The Caretaker Who Was THOR

Part One. The Boom

The first time we saw the new caretaker was on a Monday morning, and we did not see him at first. We heard him.

We were all in the playground when there was a HUGE BOOM. The ground WOBBLED. Somebody's water bottle rolled across the tarmac all by itself. And a pigeon fell off the roof, looked very surprised, and flew back up again.

We all looked at the sky. It was completely blue, with NO CLOUDS at all.

Alex noticed that the boom had come from the corner by the bins. Felix asked, "Who made that noise?"

"That's not thunder," said Kenji. "That's a MAN."

And it was. A very tall man with a bright red beard was standing next to a ladder he had just dropped. Kenji was standing right behind him, with his hand still up, because he had just said, "Excuse me!" very loudly.

The man picked up the ladder as if it were a ruler. "Sorry, everyone," he said, in a voice so deep that Ollie's lunchbox rattled. "You made me jump. I'm Mr Thorley. I'm the new caretaker. Please don't ever creep up on me. It's much better for everyone."

Then he walked off across the playground with a big silver hammer swinging from his belt.

"I did not creep," said Kenji. "I said excuse me."

"You said it VERY loudly," said Ollie.

Part Two. A Name Like a Sneeze

At break, we crept up to the caretaker's door. Not creeping up on HIM, exactly. Creeping up on his badge, which was pinned to his overalls.

It said MR THORLEY, CARETAKER.

Alex noticed that it was a very odd name, with an odd shape. Felix asked, "Mr Thorley, is that your real name?"

"It's the name on the van," said Mr Thorley, and he went back to oiling a hinge.

That's when Maya Singh grabbed both of us by the sleeves. She is in our class and she carries a notebook everywhere, and a pencil behind her ear.

"Thorley," she whispered. "Thor. Plus ley. Do you see?"

"Plus what?" said Kenji.

"Ley. It's the bit you add on the end to make it sound like a person who fixes things. THOR. Plus LEY."

"That's a coincidence," said Ollie.

"Is it?" said Maya. "Behind the compost bin. Lunchtime. Bring your brains."

Willow was sitting on the wall outside the caretaker's door. Willow is our Bengal reading cat. She is very old, very beautiful, and very dignified, and she does not like to be picked up, stroked on the wrong side or hurried. She looked at Mr Thorley's boots for a long moment. Then she shut her eyes slowly, which is what she does when she approves of someone.

We took that as evidence too.

Part Three. The Hammer Test

Maya said the real test of Thor was his hammer, because in the stories it ALWAYS comes back to his hand when he throws it.

So at lunchtime, we watched through the hall window. Mr Thorley was up a ladder, mending a light. He put the hammer down on the floor, and then he turned around and said, "Now where did I put that?"

Ollie whispered, "Don't look at it! It's about to fly back!"

We all held our breath.

Mr Thorley bent down, picked the hammer up off the floor, and said, "Ah! There you are."

Alex looked at Felix. Felix looked at Alex.

"It flew back," said Alex.

"It was too fast to see," said Felix.

Maya wrote it down. "Evidence," she said. "Inconclusive. But very fast."

We couldn't argue with that.

Part Four. The Piano

On Monday afternoon, Maya lost her pencil. It rolled off her notebook in the hall and went under the school piano, which is very big and very black and has never been moved by anybody, not even by four dinner ladies and a trolley.

Maya lay on the floor with her cheek on the boards. "I can SEE it," she said. "It's right in the middle. I can't reach."

"We could push the piano," said Alex. We all pushed. The piano did not notice.

Mr Thorley came in with a light bulb in his hand. "Lost something?"

"Maya's pencil," said Alex. "Under the piano."

"Ah," said Mr Thorley. "Stand back a bit."

He put the light bulb in his pocket. He took hold of one corner of the piano with one hand, and he lifted it, the way you would lift a tea tray. Every string inside went plinnng. With his other hand he reached underneath, picked up the pencil, blew the dust off it and gave it to Maya. Then he set the piano down very gently, patted the lid, said "Sorry, old thing," and walked out whistling.

Nobody spoke.

"That's a PIANO," said Felix.

"I know," said Alex. "He did it with ONE HAND. He didn't even go red."

Maya looked at her pencil. Then she opened her notebook and wrote one word, and underlined it twice. The word was STRONG.

Part Five. The Pie and the Jug

On Tuesday, we sat at the table next to Mr Thorley in the dinner hall, and we all saw what he had for lunch.

It was a pie the size of a PILLOW.

He ate it in four bites. Then he ate a second pie. Then he picked up a jug of water, shut his eyes, and drank the ENTIRE jug going glug glug glug glug glug.

When he put the jug down, there was not a single drop left. Mrs Tibbs, our class teacher, was passing with a tray. She stopped and stared at the jug.

"Mr Thorley," she said, "that was the whole table's water."

"Oh dear," said Mr Thorley. He went pink above his beard. "I always think I'll stop at half. I never do. I'll fill it up again."

He did. It took him four trips.

"In the story," Ollie whispered, "he ate a whole OX and eight salmon at a wedding."

"And in the other story," whispered Maya, who was already writing, "he drank from a horn and couldn't finish it, because the other end of it was the sea."

We looked at the empty pie tins. The evidence was PILING UP. We were also quite hungry.

Part Six. The Goats

Maya said that in all the stories Thor rides in a chariot pulled by two goats, so we should check the car park.

We rushed out at home time. There was no chariot, and there were no goats. There was a small, rusty white van with a dent in the side, and on the side were the words:

THORLEY & SONS: LOCKS, LADDERS AND LEAKS.

"It's a clever disguise," said Kenji. "Nobody would EVER suspect a van."

"Look," said Felix. He was pointing through the window.

Alex noticed what Felix was pointing at before anyone else. On the front seat was a paper bag with a picture of a goat on it. It said GOAT CHEESE.

Nobody said anything for a bit.

"I think," said Maya slowly, "that we have solved it."

Then a voice behind us said, "Can I help you with the van?" and we all jumped, and from the other side of the car park something went BOOM, and Mr Pickering, the lollipop man, lost his hat.

We said we were just admiring the dent.

Part Seven. The List

The next day, we met behind the compost bin, which is where Maya does her briefings. Alex held the pencil. Felix held Maya's notebook, because the twins always share the jobs, and then they swap.

Maya cleared her throat, and read out the strongest evidence list she had ever made.

"One. His name is Thor plus ley. Two. A red beard. Three. A hammer that flies back faster than you can see. Four. A huge boom with no clouds. Five. A pigeon fell off the roof. Six. He is taller than the door. Seven. A pie the size of a pillow. Eight. Two pies. Nine. A jug of water, gone. Ten. A van with GOATS on the bag. Eleven. Goats. Twelve. He says 'Hm' like thunder very far away. Thirteen. Mister Harris stands up straight when he comes in. Fourteen. Willow shut her eyes at him."

"That's a LOT," said Kenji, with respect.

"Fifteen," said Maya. "He fixes everything. Sixteen. He is very kind to bees. Seventeen. He lifted the school piano with one hand to find a lost pencil. Eighteen. He was named, I think, after a day of the week."

"Thursday," said Alex. "Thor's day."

"Exactly. And nineteen." Maya looked at the list, and then, rather slowly, at the compost bin. "Nineteen. He smells a little bit like goat."

There was a very small cough on the other side of the compost bin.

Mr Thorley came round the corner, carrying a bucket. He did not look at us. He sniffed his sleeve, thoughtfully. Then he said, "Afternoon, all," and he walked away.

"Do you think he heard?" whispered Ollie.

"No," said Maya, very fast.

We all agreed that Maya's list was the strongest we had ever made. We also agreed that we would never, ever mention number nineteen again.

Part Eight. The Cat on the Floor

Maya was not finished. She said that the list told us WHO he was, but the myth told us WHAT he was like, and she knew just the myth.

She told it like this.

A very long time ago, in the cold north where the Vikings lived, there was a god called Thor. He was the strongest of all the gods. He had a red beard, a hammer, and a chariot with goats. One day he went on a long journey to the country of the giants.

The giant king there was called Utgard-Loki, and he was very sly. He said, "Everyone here has a game. What can you do, Thor?"

Thor said he could lift anything. So the giants brought in a big grey cat and put it on the floor.

"That's all?" said Thor. "A cat?"

He put his hands under the cat's belly, and he lifted. The cat arched its back. Thor lifted and lifted, and he got one paw off the floor, and that was the most that he could do.

Thor was cross and a little bit ashamed. But then the giant king told him the truth. It was not a cat at all. It was the great World Serpent, as big as the whole world, wrapped round it with its tail in its mouth. Nobody could lift it. Thor had got one paw off the ground, and nobody had EVER done that before.

"So," said Felix, "the strongest person in the world couldn't lift a cat."

"It wasn't a cat," said Maya. "That's the point. Some things are much bigger than they look, and the strongest person still can't lift everything." She underlined it in her notebook, three times. "And the strongest are not the people who never get stuck. It's the people who do the lifting they CAN do."

Willow, who had been sitting on the compost bin the whole time, got up and walked away. She thinks cats that cannot be lifted are a personal matter.

Part Nine. Extra Good

That night, none of us could stop thinking about it. If Mr Thorley really WAS a thunder god, we had to be polite, because you do not want to make a thunder god cross.

"He might make it rain on your birthday," said Ollie.

"He might make it rain on your BIRTHDAY CAKE," said Kenji, and that was worse.

So on Wednesday, we were all EXTRA GOOD. Ollie picked up every crisp packet in the playground, even other people's. Kenji held the door open for a lot of people, including a bin.

Alex and Felix made a drawing. Alex drew, and Felix did the colouring in. It was a tall man with a red beard, a silver hammer, and two goats with enormous grins. Underneath, Felix wrote in his best writing: THANK YOU FOR PROTECTING US. They did not know what he was protecting them from. It just seemed like the right thing to say.

They gave it to Mr Thorley at the caretaker's door.

Mr Thorley looked at the picture for a very long time. He blinked twice. He said, in a voice that was even deeper than before, "Well, I'll be. Nobody's ever drawn me before."

He put it carefully inside his overalls, next to his heart.

Alex noticed that his eyes were shiny. Felix did not ask. When you notice something shiny that somebody is trying not to have, you leave it alone.

Part Ten. Little Clouds

That was when the weather started to be odd.

On Thursday morning, a tiny grey rain cloud, no bigger than a duvet, was sitting right over Mister Harris's car. It was raining on it, only on it. Mister Harris was standing there with his clipboard held over his head, saying, "It's SUNNY. It's perfectly sunny."

"Hm," said Mr Thorley, behind us, like thunder very far away.

A second cloud, the size of a pillow, followed Ollie across the playground and rained on his chips. A third one rained on the hopscotch, only on the squares with numbers.

They all had a curly edge, like a very smug grin.

Alex noticed that the clouds were not wandering the way clouds usually do. They were waiting. Felix asked, "Mr Thorley, are the clouds doing that on purpose?"

Mr Thorley looked at the little cloud over Mister Harris's car. Then he looked up at the sky, which was starting to go a dark, grumbly grey. He said, "Somebody has been up to tricks. I'm dealing with it."

And he walked over, and murmured something up to the little cloud, very low. The cloud went pink round the edges and floated off like a balloon with the air let out.

At the start of lessons, Mrs Tibbs said the school trip to the park was cancelled because of the weather.

We all groaned. But Kenji put up his hand and said, "Mrs Tibbs, I think we should ask Mr Thorley to do something about the rain."

"Why would we ask Mr Thorley to do something about the rain?" said Mrs Tibbs.

"Because he's THOR," said Kenji.

There was a very long silence.

Then Mrs Tibbs began to laugh, and she could not stop for about two minutes.

Part Eleven. Not Tonight, Brother

At home time, it was almost dark. We were all standing at the gate waiting for our mums and dads and grandmas, and Mr Pickering was standing in the road with his lollipop stick, which was not really needed, because the road was empty.

Mr Thorley came out of the building and locked the door. He looked up at the black clouds that were piled across the whole sky.

Then he said something to himself, very quietly. We were close enough to hear.

He said, "Not tonight, brother."

We all froze.

Mr Thorley walked to his van. He climbed in and drove away down the lane, with the rusty van sounding exactly like a goat with a cold.

And exactly TWO SECONDS later, the clouds went BOOM, and all the rain came down at once.

Kenji turned to us, with water dripping off his nose, and said, "I TOLD you."

Mr Pickering waved at us from the middle of the empty road, completely dry, under his own tiny umbrella. We did not ask where he had been keeping it.

Behind the compost bin on the next morning, Maya wrote one line at the bottom of the list. Felix held the notebook open. Alex did the writing.

Who is his brother?

And underneath, because Maya is an honest scientist: Unknown.

Part Twelve. The Cat on the Roof

On Friday morning, we came into the playground, and there was a cat sitting on the roof of the school hall.

It was a very, very big cat. It was grey and soft and curled up, with a long tail hanging down over the guttering. It had two round ears. It was bigger than the hall itself.

"That's not a cat," said Alex.

"That's a cloud," said Felix. "It's shaped like a cat."

It was the fattest, heaviest cloud any of us had ever seen. It sat on the roof as if the roof were a cushion. And it was full to the brim. You could tell. It hung in long grey folds like a very full bag, and the roof underneath it was creaking.

"If it lets go all at once," said Maya, "all that rain will come down through the hall like a waterfall."

Mister Harris came running out with his clipboard. "Everybody on the field! Now! Calmly! Quickly! And calmly!"

So we all stood in a big wet crowd on the field, the whole school, the big kids with the little ones in front, and Mrs Tibbs holding up her umbrella as if the umbrella could help.

And on the roof, where the ladder leaned against the gutter, there was a man with a red beard.

Part Thirteen. One Paw

Mr Thorley had climbed all the way up. He stood on the wet tiles with both hands pressed against the belly of the cloud, pushing UP, with his boots slipping and his big shoulders shaking.

The cloud lifted. Only a little. Just one corner of it, as high as a cat's paw.

Then it sank back down again with a long, low sigh, and the whole hall creaked.

"Mr Thorley!" Mister Harris shouted up from the field, through a loudhailer. "Please come down!"

"I've got it!" shouted Mr Thorley. He did not look round. "Stand back! Everyone stay back!"

"Why doesn't he use his hammer?" said Ollie.

"Because the lightning would burst it," said Maya in a small voice. "All the water would come down in one go. And it's loud. He doesn't like to make a loud noise near the little ones." She stopped. She had gone pale. "It's the cat, isn't it? It's the cat from the story."

We all looked at the cat on the roof.

"He can't lift it," said Felix.

We all thought of the piano. Nobody said so. Mr Thorley had picked up a piano with one hand, and now he was shaking from his boots to his beard just to hold up the corner of a cloud.

"He only has one paw's worth," said Alex.

Mr Thorley pushed again. He got one corner up, and held it for three seconds, four, five. We could hear him breathing all the way across the field.

Then it sank down again, and a long crack ran along the roof tiles.

Nobody on the field said a word. Not the big kids, and not the little ones. Mister Harris lowered the loudhailer and, for once in his life, said nothing at all. We could hear one drip fall from the gutter onto the step, plink, and then another. Alex found Felix's hand without looking, and Felix was already holding his out. Up on the roof, Mr Thorley stood very still with his hands on the cloud, and breathed.

Part Fourteen. Willow Goes Forward

That was when the tail of the cloud, which was hanging down over the gutter, came curling slowly down towards the field.

It was a long, wet, grey tail of mist, coming right at the crowd. The big kids stepped back. The little ones squeaked. Mister Harris said, "Calmly, calmly," in a voice that was not calm at all.

And a small striped shape walked out from the front of the crowd.

It was Willow.

She did not run. Willow never runs. She walked slowly across the wet grass, with her tail straight up in the air, and her whiskers forward, towards the great grey curling thing. Willow does not like water, or surprises, or mist.

She stopped right in front of it, and she sat down.

The tail of the cloud came to a stop. It curled round her once. It was cold, and damp, and it got into her fur and made every hair stand up. And Willow looked at it. She did not blink. She sat as still as a statue, and she let it touch her.

Then the mist softened and sank into the grass. It was only wet air, and a bit of water, and nothing at all to be afraid of.

"It's soft," whispered Kenji. "It's just soft."

"It isn't heavy," said Alex slowly. He was looking up at the roof, at the corner of the cloud that Mr Thorley had pushed. "Felix. Look. When he pushes it, it goes up like a balloon. It only goes down because he runs out of arms."

Felix stared. "It's not heavy," he said. "It's WIDE."

Part Fifteen. The Big Ask

Maya was already turning pages in her notebook. "The giants made the serpent look like a cat," she said. "This cloud has made itself look like one too. It's a trick. It isn't heavy, it's just big, and nobody can get their arms around something that big. Not even the strongest man in the school."

"Not on his own," said Felix.

"So we'll have to be his arms," said Alex.

They ran, both of them, to the bottom of the ladder, and Alex called up first. "Mr Thorley! Can we help?"

"No!" shouted Mr Thorley. His voice shook. "Get back, both of you! A caretaker looks after things. He doesn't ask the school to look after HIM!"

Alex looked at Felix, and Felix looked at Alex. Then they took a breath, both together, and shouted the same word at exactly the same time.

"PLEASE."

There was a pause, up on the roof. The cloud sighed. The wind went still.

Mr Thorley looked down at the two of them. He looked at the whole school standing on the field, looking up at him. He looked at the picture, which was poking out of his overalls pocket, and it said THANK YOU FOR PROTECTING US.

Then, very slowly, he lowered his hands from the cloud and held them out.

"All right," he said. His voice was quiet. "All right. Yes, please. I would like a hand."

Part Sixteen. The Parachute

Felix had the idea. It was the best idea anyone had that week, and he had it with his eyes shut, because that is what he does.

"The parachute," he said. "From PE."

Everybody knew the parachute. It is a huge rainbow cloth with handles all round the edge, and when forty children lift it and push it down together, it makes a WHOOSH of wind that goes right up to the ceiling.

Ollie and Kenji were fastest. They came back with it between them, as the biggest, brightest, wobbliest thing we had ever seen.

"Everyone take a handle!" shouted Alex.

And everybody did. The big kids, and the little ones, and Mrs Tibbs, and Mister Harris with his clipboard tucked under his arm. Even Mr Pickering came running through the gate. Maya stood in the middle with the notebook, and counted.

"Under the cat!" shouted Felix. "Then UP, and DOWN, and UP!"

They spread the parachute out on the wet playground, right under the edge of the roof. And up on the ladder, Mr Thorley put both hands under the corner of the cloud again, braced his big boots and breathed in.

"One," said Alex.

"Two," said Felix.

"THREE," they said together.

The whole school lifted the parachute and brought it down, and WHOOSH, the wind went up.

But Mr Thorley had already pushed. He had pushed on three, and the wind came on three and a bit. The cloud went up, and then the wind arrived too late, and the cloud came down again, harder, like a very large cushion sitting on a very small chair. The whole hall groaned. A tile slid off the roof and went plink, plink, plink down the gutter. The crack grew one finger longer. And the parachute, which half the little ones had let go of in fright, folded in the middle and flopped over Mister Harris's head.

"Calmly," said Mister Harris, from inside the rainbow.

Nobody laughed. We could all see the crack.

Part Seventeen. Up

"Again," said Alex. "Properly!"

So we lifted again, and WHOOSH. But the big kids went up fast and the little ones went up slow, and the parachute rippled like a bath full of rainbows, and the wind went out sideways instead of up. The corner of the cloud rose, wobbled like a jelly, and sat back down.

"Nearly!" called Mr Thorley, through his teeth. "Nearly, nearly..."

Alex had not been looking at the parachute. He had been looking at the roof. "He breathes in," he said. "Before every push. Look at his shoulders. We're all going on OUR three. He's going on HIS."

Felix opened his eyes. "Then it's his count," he said. "Mr Thorley! YOU say when!"

Mr Thorley looked down at us. He had not asked anybody for anything in about a thousand years, and now he was being asked to be in charge of forty children and a cloud. "Right," he said. "Right. Hold your handles." He breathed in. Every single one of us breathed in with him. "And UP..."

We all lifted, together.

"...and DOWN!"

WHOOSH.

The wind went straight up like a fountain, and it hit the belly of the cloud just as Mr Thorley pushed with the whole of his strength. The cloud lifted. It lifted an inch. Then a foot. Then a whole big grey corner of it, rising off the tiles with a long, soft sigh.

And that's when the great grey cat on the roof stood up. It stretched. It yawned, with a rumble like a very big purr, and it floated slowly up off the hall, with its tail trailing behind it, and out over the roof, and over the playground, and out across the school field.

Everyone watched it go. It was ENORMOUS and slow and grey, and it was drifting high over the vegetable patch, and then, very politely, it began to rain.

It was a soft rain. It was a gentle, steady, ordinary one, falling on the cabbages and on the long grass at the end of the field, where it would do nobody any harm and all the vegetables a lot of good.

We stood there with our faces turned up, and nobody ran for an umbrella.

"Well," said Mister Harris faintly, "that is an excellent use of weather."

Then a low, warm rumble came rolling across the sky, from the cloud, or perhaps from the roof. It was the sound of a very big man starting to laugh.

Part Eighteen. Strong

Afterwards, Mr Thorley sat on the bottom rung of the ladder with a mug of tea. His beard was dripping, and his big hands were still shaking a little. All round him, the whole school was drinking hot chocolate in the dinner hall. Mrs Tibbs had even given him a hot cross bun, which went down in one bite.

Alex and Felix sat down on either side of him. Maya sat on the end, holding her notebook shut.

"I'm sorry I shouted," said Mr Thorley. "I'm used to doing everything on my own."

"That's all right," said Felix.

"I couldn't lift the whole of it. Nobody can lift the whole of anything." Mr Thorley put down his mug, stood up and lifted the ladder off the wall. Then he stopped, and went pink above his beard.

"Could you," he said, very fast, as if the words were a sneeze, "could you give me a hand with this?"

It was the same ladder he had carried across the playground on Monday as if it were a ruler.

Alex took one end. Felix took the other. Mr Thorley took the middle. Nobody made a thing of it. It was the lightest ladder we had ever carried, and we walked it across the wet playground to the shed, with Maya behind us, and Willow stalking along the wall.

"Asking for a hand," said Mr Thorley, to nobody in particular, "is a strong thing to do."

"So it's strong to ask," said Alex.

"And it's strong to say yes," said Felix.

"Both," said Mr Thorley, and he went "Hm," like thunder, a long way off and very happy.

Willow jumped up onto the shed roof, with her fur still on end from the mist. She had not been lifted by anyone, or stroked, or hurried. But she shut her eyes slowly, and she let Mr Thorley scratch behind her ears with one finger, just once.

Maya opened her notebook and added one more line to the list. Number twenty. He asked. And then she underlined it, three times.

Part Nineteen. The Drum

That evening, when the cloud had gone and the sky was a clean, pale gold, we were standing at the gate again, waiting to be collected. Mr Pickering was there, with his lollipop stick, waving at nobody in particular. Mr Thorley was locking up. The air smelled of rain on cabbages.

And that's when we heard it.

It was a very small noise. It was coming from somewhere very high up in the school, higher than the roof, higher than the weathervane, higher than the pigeons.

Dum-dum. Dum-dum. Dum-dum.

It was a tiny drum, a tiny, light, patient drum, with a sound like a heartbeat.

And everything went still.

The last grey wisps of cloud stopped where they were. The pigeons on the roof tucked in their wings. Mister Harris, in the middle of saying "Home time, everyone," stopped, and breathed out, and smiled. Even the leaves hung in the air, waiting.

Mr Thorley stood with his keys in his hand, and he looked up. He did not look surprised. He looked, we thought, as if he were listening to an old friend. He put his hammer very gently down on the step, and he bowed his head, just a little.

Dum-dum. Dum-dum.

Alex looked up at the sky. Felix looked up at the roof. They both took a breath.

"Monday," they said, at exactly the same time.

The End.