Johnny Swanson - Eleanor Updale [6]
Inside the shop, Hutch was standing behind the counter, sorting out the morning papers.
‘Early today, I see,’ he grunted, parking his pencil behind his ear. ‘Makes up for last night, I suppose.’
Buoyed up by the joy of the bike ride, Johnny found the courage to ask a favour. He needed Hutch’s help if he was to reply to the advert for the Secret of Instant Height. ‘Hutch,’ he said, ‘I want to buy a postal order and some stamps. Would you mind opening the post office so I can get them now?’
‘That would be most irregular,’ said Hutch, severely. ‘The post office mustn’t open till nine o’clock.’
‘But I’ll be at school then,’ said Johnny. He didn’t mean to sound desperate, but it did the trick. For once, Hutch contemplated bending the rules.
‘What’s so special about this postal order?’ he asked. ‘What’s the rush?’
Johnny thought quickly, and his words tumbled out. ‘It’s for my mother,’ he said, making up a story as he spoke. ‘She needs to send it to my auntie, who’s ill. It’s to buy her a train ticket so she can visit us. Mum wants me to catch the first post. She told me to get an envelope too. And an extra envelope and stamp so Auntie Ada can write back.’
He realized that he was getting himself into trouble. In a few seconds he had invented a sick aunt and invited her to Stambleton. He could already see that this deception was going to be quite hard to manage, and he also thought that it didn’t sound very believable. But Hutch seemed convinced.
‘Well,’ he said, fishing for the keys in his pocket, ‘since it’s a medical matter, I think I can bend the rules just this once.’ Hutch took off his brown overall, rolled down his shirt sleeves, put on his black jacket and straightened his tie, as he always did when working in the ‘post office’ part of the shop. He unlocked the safe and got out a large book, a cash box, his official rubber stamps and a big ink pad. ‘Very well, Johnny,’ he said, peering through the grille that separated the post office from the rest of the shop. ‘How much is this postal order for?’
*
And so Johnny left for his paper round with everything he needed to send off for the Secret of Instant Height. He stopped at the cemetery and laid it all out along the top of the wall. He took the newspaper cutting from his pocket and copied out the address of Box 23 onto one of the envelopes. Then he addressed the other to himself, stuck on a stamp and folded it so that it would fit inside the first. He wondered whether he should have written a letter to go with the postal order, but decided that the newspaper cutting would tell the people at Box 23 why he was contacting them, so he tucked that inside as well. He checked twice to make sure that everything was correct. Then he licked the glue on the outer envelope and stuck it down hard.
The church clock chimed the half-hour. He was running late. He decided to reverse the usual order of his deliveries, so that Miss Dangerfield would get her paper first. He didn’t want to be in trouble with her again. There were too many other things to worry about. Suppose his mother discovered that the money was missing? Suppose Hutch found out that he didn’t really have an aunt? He wanted to tell someone all about it: someone who wouldn’t tell on him; who would sympathize, and reassure him that he had done the right thing. He sensed that Olwen would understand. If he really hurried he might find her in the playground before lessons began. He posted the letter and started to run.
Chapter 4
THE MEDICAL
Johnny delivered all the papers before the school bell rang, but he couldn’t find Olwen in the playground then, or at morning break, or at lunch time.
The last lesson of the day was Religious Knowledge. Johnny had been dreading it, because he hadn’t learned Genesis, Chapter 46, verses 8 to 24: a long list of names which the teacher, old Mr Wilson, had set as a punishment for the whole class after a mass fit of the giggles the week before. Johnny had tried. He’d got as far as Reuben, Jacob’s first born, and the