The Naming of Tishkin Silk Read online

  ‘No, it wasn’t Zeus,’ Griffin said firmly. ‘I saw her at school and she was just a girl then. She didn’t change into a princess until she put her crown on. Anyway, she’s coming to our house tomorrow and then you’ll be able to see that she’s not Zeus.’ But he thought he might take Zeus to school, just to make sure.

  He didn’t hear what the girls said next, because he heard his father’s truck and ran outside. He saw the old Bedford pull up at the bottom of the hill. His father got out to open the gate, then climbed back into the cabin. Griffin waved and the horn sounded as the truck moved slowly through the open gateway. The sun blazed low on the horizon and Griffin shaded his eyes with his hand, trying to see if there was anyone sitting in the passenger seat. But the sunset glared back at him from the windscreen.

  The battered truck crept slowly up the hill and Griffin’s hopeful heart grew heavy when he realised that Daddy was alone again. Every day he did the same, tried to pretend that he wasn’t looking for Mama. When all the time he secretly imagined her sitting there next to Daddy, with a big smile on her face and Tishkin on her lap. But today, just like all the other days, there was only Daddy in the truck.

  Griffin waited until the truck stopped and his father jumped down from the cabin and swept him up in his arms.

  ‘Fly away my little one, my golden Griffin,’ he said and began to spin like a carousel with his strong warm hands under Griffin’s armpits supporting him, lifting him. Around and around he turned, slowly at first. Then as they gained momentum, Griffin stretched out his arms like the wings of an eagle and lifted his face to the sun. It touched his eyes like fire and he closed them and soared away, to find Mama in that beautiful place where nobody ever had bad thoughts, and everyone loved her and brought her cups of tea and posies of violets whenever she felt like them, and there was nothing at all to make her sad.

  Maybe Mama was so happy there that she didn’t want to come home. Or maybe she wasn’t coming home because she knew about the thoughts in Griffin’s head. He hoped no one knew about them, but Mama sometimes knew things that no one told her. As his heart grew sadder, his wings became heavy and he felt himself falling from the sky.

  Slowly they stopped spinning and Griffin folded his wings around his father’s chest.

  ‘Not today, Griff, not today,’ said Daddy and buried his face in Griffin’s soft yellow hair. Griffin felt his warm breath when he whispered, ‘Have courage, my lion-heart.’

  Griffin wondered how it was that small boys and mothers and fathers could sometimes read the feelings in each other’s hearts, even when the words that came out didn’t match them, and sometimes without a word being spoken at all. He knew in that moment how much his Daddy missed Mama and Tishkin too and he put his arms around his father’s neck to comfort him. He wondered if Daddy would love him quite so much if he knew whose fault it was that Mama and Tishkin had gone away.

  4. A Bird in the Bag

  Tuesday started off badly for Griffin. First there was the matter of the missing lunch box. Nell had made his sandwich and wrapped it in waxy paper, but the lunch box was nowhere to be found. Neither was Griffin.

  Scarlet found him, lying on his stomach in the garden watching the skinks darting in and out from the foxgloves.

  ‘Ssssh,’ he whispered when she called him. ‘I’m trying to catch Zeus some play lunch.’

  ‘Play lunch? What are you talking about?’

  He realised he’d made a mistake. Scarlet would tell Nell if she found out about his plan to take Zeus to school.

  ‘Oh, nothing. I just thought Zeus might like a snack and I’m trying to catch a little lizard for him. So go away, you’re scaring them.’

  ‘Good job. You’re a disgusting little grub, Griffin William Silk.’

  ‘Am not. Crows eat lizards in the wild.’

  ‘Are so. Zeus doesn’t need lizards. He gets plenty of other food.’ As Griffin stood up, Scarlet pointed accusingly at the smears of soil on the front of his shirt. ‘Look at your good school shirt. Nell’s going to be really mad with you now. She can’t find your lunch box. Where is it?’

  ‘I caught some tadpoles in it for Princess Layla,’ he said trying to brush the marks from his shirt before he went inside. ‘She’ll bring it back today.’

  Griffin was pleased when Scarlet stopped trying to organise him and had walked down the driveway to catch the bus. He waited until he heard the bus driving away, then he went out to the clothesline where his grandmother was pegging out the towels.

  ‘Lift me up, Nell,’ he coaxed and she boosted him up until he could grip the sturdy metal crossbar on the rotary clothesline.

  ‘Oooh!’ she groaned, ‘you’re getting too heavy to lift.’

  ‘Push me please, Nell!’ She put a hand each side of his waist and pulled him around until the clothesline began to revolve.

  ‘Faster, Nell, faster!’ he said.

  Nell stopped, out of breath. ‘Oh, I’m getting too old for this sort of thing!’ she laughed, puffing. She stood and watched as the clothesline slowly came to a stop and then caught Griffin in her arms.

  ‘You’d better start walking or you’ll be late for school,’ she said, but she didn’t put him down straight away. ‘It won’t always be this bad, you’ll see.’

  He kissed Nell goodbye and promised her he wouldn’t forget to ask Layla for his lunch box, then he walked back to the house.

  Griffin slept at the back of the house where the veranda had been filled in with weatherboards and glass louvres to make more room as the Silk family expanded. He went into his room and picked up his school-bag, then collected his lunch from the kitchen. He patted Blue, who was in his favourite spot on the front veranda and then called softly for Zeus.

  Zeus didn’t come. Griffin stepped down from the veranda and called again. He couldn’t call too loudly or Nell might hear and come to investigate. He walked around to the side of the house where the hen house was and there was Zeus, pecking at the vegetable scraps, which Indigo had saved from last night’s dinner.

  ‘Zeus,’ he called. Zeus looked up and cocked his head to one side and stared at Griffin with his one white eye. ‘Come on, Zeus,’ he called softly. But Zeus was hungry and even vegetable scraps were better than nothing. He returned to his meal.

  Griffin opened his bag and unwrapped his sandwich. He took out half and put the rest back in his bag. He opened the gate of the hen’s yard and went in. He squatted down amongst the straw and held out the piece of sandwich. Zeus was tempted. He came closer to see what it was that the boy was offering and Griffin slowly drew his hand in closer to the opening of his bag. He let Zeus have a taste of the sandwich. It had sardines inside. Zeus liked sardines. He took another peck and another, not realising that all the time Griffin was luring him closer and closer to the bag. Griffin threw the crusts into the bottom of his bag and held the opening wide. Zeus lunged at the sandwich again and suddenly he was in complete darkness. Griffin had quickly zipped the bag shut and Zeus was trapped. He squawked angrily.

  ‘Ssh, Zeus. It’s all right. I’ll let you out when I get down the road a bit.’ He slung the bag on to his shoulders and hurried down the driveway. Blue trotted along behind him, with his nose in the air. He couldn’t hear the sounds coming from Griffin’s bag, but he could smell what was left of the sardine sandwich.

  Griffin looked behind him to make sure Nell hadn’t heard all the noise and come to investigate. He was almost to the gate at the bottom of the driveway before she appeared around the side of the house. Griffin turned and waved to her. He was too far away for Nell to see that his school-bag appeared to have a life of its own and though she could hear Zeus’s angry protests, she couldn’t tell where they were coming from.

  Griffin did let Zeus out, but not until they were out of sight of the house. Zeus was most indignant and wouldn’t sit on Griffin’s shoulder until he had been given the other half of the sardine sandwich. It had been trampled flat in the bottom of the bag anyway, so Griffin decided it wasn’t much use k
eeping it for his lunch.

  Taking a crow to school is no simple matter. It had taken a great deal more time for Griffin to get there than it would have had he left Zeus at home. Just as he passed the wattle tree where he had met Princess Layla last night, he heard the school bell ring. He began to run. Zeus clung to his shoulder, little holes tearing in the cloth of the shirt where his sharp claws dug in. But Griffin couldn’t stop. It was only his second day at school and he was going to be late!

  5. A Fearless Friend

  The last of the children were disappearing around the corner of the classroom as Griffin ran down the corridor, without leaving his bag in the locker room first. The teacher was writing on the blackboard and had her back to the class. Griffin edged around the doorway and slid behind his desk, hoping his lateness would go unnoticed.

  In his haste, he had quite forgotten Zeus clinging to his shoulder. But it took only moments for the other children to see him. Miss Beaumont heard the excited whispering and then the giggling and was so annoyed by it, that she turned around before she had put the full stop at the end of the sentence she had written.

  Miss Beaumont blinked, quite a lot, when she first noticed Zeus. The classroom became very quiet. For a moment not a word was spoken and, it seemed, not even a breath taken, while the students waited till Miss Beaumont stopped blinking and began to speak. Her voice quavered like a gate swinging on a rusty hinge.

  ‘I see you have a crow on your shoulder, Griffin Silk.’ Zeus stopped preening his feathers and cocked his head to listen.

  ‘Yes, Miss. His name is Zeus.’

  Zeus acknowledged his name with a pleased little squawk that sounded like a fingernail scraping the blackboard. Miss Beaumont winced.

  ‘And where did you get him from?’

  ‘Nell found him near the brussel sprouts when he was just hatched. He didn’t have any feathers and he’s blind in one eye. Nell thinks he must have fallen out of a nest and she looked after him till … ’

  Griffin heard the whispers and the laughter behind him and recognised the voice of the boy called Scotty when he hissed behind his hand, ‘Told ya so. They’re all weird, and the old lady’s a witch.’

  ‘Silence, Scott McAllister,’ said Miss Beaumont sternly. ‘Griffin,’ she said, ‘don’t you think it would be better if … Zeus was free?’

  ‘Oh, he is free, Miss,’ Griffin assured the teacher. ‘He goes wherever and whenever he wants to. He comes inside at mealtimes and sleeps on the end of Nell’s bed and … ’ Griffin stopped. He could barely make himself heard above the noise in the classroom. Zeus was getting nervous. His claws were digging into Griffin’s shoulder, which was already scratched and sore. Suddenly Zeus flapped his wings and flew up to sit above the window.

  ‘Class, that will be enough noise,’ shouted Miss Beaumont, banging on her desk with a ruler. ‘Now, Griffin, I’m afraid we can’t have a wild creature loose in the classroom. If you let him go outside, will he fly away?’

  ‘I don’t know, Miss,’ said Griffin miserably, wondering why he had ever thought that it would be a good idea to bring Zeus to school.

  ‘Can you get him to come down from there?’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  ‘I want you to take him to the janitor’s closet down by the staff room and lock him in there. Nobody but the cleaner uses that room. The crow will be quite safe in there until you go home.’

  Griffin raised his forearm and called to Zeus. If he hadn’t felt so sorry that Zeus was going to be locked in a cupboard all day, Griffin would have been quite pleased by the other children’s gasps of admiration at Zeus’s gliding flight and perfect landing on his master’s outstretched arm.

  Griffin began the long walk down the corridor, tempted to keep on walking and go home. He stopped at the door to the janitor’s room and wished that Zeus really was the ruler of the heavens. Then he could send down a jagged great bolt of lightning to hit the school, or change himself into something big enough to frighten Scotty McAllister.

  But Zeus stayed just as he was, a friendly, shiny black crow with one white eye.

  ‘I’m sorry, Zeus,’ said Griffin. Zeus cocked his head and listened and then nuzzled Griffin’s cheek with his smooth black beak. Griffin opened the door and turned on the light inside the little room. There was a stainless steel trough in the corner. Griffin turned on the tap and half-filled it with water. ‘There’s some water for you to drink,’ he said as he felt around in the bottom of his bag which he still hadn’t taken to the locker room. He found an apple, which he put down, beside the sink. ‘You can have this to keep you going till we get home. I’ll leave the light on for you,’ he said, as Zeus hopped down to taste the apple. Griffin backed out into the corridor and closed the door.

  It seemed that everyone at school, even Layla’s grade, had heard about the incident in Miss Beaumont’s classroom, including the rumour about Nell being a witch.

  ‘Did ya ride yer grandma’s broomstick to school today, Mr Griffin?’ someone from Scotty McAllister’s gang called out at first playtime. Layla climbed on top of the monkey bars. Griffin was afraid a sudden gust of wind might blow her away, but what she lacked in size, she made up for in courage. She was fearless.

  She stood up, her pink-sneakered feet clinging to the worn metal rungs and with her hands planted firmly on her hips, she shouted above their taunts, ‘If my grandmother was a witch … ’ She paused then, waiting for the mob’s attention before she continued. ‘I said, if my grandmother was a witch, the first thing I would ask her to do would be to put a spell on all of you. And the second thing would be to send her pet crow after you, to peck your eyes out! So if I was you guys, I wouldn’t be saying too much to my friend Griffin.’

  She stood there on top of the monkey bars, balancing precariously on the narrow rungs of steel. Her eyes blazed ferociously and dared anyone to defy her. Griffin’s thoughts flicked to the janitor’s cupboard. He wondered if Zeus was still there, or …

  ‘Is your grandmother a witch?’ asked Layla after Scotty and his mates had wandered away, still throwing insults over their shoulders.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Griffin. ‘I never asked her.’

  ‘Oh,’ Layla sounded disappointed, ‘Scotty McAllister told my brother Patrick that she was.’

  ‘Did you ask your mother if you could come to my house?’

  ‘Yes, she said yes. Does she have a cat?’ Layla was still investigating the possibility of having a friend whose grandmother was a witch.

  ‘No, she says they eat the blue wrens and silvereyes.’ But, he thought sadly, she does have a pet crow, one that’s locked in the janitor’s cupboard. He decided not to mention that Saffron thought that Princess Layla was an incarnation of Zeus. ‘Nell said you could stay for dinner.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll make a brew for dinner?’

  ‘I don’t know if she’s got a recipe for brew. I’ll ask her. Will you stay for dinner if she makes a brew?’

  ‘I’ll have to phone my mother. Do you have a phone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ Griffin was pleased to stop talking about witches and brews. They shared Layla’s play lunch and he began to feel better.

  ‘Did you bring your crown today?’ he asked.

  ‘No, it’s dead. But I know where there are more daisies. We can get some on the way home. We can make a necklace for Zeus too!’

  6. The Kingdom of Silk

  Nell was sitting on the red vinyl couch on the veranda when Griffin, Layla and Zeus arrived. The sun had wilted the crowns they had made on the way home, but Nell still recognised royalty when she saw it and was quick to stand in their presence.

  ‘Good afternoon, Your Highnesses,’ she said with a graceful curtsy, ‘may I introduce myself?’ Griffin nodded while Layla stood speechless with surprise at Nell’s appearance. She wore green rubber dishwashing gloves right up to her elbows, with red fingernails painted on the ends and lots of sparkling bead bracelets over the top of them. On her head was a magn
ificent, silver plastic tiara decorated with glass rubies, which she had borrowed from Violet for the occasion. Her long black skirt trailed behind her, showing only the toes of her elastic-sided boots.

  ‘I am Nell, your Fairy Grandmother,’ she said, rummaging around in a deep pocket in the side of her skirt. She took out a long, slender piece of silver-frosted dowel with a glittering star attached to one end and tapped each of them lightly on the shoulder with it.

  Then she addressed the crow. ‘How splendid you look in your yellow ruffle, Lord Zeus. It flatters your dusky complexion.’ Zeus flapped over to sit on her arm, the daisy chain swinging around his glossy neck as he flew. ‘I trust Lord Zeus behaved himself in a comely manner at school,’ said Nell in her most Fairy-Grandmotherly voice and Griffin knew that he was forgiven for taking Zeus.

  ‘I don’t think he liked it much,’ said Griffin. ‘I think he’d rather have stayed at home with you.’

  ‘I have prepared some refreshments for Your Majesties, if you would care to follow me down to the Cox’s Orange Pippin,’ said Nell.

  Layla giggled and whispered to Griffin as they followed Nell around the side of the house towards the dam, ‘Whatever is the Cox’s Orange Pippin?’

  Griffin opened his eyes wide with surprise. ‘Oh, that’s the name of our apple tree. You see, everything in the Kingdom of Silk has a name.’

  Layla giggled again and said, ‘We should have made a daisy chain for … your grandmother. What should I call her, Griffin?’

  ‘Um, Fairy Grandmother would be nice, I think,’ said Griffin.

  Nell had come to a stop beneath a medium- sized spreading tree. Its gnarled old branches were mottled with yellow and grey lichen and bowed low by a burden of blossom. Beneath its branches was a small table covered with a white cloth, as lacy as a cobweb. Beside the table, in the shaggy green grass were two large plump, purple cushions dimpled in their middles with buttons as round and yellow as full moons.