Hel Goes to School

Part One. Hel Goes to School

Last time, we heard how the twins were getting on, up on the gods' hill, after they had swapped places with Hel and her wolf puppy. This time we tell what was happening to the rest of us, back at school, because we were there for all of it.

It is only fair to say that the school did not know what to do with Hel. Nobody ever tells you how to look after a god who is exactly your own size. She came to school on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, and on Thursday, in the same long grey dress, and she sat where Dot put her, in the Reception corner, on the little blue chair with her feet not quite on the floor. Her long dark hair had lost its bobble somewhere between one world and another, so Dot tied it back for her with a bit of red wool from the craft box.

She did everything properly. When the register was taken, she said "Present" in a clear voice, a bit before it was her turn. When the class tidied up, she folded every coat on every peg, in exact thirds, and then went back and did them again. She did not run in the corridor, or shout, or slam a door. She said that our school was too loud, and it was, and nobody could argue.

Dot did not leave her side. They sat together at lunch. They sat together at story time. They were not alike. But Dot is fearless and Hel is very careful, and between the two of them, nothing could go wrong that they had not both already thought of.

"She says please," said Dot, "and thank you, and I beg your pardon. Nobody's ever said that to me. It's the best."

"It's polite," said Maya.

"It's spooky," said Ollie. But he said it in a friendly way, and gave her half his biscuit.

On the first night, Missus Ibbs wrote our new arrivals into the Record, in black ink, as she does with everybody. Under NAME she wrote Hel. Under DESCRIPTION she stopped, and tapped the pen on her chin, and wrote slowly: She looks like Hel.

"She doesn't look that bad," said a voice from behind the staff-room curtain. The curtain had been standing still all week, and had a pair of green shoes sticking out of the bottom.

"It's a joke," Ollie explained to Hel, kindly. "Because of your name."

"I know it is a joke," said Hel. "I have heard it in every one of the nine worlds."

Part Two. The Wolf Who Ate a Coat

The puppy was a bit harder.

He was very sweet. He followed Hel round all day, with his paws going flap flap flap on the floor, and his tail going round, and he did everything she told him, as long as it was not between meals. He could sit. He could lie down. He could wait, if you held a sandwich in front of his nose, and counted slowly to four.

But he ate everything.

On Tuesday, he ate the corner of Mister Harris's clipboard, and Ollie's sandwich. On Wednesday, he ate the lost-property box, which took a while, and Mister Hanu's second-best whistle, which made a small sound as it went down. He also ate Ollie's coat. It was a green one. He did it politely, in a corner, while nobody was looking, and then lay on his back with his legs in the air and a bit of zip hanging out of his mouth.

"It's not personal," said Hel, for the fifteenth time. "He eats everything."

"I know," said Ollie, who had been looking for his coat for forty minutes. "But it was my warm one."

"I'll make him bring it back," said Hel, firmly.

"No!" said everybody at once.

At night, Hel and the puppy slept in the staff room, because Mister Harris said it was the safest room in the school, and Missus Ibbs sat up with them, counting peas. On Thursday there was a second coat, which was Kenji's. Kenji said he didn't mind. It was a rubbish coat, he said, and now it was a famous one.

Mister Harris came out with a very small piece of clipboard in each hand. He looked at the puppy, and the puppy looked at him, and wagged. "I'm sure it's all perfectly under control," he said, out of habit, and then stopped, and sat down on a bench, and held his head. "No," he said. "It isn't. I haven't a clue."

Part Three. Ask Him

On Thursday, Maya found Mister Loki.

It was not easy. He had been hiding as a bin, a coat stand, a jumper on a hook, and for one terrible hour a small tree. But on Thursday morning, she sat down in the middle of the staff-room floor with her notebook open, and she said, loudly, "It's Thursday."

There was a long pause. The staff room was empty. The kettle had just boiled. And the green jumper, which had been hanging on the back of the door, gave a sort of sigh.

"So it is," said Mister Loki.

He came out from behind it. He was a bit crumpled. He had a leaf in his hair. He looked at Maya, and Kenji, and Dot, who was standing in the doorway holding Hel by the hand, and then, slowly, at the girl in the grey dress. And she looked back at him, with her half-pale and half-pink face and her very straight back.

"Hello, my... favourites," said Mister Loki, in a small voice.

"I am not your favourite," said Hel. "I have never been your favourite. You haven't been here."

A gold thread slid out of his sleeve, and sat still on the floor, and did not move, because it was all true.

"No," said Mister Loki. "That's right."

"You went to a school, and became a teacher, and you did not come," said Hel.

"I was afraid," said Mister Loki, "you'd say that."

That's when something large and grey and wet came bounding towards him across the carpet, wagging its entire back half, and hit him in the stomach like a woolly cannonball.

Part Four. A Very Small Wolf

The puppy was extremely pleased to see him.

He had never met him. But he knew, in the way that dogs know, that this was his. He jumped up, and put his front paws on Mister Loki's shoulders, and licked his face, and licked it again, and sat on him.

"Get him off!" said Mister Loki, in a muffled voice. "He's... he's heavy... how did he... when did he get so..."

"He eats a lot," said Hel.

"I can see that. Hello. Hello, boy. Hello. What's your... oh, you know your name, of course. It's... oh, dear." He lay on his back with a wolf on his chest, and, slowly, began to laugh. It was a funny, creaky, shaky laugh, and there was something wet in it. "You're a lot," he said, to the wolf. "You were as small as a shoe."

The wolf licked his ear.

"I should have visited," said Mister Loki. "I'm sorry. It's not good enough. I do know that. I just thought you were all better without me."

"That's a very silly thing to think," said Dot.

"I know," said Mister Loki. "I've been told. By a lot of people. It never gets less true."

Hel did not say anything. She was standing quite still, looking at her father on the carpet with her brother on his chest. Her serious face did something strange. It did not smile. But it went a bit looser round the edges, like a knot that somebody had started to undo.

"You can come and sit," she said, at last. "We are having jam sandwiches."

Part Five. What Maya Found in the Library

It was Maya who found the myth.

She had gone to the library on Tuesday with Kenji, while the swap happened, and Mister Jackson had helped. He is the librarian, with the black clothes and the very good nose. He sniffed three times, said, "This way," and led them through the dark stacks to a shelf, in the back, where a large old book was waiting for exactly them.

It had a wolf on the cover. It was heavy. And it said, in tiny print on page forty-one, that a very long time ago, the gods tied up a wolf.

"It's not a nice ending," said Maya, to the staff room, on Thursday. "They tied the wolf up with a ribbon, and a god called Tyr lost his hand because the others told a lie, and then they left the wolf there. For good." She shut it, quite firmly. "But I think the book's out of date."

"Why?" said Mister Loki, from the floor.

"Because he's here," said Maya. "On a carpet. Eating a coat. The end of the book hasn't happened yet. And if it hasn't happened yet, it doesn't have to."

Hel was looking at her with her straight eyes.

"That is exactly the right thing to say," she said. "I shall remember it."

Maya went pink, and wrote it down, for something to do.

Part Six. The Cat Flap

Willow had been missing since Tuesday, when she slipped off across the silver after the twins, and nobody saw which way. On Wednesday, at home time, she came back.

She did not arrive in the way that cats usually arrive. There was no sound. She was not at the front door, and she wasn't on the wall. But, when Mister Janus went to lock the front doors with the big golden key, a small, damp Bengal cat was sitting on the mat, as if she had been there for hours.

She had come through the cat flap.

It was the small one at the bottom of the great doors, the one that Mister Janus made for her when the weather turned cold. He had told us it was only a thank-you. But as Willow came through it, wet and weary and very pleased with herself, we saw that the little flap shone for a moment along its edge, a thin line of silver, and then went quite dull.

"Of course," said Mister Janus, who was holding the clock so hard that his knuckles were white. Both faces looked down, astonished. "It's an edge. A door that is half of one thing and half of another. I made it so she could be in and out at the same time. And I never thought..."

"Then she can carry things," said Maya. She had her pencil out already.

"Could Mister Loki be a cat?" said Kenji.

"I tried that on Wednesday," said Mister Loki, from under the carpet. "The edge knows the difference between a cat and a man pretending. I came out in the bin."

We wrote to the twins together, all of us, in capitals, on a page from Maya's notebook. Hel took the pencil last, and added one line at the bottom, in a hand so wobbly that it looked as if a spider had fallen in the ink. We did not read it until Willow had gone. Kenji tied the page to her collar with a bit of green wool, and Willow looked at it as if it was an insult, and then went straight back out through the flap, into the silver. The flap went dull behind her.

On Thursday, at dawn, she came back.

She was sitting on the mat again, damp and weary and very pleased with herself, and tied to her collar, with the same bit of green wool, there was a small, crumpled piece of paper. It was not in our writing.

It was in two different hands. One was large, and round, and rather sloping. The other was neat, with all of its letters standing up.

Part Seven. What the Twins Wrote

DEAR MAYA AND KENJI AND OLLIE AND DOT AND EVERYBODY,

(ALEX WRITING.) THANK YOU FOR YOUR NOTE. WE ARE ALL RIGHT. WE ARE IN A QUIET HOUSE AND THERE IS A LADY WHO IS VERY SLOW AND WILLOW ATE A MOUSE IN FRONT OF EVERYBODY. THERE ARE A LOT OF GODS HERE. THEY ARE NICE. THE ONE WITH ONE EYE IS FUNNY. THERE IS A MAN CALLED TYR. HE IS SAD. WE ARE LOOKING AFTER HIM.

(FELIX WRITING.) WE KNOW HOW TO GET BACK. IT HAS TO BE THE SAME GAME, SAME WORDS, SAME MOMENT, AT BOTH ENDS. ON THE HILL, FELIX STANDS WHERE HEL STOOD, WITH HIS BACK TURNED, AND ALEX CREEPS WHERE THE WOLF WAS. AT SCHOOL, HEL STANDS ON THE BUMP AND THE WOLF CREEPS. THEN WE ALL SAY "DINNER TIME" AT THE SAME BREATH. THE MOON CAN SEE BOTH. PLEASE ASK HER TO SAY WHEN.

(ALEX.) IT HAS TO BE ON FRIDAY, WHEN THE MOON IS FULL. IT'S VERY IMPORTANT.

(FELIX.) PLEASE DON'T LET THE PUPPY EAT THE MOON. EVERYBODY HERE IS WORRIED ABOUT THAT. AND PLEASE TELL HEL THAT ALEX SAT IN HER CHAIR. IT IS A VERY GOOD CHAIR.

(BOTH.) LOVE FROM ALEX AND FELIX. PLEASE WRITE BACK. WE MISS YOU. WE ARE SAD AND GLAD AT ONCE.

Nobody said anything for a long time.

"They're all right," said Kenji, in a small, wobbly voice.

"They're clever," said Maya, wiping her eyes with a pencil.

Dot had taken Hel's hand. Hel had not moved. She was looking at one line, near the middle, and her pale face and her pink face had both gone very still.

Part Eight. The Chair

"Somebody sat in it," said Hel.

It was the first thing she had said for about a minute. Her voice was quiet.

"In what?" said Dot.

"The chair. The visitor chair." She said it as though the words were a long way down. "I put it there when I was very small. I thought, if I had a chair for visitors, then maybe one would come. I used to dust it, every week. Then I stopped, because nobody came. And now somebody has."

"He said it's a good chair," said Dot.

"It is," said Hel. "I chose it carefully. It's a good height." She put the note down on the table, very gently, as if it might bruise. "It has stars on the cushion."

"He said it was a good one."

"He would," said Hel. "He sounds like that. The sort who notices." And then she did something nobody had seen her do in three days. She sat down on the floor of the staff room, with her back against the wall, in her grey dress, and put her arms round her knees, and cried.

She did it quietly. It was not that kind of crying that you hear. It was only that her shoulders shook, and her face was wet, and the puppy came over, and pushed his big nose under her arm, and Dot sat down on the other side. Nobody said anything. Nobody told her to stop.

Mister Loki, who was still sitting on the carpet, put out one hand, slowly. He did not touch her. He only put it down, on the floor, beside hers, where she could take it if she wanted.

She did, after a bit.

Part Nine. Practice

We practised all of Thursday afternoon. Mister Janus said we might. "Practice is not the same as the real thing," he said. "It only matters when both sides do it at once, in the same breath. One side on its own is nothing. So practise as much as you like."

By then Mister Harris had given up on the Different Day, because even he could not stand it, and Mister Janus had said it did no harm as long as only one side was playing. The whole class stood in a line at the bottom of the field, with the bump in front of us and the very low moon above, and we taught Hel how to play What's the Time, Mister Wolf.

It was not easy.

"You say it very loudly," said Dot. "And then Mister Wolf says a time. And you take a step."

"Why?" said Hel.

"It's a game."

"What is it for?"

"It's for... being in a line, and pretending you're sneaking up, and then screaming," said Dot.

"That seems a strange thing to do," said Hel, "but I am willing."

She stood on the top of the bump with her back to us, hands behind her, as straight as a post. And at the other end of the field, we lined up in our places. The puppy was at the front, with Ollie holding his collar.

"WHAT'S THE TIME, MISTER WOLF?" we yelled.

"It is a quarter to three," said Hel.

"How many steps is that?" said Ollie.

"Two and three-quarters," said Hel.

"You can't do three-quarters of a step!"

"You can if you're careful," said Hel. She said every time with great seriousness: Ten past nine. A quarter to three. Five minutes before teatime. And when it was dinner time, she spun round with her arms out, and her mouth open, and went at us like a small grey gale.

The puppy did not creep. He tried. He crept for about two steps, and then fell flat on his face, because his paws were too big, and rolled over, and lay with his tongue out. And Hel laughed.

It was a surprised sound. It came out of her like a hiccup. She stopped dead on the bump, and put her hand over her mouth, and looked at us all with wide eyes, as though she had broken something.

"Oh," she said. "That's what that is."

Part Ten. Mister Harris Sits Down

At the end of the day, Mister Harris found her on the front step.

She was sitting by herself, with the puppy asleep across her feet, watching the sky go grey. It was almost evening. The moon was so low and silver that you could have read by it.

He did not say "Perfectly under control." He did not hold his clipboard. He put it down on the step, and sat beside her, in his good suit, and folded his hands.

"I don't mind saying," he said, "that I have been frightened all week."

"Of me?" said Hel.

"Of everything," said Mister Harris. "Of the moon. Of the wolf. Of the doors. I've been so frightened that I keep saying I'm in charge, because it's what you say. And I'm not, really. I never have been. I only have a clipboard and a lot of good people."

Hel looked at him, with her half-and-half face.

"I am not in charge of anything either," she said. "I only have a quiet house. And people who are resting. It's not much. But one has to do it properly."

"That's all I ever do," said Mister Harris, with a sort of astonishment. "Properly. Yes." He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

They sat there until it was dark. He did not say anything else, and neither did she. It was the longest quiet we had ever heard him keep, and when we looked out of the staff room window, we saw that he had picked up the puppy's paw, carefully, and was holding it, the way you hold a hand.

Part Eleven. The Moon Says Yes

We asked the moon that evening, as it got dark.

We stood in the playground, in a half-circle, and Maya read the whole of the twins' letter aloud, in her clearest voice. It took a long time. When she finished, the whole school was quiet.

"Will you?" said Dot, up to the sky. "Please? Will you say when?"

There was a long pause.

Mama Quilla was so low that she was very nearly on the roof. She looked down at us with her pale, round, kind face, and her tired eyes. A silver tear ran down her cheek, and fell, and landed in a puddle with a little plink.

"I can see both of them," she said, softly. "That's the thing nobody noticed. I'm in both skies. It's the whole trouble with me, and it's the only use I am. I can see the field from here, and I can see that hill from here, and the boys." She sniffed. "I can see your faces, and I can see theirs. But I am only halfway in each sky until I'm full, and tomorrow night is the first time I shall be all the way. I shall be at the very top of the sky, exactly in the middle. And then I shall say it. I have counted the months of the world for ten thousand years. I can count to one."

"Say what?" said Kenji.

"Now," said the moon. "At both ends at once. It is the one thing a moon is good at, I think. Timing."

Behind her, in the dark, we heard a small noise, like a long sigh. It was Missus Ibbs, standing at the dinner hall window, writing something in the Record in black ink, with her reed pen. We could not see what. But for the first time since Monday, she was smiling.

Part Twelve. The Gate Was Open

On Friday morning, the gate was open.

We got to school very early. We had all slept badly, and nobody had said a word on the way. We came round the corner of the building, and the first thing that Dot saw was the school gate, standing wide, with the latch hanging.

The second thing was the bed.

It was in the staff room, in the corner, next to the kettle, a big blue basket that Mister Harris had found in the lost property. It had been full of the puppy, on his back, with his legs in the air, last night. It was empty. The blanket was thrown off, and in the middle of the floor there was a single, enormous, silver paw print.

Hel was standing over it. She was as pale as milk on both sides.

"He has gone," she said.

"He can't have gone far," said Kenji.

"He's gone," said Hel, in a voice that had no wobble in it at all, which was worse. "He's gone out to the moon."

We all looked at the window.

Out across the field, in the grey early light, beyond the bump, a line of small silver paw prints, each as big as a bucket lid, ran across the wet grass towards the hedge. It went under the hedge, and up the lane, and along, and at the very end of it, a long way off, on the very top of Gobbler Hill, something small and grey and shaggy was standing against the sky.

It was jumping.

Nobody said anything. We all stood with our noses to the glass, and Dot took Hel's hand, and in the quiet we all heard it: the far-away, high, happy bark of a puppy who has seen the biggest, shiniest ball he has ever been offered, and cannot think of anything else in the world.

Part Thirteen. What the Twins Read

A long way away, on a hill with two moons, a cat came in at dawn.

Alex and Felix told us this bit afterwards. They were in Hel's room, on the narrow bed, not asleep, and the shutters were just turning grey. Willow walked in over the doorstep as if she had been out all night, which she had, and jumped up onto the grey blanket. A small piece of paper was tied to her collar with a bit of green wool.

They undid it together, one on each side.

It said, in Maya's capitals:

YES. THE MOON SAYS YES. SHE WILL SAY "NOW" AT THE TOP OF THE SKY ON FRIDAY NIGHT. WE WILL BE READY. HEL IS GOOD AT THE GAME. WE WILL NOT LET ANYTHING GO WRONG. THE PUPPY IS FINE. (HE ATE A SECOND COAT. BUT HE IS FINE.)

They did not know yet that it was Friday morning at the school, and that the puppy was not fine. They did not know it was, at that moment, jumping on the top of a hill, in the dawn, at a moon that was much too big and much too silver. All they knew was that the school was ready, and the moon had said yes, and somebody had taken their letter seriously.

Alex held one end of the note. Felix held the other. They looked at the shutter, and the grey light behind it, and then at each other.

"Tonight," whispered Alex.

"Tonight," said Felix.

Willow turned round three times and lay down on the paper, so that neither of them could take it back. And with the whole of the hill still asleep, and the stream running softly under the wall, they said the one word that was left. They said it together, at exactly the same time. "Monday."

The End.