the shape of Daisy’s face, and heard the trace of Chouxville in her voice. Then he looked down at the ancient, much-washed coveralls, on to which Daisy had had to sew extra lengths to the legs.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Daisy glanced around to make sure they weren’t being overheard.

“Daisy,” she said. “But you must remember to call me Jane when Basher John’s around.”

“Daisy,” gasped Bert. “Daisy — it’s me! Bert Beamish!”

Daisy’s mouth fell open, and before they knew it, they were hugging and crying, as though they’d been transformed back into small children in those sunlit days in the palace courtyard, before Daisy’s mother had died, and Bert’s father had been killed, when Cornucopia had seemed the happiest place on earth.





“Daisy,” gasped Bert. “Daisy — it’s me! Bert Beamish!”

By Ila, Age 9





Children generally stayed at Ma Grunter’s orphanage until she threw them out onto the street. She received no gold for looking after grown men and women, and had allowed Basher John to stay only because he was useful to her. While they were still worth gold, Ma Grunter made sure no children escaped by keeping all doors securely locked and bolted. Only Basher John had keys, and the last boy who’d tried to steal them had spent months recovering from his injuries.

Daisy and Martha both knew the time was coming when they’d be thrown out, but they were less worried for themselves than for what would become of the little ones once they were gone. Bert and Roderick knew they’d have to leave around the same time, if not sooner. They weren’t able to check and see whether WANTED posters with Bert’s face on them were still stuck to the walls of Jeroboam, but it seemed unlikely they’d been taken down. The four lived in daily dread that Ma Grunter and Basher John would realize they had a valuable fugitive worth one hundred gold ducats under their roof.

In the meantime, Bert, Daisy, Martha, and Roderick met every night, while the other children were asleep, to share their stories and pool their knowledge about what was going on in Cornucopia. They held these meetings in the only place Basher John never went: the large cabbage cupboard in the kitchen.